HitFix is a four year old movie site that I don't recall ever having heard of before stumbling upon their underwhelming list of
10 Superheroes who really don't need their own movie. As is often the case, there may be one or two insightful offerings, but before long they start reaching for the low hanging fruit. For instance, it's common knowledge that Aquaman sucks, right?
Aquaman
After being the subject of a running joke on "Entourage" and the focus of an abandoned CW series, it seems that the maritime muscleman just don't get no respect. In the comics, several attempts have been made through the years to make the old-fashioned hero a little edgier (he has long hair! He has a hook for a hand!), but seemingly nothing can make Aquaman a marquee movie star.
-Dave Lewis
Iron Man was a middling performer at Marvel for decades that they tried to jazz up by making an alcoholic, turning evil, replacing with a black guy and teenage version of himself, plus near constant costume changes. Captain America's first motion picture went straight to video, not to mention his two lame TV movies and inability to get his own cartoon. Thor only appeared in one Hulk TV movie and as a segment on an anthology cartoon. Each earned back several times their substantial production budgets when faithfully committed to film. Meanwhile, Disney has placed supposedly safer bets on less "silly" properties like
The Prince of Persia,
John Carter of Mars and
The Lone Ranger that have or inevitably will cost them a fortune in currency and good will.
Only unimaginative, insulated comic book geeks still get their panties in a bunch over how stoopid Aquaman is supposed to be. They'll reference
Waterworld, even though that pseudo-bomb dropped nearly twenty years ago and was actually an international success earning back its ridiculous production budget with substantial profit to spare. Disney's big crossover action franchise was
Pirates of the Caribbean, about sailors on the ocean fighting giant squid. Aquaman can do that, and bring along his own quasi-Darth Vader in Black Manta besides. His costume actually works a lot better in live action than most, since it's actual armor from the real world. He has a power set with a strong visual hook that hasn't been seen that often, whereas someone like the Flash would either employ comically sped-up film or recycle gimmicks from
The Matrix that have already been done to death. Is it so hard to picture Deborah Ann Woll in a dripping wet skintight body suit as Mera selling tickets? When Michael Phelps was breaking Olympic records, they weren't calling him the Sub-Mariner! Aquaman can be done, and given his rare global brand recognition, sex appeal, and unique setting in an increasingly overcrowded genre, getting it done should be a top priority for Warner Brothers!
Superheroes who really don't need their own movie
"Can one woman make a difference? When I was growing up, there were few role models for young black girls. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to discover Honey Williams one Saturday afternoon. She was different. Feminine but powerful, and tough as nails. Kinda like me." Williams was a Pam Grier type used up and spit out by Hollywood when the blaxploitation fad ended, "but this intombi* never forgot." Although it had been twenty years since Mari McCabe had last seen the grindhouse classic "Scream, Baby, Scream," she still remembered every frame that flickered across the silver screen as she ate popcorn in a darkened, sparsely populated movie theater for Halloween. The part where Frankenstein's Monster stepped out of the frame and began terrorizing the patrons was new.
"Hey, Purple Rose of Bavaria! Over here!" Mari had her Vixen costume on over a coat, but shedding it cost her time better spend not taking an uprooted theater chair to the face. A bystander in an Aquaman costume complimented Vixen's suit. "It's 'Jackie Brown,' right?" The Lady Fox replied "You should go. Now." Especially since the Wolf Man and the Mummy had joined into the breaking of the fourth wall. The Vixen had always wanted to be like Honey Williams, but starring in a chitlin' circuit Abbott & Costello riff while innocent lives were imperiled wasn't what she had in mind. Williams had always done the unexpected, so Mari tried slashing the screen instead of the monsters, which was not clever. However, Honey Williams stepped off the frame to literally point out the obvious, that the movie projector was to blame. Vixen leapt through a wall to the booth, and found an "insane creation" full of mirrors that was manifesting the monsters. One punch killed the camera, saving a father and daughter from the boogeymen. Mari mourned not getting Honey's autograph though, and missing the chance to explain what her movies had meant to her.
Mirror Master had been tipped by Harley Quinn to a fortune buried under floorboards in the theater, but hadn't counted on the Lady Fox being present. "Hi, Evan. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. And since you just ruined my night off, please make it the hard way." Mirror Master figured she'd need her JLA buddies to get this particular job done, but his ass swiftly meeting the floor meant she didn't. "Never get between a black woman and her stories." The Flash Rogue was soon led away in handcuffs, and Mari was introduced to the little girl she'd saved, Shaunequa. "I've never seen a lady like us beat up bad guys before. Can I be like you when I grow up?" Mari thought the "imbali encane" had a beautiful name and the right idea. "Can one woman make a difference? Yes, she can."
"Role Model" was by Eric Wallace and Tony Shasteen. The art was Photoshoppy, referenced to board stiffness, and the story didn't offer a Vixen that was too impressive, but I respect the overall intentions. Per an editors note, "intombi" meant "young lady/girl" in "African," which was helpfully translated into Western Hemisphere speak for us Upper Equatorians. "Imbali encane" meant "little flower."
