5 Great Superhero Movies That Everyone’s Forgotten About

Every superhero ought to be memorable really. Any character dressed in a flamboyant costume with the ability to casually palm off numerous attackers at once should stick in the mind no matter what. Yet, several movies released during the past few decades have shown us these kind of spectacular characters stomping, whooshing and quipping on screen…and have curiously disappeared into thin air just moments later. The superhero sub-genre is a small space stuffed tightly with an overabundance of competing costumes, and when a film is forced to square off against the titans of Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, odds for success don’t always look promising. Indeed, some superhero movies have adopted the behavior of the invisible man in the way they’ve vanished without a trace. Some have been bullied out of cinemas by fitter, more agile movies. Some have flopped limply despite a lack of competition. And for others, it has simply been a case of wrong place, wrong time. Listed here, then, are five forgotten superhero movies. Several of which are sure to send a look of vague recognition creeping up onto a few faces. 5) Mystery Men With a lineup and set-up that appear so promising on paper, it might be a little hard to understand quite how Mystery Men managed to fade so quietly into cinematic obscurity without so much as a hint of kicking and screaming. Despite its star-studded cast and plot potential, the movie opened to a watery reception and box office failure, eventually crawling indiscernibly into the world of forgotten films, taking its director Kinka Usher with it. Loosely based on Bob Burden’s silly superhero parody Flaming Carrot Comics, Mystery Men lines up Ben Stiller as the red-faced Mr. Furious, Hank Azaria as a pseudo-genie who flings cutlery with aplomb, William H. Macy as a workman who tries to channel his shovel-skills into crime-fighting, and Kel Mitchell as the invisible boy who can only vanish when nobody looks at him. Alas, this plethora of lurid, stupid superheroes weren’t enough to capture the public’s imagination, and Mystery Men proved to be about as successful as its own inept, parody characters are at battling crooks. The movie isn’t exactly awful, either. It’s a patchy, campy, spoofy satire on superhero films that probably fell victim to the fact that some of the genuine superhero films of the decade – namely Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies - were effectively spoofs in themselves. As movies go, it’s a middling experience. Ultimately though, it’s the middle-of-the-road movies that are so often shuffled to the back of your mental movie shelf, whilst the great and the awful sit prominently side-by-side at the forefront. In the superhero section, Mystery Men finds itself cluttered away somewhere in the dark; with its tittering humor and quirky charm impossible to hear over the ugly prowl of Catwoman and the mighty roar of The Dark Knight. 4) Swamp Thing Swamp Thing is as overt as its own title; plain as day in its efforts to create an unabashedly weird would-be superhero who plods around sludgy swampland. Inspired by the DC comic book character of the same name, Swamp Thing depicts the mutation of a fine physicist who is doused with his own experimental formula, dunked into a swamp, and then emerges looking a little like a green toy army soldier that’s been chewed up by the family dog. Threaded around a King Kong-like philosophy where a woman develops funny feelings for a monster, Swamp Thing is one of director Wes Craven’s earlier works, and is seasoned with the kind of absurd horror-humor that the exploitationist occasionally likes to sprinkle on his movies scripts. A moderate success (with a sequel named Return Of Swamp Thing released several years later), there is something to be said for the way that Swamp Thing plays out so confidently. But it still wasn't enough to sway huge support, and the film's aimless wander away from its source material meant that some fans of the original comic were only too happy to forget it. Swamp Thing may hold a special place in your heart if you’re a Craven-ologist, but otherwise it remains a largely forgotten, gloopy enigma; resolutely restricted to cult film circles. For some weird, campy fun on a solemn Sunday evening, it may be worth digging up. 3) Steel Don’t remember Shaq lumbering around in an ugly metal suit that looks like an unsettling fusion of medieval knight armor and a gimp costume? That's fine. Nobody else does, either. Thankfully, at least for his sake, NBA giant Shaquille O’Neill will largely be remembered for his ability to dunk a game ball without so much as stretching, rather than his alarmingly off-key transition into music and film. Shaq was everywhere in the 1990’s, jumping on a variety of bad scripts from Kazam to Good Burger. And in 1997, he tried to make himself a superhero away from the squeaky court with the dismal Steel. The movie sees Shaq star as a weapons designer-turned-vigilante, and offers the kind of gratingly dumb experience you tend to get when you're watching hotel cable TV long into the night. Filled with things that go bang and badly-timed quips that fall flat, it’s absolutely no surprise that Steel vanished into cinematic insignificance. And it isn’t coming back. 2) Darkman Several readers will perhaps be a little more familiar with Darkman than the other movies on this list, but as a superhero film it continues to remain deeply buried beneath the gigantic blockbusters that have risen to glorious prominence over the past decade or so. Beneath those grubby bandages is Liam Neeson – the sort of actor who has a habit of popping up in movies that feel way before his time – and here he stars as Dr. Peyton Westlake. After apparently discovering a breakthrough in his attempt to develop a synthetic substitute for skin burn victims, Westlake’s lab is attacked by thugs. In a moment of acidic irony, the doctor has his face dunked in toxic chemicals and becomes brutally disfigured. Experimental operations to remove his pain see him develop enhanced strength, and using technology mastered in how own lab, Westlake soon becomes the man of a thousand faces. Although his new, real identity is the heavily-bandaged Darkman. Sam Raimi – the man who went on to spawn a much more familiar superhero trilogy in Spider-Man – directs this strange, brooding revenge tale of puzzling proportions. Not all of it quite works, but the bits that do are pure vengeance-fantasy gold. Arguably depicting more of anti-hero than a superhero, Darkman is nonetheless a largely forgotten film that deserves digging up. 1) Blankman The title Blankman is sure to leave many appear fittingly empty-faced. Of all the Wayans family movies, this superhero parody continues to remain cast away in the forgotten corners of their (overly) diverse filmography. This one stars Damon - before he penned his very own sitcom My Wife And Kids and after he took a lead action role in The Last Boy Scout. With his very own stupid superhero, Wayans is given license to parade around the screen with juvenile extravagance; spending the whole time wailing, falling, and talking through his nose. His character is Darryl – a naïve nerd who invents bullet-proof underwear which he dons to form his alter-ego Blankman. Socially inept and easily overwhelmed, Darryl is a walking illogicality: going all-out to protect a world of which he knows nothing real about. Blankman is hardly side-splittingly hilarious from beginning to end, but it has its moments – not least when the star’s robot sidekick slips onto his back and slowly tumbles down the stairs. Ultimately though, Damon Wayans’ simple-minded superhero remains a largely forgotten piece of comic-book crime-fighting satire.

5 Great Superhero Movies That Everyone’s Forgotten About

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