Geek culture is currently enjoying a cultural boom period, with movies, TV shows and video games based on our favorite comic books enjoying a renaissance. Comic book movies are now summertime tentpole blockbusters and box office smashes, and they don’t appear to be going away anytime soon either. Additionally, caped crusaders and vigilantes have also found their way to the small screen, blossoming in such a way that these stories – once only appreciated in the pages of comic books – are given platforms to soar throughout multiple seasons of cutting edge, critically acclaimed television.
But comic books don’t just tell the stories of bionic heroes versus villains either. Sure, those are the most popular and commonly associated with the medium, but even if you’re even a casual reader of comics you’ll know that it’s a diverse medium which sprawls every genre of storytelling out there, and with a such a diverse scope of content to mine from, comic book movies and television have come in a myriad of forms.
However, like the source material that inspired bringing our favorite properties to the screen, comic book movies took years to gain acceptance as a ‘respectable’ art form. Just like some literary circles have dismissed comics as a childish medium, in the past the movies were often regarded as nothing more than camp entertainment for man-children, despite their success and critical reception at the time.
That was until the turn of the 21st century anyway, when films like Spider-Man and X-Men ushered in a new age of ‘credible’ cinema for caped crusaders and laid the foundations for the grandiose acclaimed spectacles the films would go on to become. That said, there were good movies before those and there have been countless afterwards which have been overshadowed by popular cornerstones.
Therefore, we thought it’d be fun to re-visit some of the best comic book movies that can be considered ‘overlooked’ and give them some long-deserved due. Whether works of brilliance forgotten with time, or just some entertaining romps lost in the ether, we hope that this list shines a spotlight on some flicks that deserve another 15-minutes of fame.