Superheroes in the movies

French action veteran Louis Leterrier is the man who's been handed the reins to the latest Hulk outing, following Ang Lee's disappointing 2003 take, Hulk. The new film stars Ed Norton, who also helped with the script, as the jolly green giant's alter ego, Dr Bruce Banner. Early reviews (and we mean early) suggest it's pretty much as expected: Lee's soul-searching Banner is out and the fight scenes are much-improved. Even so, the new Hulk is going to have a tough time beating ... Photograph: Public domain

... Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man at the box office. The latter has been the big hit of the summer so far, with close to $300m already racked up in the US alone. Downey Jr's cameo in Hulk should help those figures, however. Both films are being produced by Marvel's new studio arm, which in theory means they should be more in keeping with the original comics. And both will be competing with ... Photograph: PR

... The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's sequel to his critically successful 2005 reboot Batman Begins, with the late Heath Ledger as an especially deranged Joker. Yet all three films will almost certainly pale into financial insignificance when compared to the undisputed heavyweight superhero movie box office champ ... Photograph: Public domain

... Spider-Man, whose three films have taken a staggering $2,500m at the global office, and $1,113m in the US alone. That kind of success conjured up memories of the daddy of them all ... Photograph: Public domain

... 1978's Superman, which really set the scene with Richard Donner's middlebrow take on the superhero adaptation, featuring Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel and Marlon Brando as his dad, Jor-El. A decade later, Tim Burton's Batman proved an equally barnstorming critical and commercial success. But both series went swiftly downhill following the departure of their original directors: Remember George Clooney in the excruciating Batman and Robin? And even that wasn't as bad as ... Photograph: Public domain

... Halle Berry's turn in 2004's Catwoman, or for that matter ... Photograph: Public domain

... Ben Affleck's performance as Gimp-ma ... sorry, Daredevil in 2003. Actually, Daredevil wasn't all that terrible, just a bit bland. 2005's Elektra, a spin-off starring Jennifer Garner's character from the first film, made it look like The Third Man. And it gets worse ... Photograph: Public domain

... 1994's The Shadow had plenty going for it: Ian McKellen for a start, and a background as one of the 20th century's most popular pulp heroes (Orson Welles even voiced the 1930s radio serials). Sadly, it also had Alec Baldwin in the star role and a turgid storyline that saw it flop both critically and commercially that summer. But the award for the biggest superhero turkey must go to another film which came out in the same year ... Photograph: Public domain

... The original Fantastic Four, which was made on a budget of about 10p and a couple of Tescos clubcard vouchers, and apparently only exists because Constantin Film was set to lose its rights to the comic book franchise if it failed to produce a movie by 1995. The resulting celluloid gem (produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman) was never released. It was all a long long way from the multi-million dollar budget which would be handed to the makers of this summer's blockbuster crop Photograph: Public domain