The history of comic books is littered with the corpses of costumed titans who never quite made it, from Fatman the Human Flying Saucer to Jack Kirby’s space opera hero Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Some survived for years to entertain golden- and silver-age audiences, while others were sent to superhero purgatory after a single issue. Jon Morris’s excellent book The League of Regrettable Superheroes has more examples of colourful characters who fell by the wayside, from Madame Fatal (the world’s first ever cross-dressing granny superhero) to Bozo the Iron Man (a remote-controlled, jive-talking robot crimefighter), long before Marvel Studios took over the multiplexes.
The point is, superheroes have always been disposable, which might just be a salutary lesson in an era of seemingly endless comic book-themed offerings from the likes of Marvel, Warner/DC and 20th Century Fox. I’m not saying we’ve reached peak superhero movie – I happen to enjoy well-told comic book stories, and the genre continues to offer up fresh and exciting developments – but here are a few costumed crimefighters who might just need culling to free up space for the next Deadpool.
Hawkeye
It’s probably only a matter of time before we get a Scarlett Johansson-led Black Widow film, if only because Marvel currently has to pay its star a reported $20m a movie for a couple of action scenes and the odd banter-laden interlude with Captain America. A standalone film starring the Hulk is similarly written in the stars, once the studio has worked out why previous efforts starring the giant green meanie went so badly south (clue: too much angst, not enough smashing). But no one, apart from possibly Jeremy Renner’s mum, has ever argued that a Hawkeye movie is the thing to take the Marvel cinematic universe to the next power level.
Clint Barton is not even a real superhero: he’s just a guy who’s really, really good with a bow and arrow and not bad at martial arts. So limited are Hawkeye’s powers that he is usually only allowed to fight other characters with no real supernatural abilities in the Marvel movies – which is pretty limiting.
Renner delivers a beautifully pathos-laden performance in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, but Hawkeye’s clearly only been shoehorned into the superhero spat because the Hurt Locker star has one or two more movies left on his contract. Perhaps he can be wheeled out for a key segue in Avengers: Infinity War part one, in which he briefly (as in the comics) takes on the mantle of Goliath, before being ruthlessly dispatched by evil blue alien death god Thanos in an oh-so-shocking mid-credits scene.
Shazam
OK, so Dwayne Johnson’s debut in the DC Comics universe is still just chalk on a Warner Bros slate, but that’s no reason we can’t nip the mystical early golden-age hero in the bud before he gets anywhere near multiplexes. Shazam, known in his 1940s heyday as Captain Marvel, has yet to be cast (Johnson is playing villain Black Adam), and it’s easy to see why. The cosmic crimefighter belongs to the child alter ego mode of superhero, which means the studio has two roles to cast and a gaping chasm of audience disbelief to bridge. Moreover, the history of big-screen ventures for long-forgotten early 20th-century comic book titles is pathetic enough (anyone remember The Shadow or The Spirit?) even when your hero doesn’t resemble an oversized extra in a colourful Bollywood dance sequence.
War Machine
Colonel James Rhodes, AKA War Machine, AKA Iron Patriot, AKA Tony Stark’s bezzie mate, has had so little to do in recent Marvel outings that Avengers: Age of Ultron devoted an entire comedy sequence to his embarrassing need for praise when engaged in quite run-of-the-mill superhero activities. With SHIELD. disbanded and Iron Man on an extended holiday from solo outings, it’s hard to see where War Machine fits into things. In the comics, Rhodes-related storylines are often spiced up by handing him the Iron Man suit in Stark’s absence, but Don Cheadle isn’t a big enough star to replace Robert Downey Jr on the big screen.
Green Lantern
Warner Bros had Ryan Reynolds, the director of Casino Royale and character actors of the quality of Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong on board for the emerald space ranger’s most recent outing, yet still managed to produce the weakest comic book movie since Halle Berry’s Catwoman. Reynolds now has the world at his feet, after Deadpool became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, and the studio has decided to bring back Hal Jordan with a new, as-yet-unconfirmed actor in the role. The bad news is that Warners appear to have no sensible plan for ensuring its superhero efforts fit together, in the style of those produced by rival Marvel. The good news is that this means Green Lantern 2 won’t necessarily be anything like the godawful Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Beast
Can anyone tell me what Nicholas Hoult’s Beast does in the X-Men movies? This 20th Century Fox-led offshoot saga has always had more mutants than it really knows what to do with, but it strikes me that Hoult’s all-action, giant blue Furby is one of the least well-served. First Class at least gave Beastie a sniff at romance with fellow cerulean hottie Mystique, but Days of Future Past largely relegated him to the role of Charles Xavier’s carer. Perhaps the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse will give the ape-like mutant a bigger role. If not, it might be time to give the poor little fella one last loving stroke and drop him off at the vet.
