10 R-Rated Comic Book Movies We Want To See After Deadpool

6) Animal Man

Batman, Spider-Man, Ant-Man… It was only a matter of time before someone took the easy option and just threw them all together into one collective ‘Animal Man,’ combining the abilities of the entire animal kingdom. For his first twenty years, Buddy Baker was a second-tier hero that no one really cared about, but in the 1980’s, Grant Morrison (busy man) revamped the character with a more mature outlook, exploring themes of environmentalism and animal rights.

In 2011, Animal Man was relaunched once again and quickly became one of the most successful comics in DC’s New 52 line, diving headfirst into the horror genre with undead creatures and images of disturbing body horror. Sound strange? Well, Marvel’s recent successes have proven how effective it can be to combine super heroics with other genres. Ant-Man is essentially a heist movie and Captain America: Winter Soldier captures the spirit of 1970’s conspiracy thrillers, so why not take a gamble on a super hero horror movie?

Deadpool may hit cinema screens first, but the fact that Wade Wilson is aware of his own fictional existence isn’t unique to his character. During Morrison’s run on Animal Man, Baker also became self aware, pre-dating Deadpool’s meta antics by a number of years. If this attribute becomes prominent in the Deadpool movie, an Animal Man movie could follow a similar path, as long as it doesn’t detract from the horror element.