The 10 Worst Comic Book Movies Of All Time

Nowadays, comic book movies are arguably the favorite punching bag of the wider moviegoing community. These $200 million behemoths are fairly easy to criticize through out-of-context lines of pulpy dialogue and frames of questionable visual effects posted online, all while the films themselves continue to dominate studio budgets and box office sales alike. But whether you see superhero movies as the gaudy barrier to other types of films being successful or the summer blockbuster events that make movie theaters worth visiting, it's safe to say that, to some degree, we've all forgotten what really makes for a bad superhero movie.

The answer has evolved in recent years — surely, after nearly two decades of uniform Marvel movies, some of us would welcome the late Joel Schumacher back into this genre with open, excited arms. While there are certain duds that defy the passing of time through their misguided attempts at appealing to comic book fans, what may be far more offensive to modern moviegoers is the effect studios have on the filmmaking process. From rewritten scripts and messy theatrical cuts to overblown franchises that barrel forward without any right or reason to do so, the most troubling aspects of the film industry are on full display in the worst comic book films ever made.

Admirably ambitious in scale but frustratingly bland in execution, Marvel Studios' "Eternals" is perhaps the biggest missed opportunity included on this list. Taking a recent Academy Award-winner like "Nomadland" director Chloé Zhao and giving her the keys to a superhero team intrinsically steeped in deep, philosophical ideas like human existence, cosmic morality, and community is a fine choice. On paper, it isn't hard to look at these traits and imagine something along the lines of "Superman" meets "2001: A Space Odyssey." Instead, we got something closer to "The Avengers" meets "Gods of Egypt," with the emotional sensibilities of "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" peppered in for good measure.

The film takes an unforgivable amount of time to say very little about the ideas it teases, except that relationships get more complicated the longer you know someone. Who would've thought? When it does finally brush up against something compelling — like, for example, the inner moral conflict of Brian Tyree Henry's godly weaponsmith Phastos — it does so with all the reverence and care of a Spider-Man-branded Bible, before immediately retreating into one of the many mind-numbing laser fights with CGI blob-animals that serve as the film's antagonist for a majority of its 150+ minute runtime.

What makes all of the above so damning for the wider superhero movie project is how it encapsulates everything wrong with the Marvel Cinematic Universe since, or maybe even slightly before, the release of "Avengers: Endgame." Having earned Marvel its first ever "rotten" Rotten Tomatoes rating, "Eternals" isn't just a bad comic book movie — it's an indictment of the very studio that sets the standard for them.

Like many films from the early days of the now-defunct DC Extended Universe, "Suicide Squad" is not without its passionate defenders. Not to be confused with the similarly named and ultimately superior 2021 film directed by Marvel Studios alum and future DC Studios CEO James Gunn, the 2016 film saw "Fury's" David Ayer unite one of the most star-studded casts in comic book movie history for a punchy yet garish and over-edited action "comedy" that delivers all the thrills of waiting for your mom to pick you up from the mall inside of a Spencer Gifts.

What the film boasts in erratically placed Top 40s hits, helicopter crashes, and cringe-inducing behind-the-scenes stories about Jared Leto, it lacks in dramatic substance, humor, and heart. Not even Margot Robbie's definitive performance as fan-favorite Harley Quinn could save a script so uninterested in exploring what makes such unpredictable characters fun to watch, instead trying to squeeze water from the stony military men Ayer is clearly more drawn to.

The director has infamously described his version of the film — which was apparently hacked to pieces during a panicked post-production process — as a "soulful drama" on X (formerly Twitter), having never intended the abundance of ill-fitting comedic touches that wound up in the final cut. Despite this and the achievements of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign, he has since given up on DC and his own director's cut of "Suicide Squad." The morbidly curious among us likely wonder whether his changes would've skewed the film toward triumph or melodrama — though, given the success with which Gunn has found in adapting this title since, it's probably best we all just move on.

The advent of the cinematic universe gold rush has pushed the comic book movie genre to strange places, with both DC and Marvel rights-holders spending years not only wringing their most popular characters to the bone, but their supporting casts as well. For DC, this has resulted in smaller perplexing projects like SyFy's "Krypton" (a series about Superman's grandpa), the Fox procedural "Gotham," and the hilariously titled Epix thriller "Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler." But because of Marvel's strained relationship with Sony Pictures, the latter studio has had no choice but to spend roughly half a billion dollars on movies about Spider-Man's villains that, incidentally, never include Spider-Man himself.

The crown jewel of this undoubtedly doomed franchise is "Madame Web," bafflingly written around a character who not only has yet to lead her own comic book series, but is a character broadly defined by being an observer of events rather than a major player within them. In other words, she is the supporting character of supporting characters. Granted, this isn't to say that Sony couldn't have developed an intriguing story about an older, wheelchair-using woman with psychic powers, had they leaned into the genuine novelty of their chosen source material. 

Instead, however, they and Marvel Television alum S.J. Clarkson ("Jessica Jones" and "The Defenders") seemingly rushed toward the most conventional creative choices at their disposal, presenting the titular heroine's story as a dull drive around New York City with three interchangeable would-be Spider-Kids and the ability to see a few seconds ahead in time. At least the end result is often unintentionally funny, which surely explains why the flop saw success on Netflix post-release.

Speaking of the spiraling Sony "Spider-Man" Universe, "Madame Web" can really only be praised in comparison to the worst that this franchise has to offer — which, coincidentally or not, also marks the second appearance on this list by actor Jared Leto. Because after he was done allegedly sending used condoms to his castmates on the set of "Suicide Squad," Sony figured he'd be a safe bet to lead a $75 million movie about a vampire doctor whose legal name is Michael Morbius.

"Morbius" has the sort of premise that, if you couldn't slap a Marvel logo on the credits and insinuate some vague connection to a character like "Spider-Man," no studio in their right mind would greenlight. Add in a script from Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless — the screenwriting duo responsible for "Madame Web," who have yet to yield a commercially or critically successful movie — and the result is arguably the most uninteresting, least rewarding superhero movie ever made. The plot, acting, and effects are all so dull there's not even anything compelling to analyze about them, other than that they exist in a product so obviously terrible it captured internet virality and pretty much turned 2022 into the year of "Morbius."

But even under the grim and, frankly, creatively delinquent banner of "so bad it's good" cinema, "Morbius" has been outclassed tenfold by "Madame Web," which is at least anchored by a surreal leading performance from Dakota Johnson. In her stead, Leto growls and grimaces his way to a superficially complex antihero who shruggingly says things like "intriguing" after getting visited by an interdimensional mechanical birdman.

To Sony's credit, the Valiant Entertainment comic book universe is an absolute goldmine of exciting, novel source material from which they could build out a franchise worthy of competing with the MCU. (It's certainly a better place for them to look for content than the margins of various obscure "Spider-Man" comics.) Sadly, the studio is going to have a tough time making this franchise a reality if they approach further adaptations with the same reductive storytelling style that they did with their debut film "Bloodshot."

If you don't remember the 2020 Vin Diesel flick, it could be because it was released right before theaters began shutting down indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic — that, and it's about as forgettable as a superhero movie can be. It features the "Fast and Furious" star as a former marine who undergoes an experimental nanite procedure to turn himself into a nigh-unkillable monster in order to avenge the death of his wife. Though the film is mostly a by-the-numbers action movie complete with direct-to-DVD effects and perfunctory performances, this clichéd setup is actually subverted by a compelling twist, which we won't spoil here — even though most of the film's trailers did so before anyone had a chance to experience it for themselves. Despite being a critical and commercial failure, it doesn't seem as though the Sony Valiant Universe is totally dead, as "Bloodshot 2" is currently in development with Diesel set to return.

Stop us if you've heard this one before — after a former military weapons contractor realizes that his advanced weaponry has fallen into the wrong hands, he abandons his life as an arms dealer and creates a high-tech suit of armor to defend the world from the very technology he unwittingly unleashed upon it. Except instead of being led by a charismatic, career-reviving performance from Robert Downey Jr., it's led by Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal.

If this sounds exciting, we should warn you that, sadly, O'Neal isn't nearly as good an actor as he is a basketball player, and casting him was probably the film's first step toward becoming a box office flop. While Kevin Feige understood that this grand premise should lead to a story that is just as grand in scale, 1997's "Steel" follows the unimaginative trend of most comic book films of this era and goes to great, almost impressive lengths to present in the most mundane ways possible.

The film is especially not worth your time if you consider yourself a fan of the comic book character it's based on, as the two share almost nothing in common. Even his connection to Superman is twisted beyond recognition, as DC Comics characters are shown to be fictional in the universe (save for, ya know, Steel). Whoever this movie was made for, it's absolutely not for anyone who's ever picked up a comic.

Say it with us now — "the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change." Funny enough, this bizarrely clunky verbal tagline that Dwayne Johnson tried to sell on the promotional tour for "Black Adam" wound up being true to an almost prophetic extent. But, like the oracles of Greek mythology, The Rock was seemingly only blessed with this sight to be cursed by its outcome.

Though the power struggle at the heart of his 15-year DC Comics passion project took place behind the scenes (as the shrewd actor-producer reportedly saw a chance to at least carve out his own piece of the DC Universe, if not commandeer its potential entirely during the franchise's post-Snyder interregnum), the mess of it all unfortunately bled into the final cut of "Black Adam." A forgettable story was further squandered by what appeared to be Johnson's desire to portray both himself and his character as the hero of all stories — a massive error for his dramatic efforts, given that Teth Adam is only interesting because comic book writers have reimagined him as one of DC's most morally complex antiheroes.

Rather than truthfully explore these familiar godlike powers from the perspective of someone from a vulnerable background who has suffered at the hands of a brutal world, it veers toward much safer ground to make Johnson a Superman stock-character who kills (albeit bloodlessly), scowls, and grumbles about how he's definitely not a hero. The film as a whole is basically just an average superhero movie, but worse. Not even a shoehorned cameo from Henry Cavill's Superman could save this obvious misfire, and the "hierarchy of power" soon gave James Gunn the power to exit them both.

It's always disappointing when studio interference affects the final cut of a film — even more so when it almost destroys a promising young director's career. This was essentially the case with the 2015 reboot of "Fantastic Four," which was produced back before the Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox (thus giving the former company the ability to reboot the franchise yet again in 2025). Having yet to receive a worthy cinematic treatment, Fox gave Marvel's first family to Josh Trank, a then-up-and-coming filmmaker who was best known at the time for the 2012 original superhero thriller "Chronicle." It's a tight, tense, and surprisingly moving feature that correctly placed Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan within the superhero genre before Marvel had the chance.

Trank took a similar approach to "Fantastic Four," bringing in Jordan and several other high caliber actors — including "House of Cards'" Kate Mara and "Whiplash" star Miles Teller — and giving them a grounded, gritty story with fantastical elements layered in. Unfortunately, this ultimately resulted in a dirge of a film that was often at odds with itself in tone, bouncing between coming-of-age dramedy and a depressing science fiction tale scene to scene. Trank accused Fox of taking control of the film from him, and reports emerged that the studio had been rewriting the script, re-editing sequences, and shooting new footage all without his involvement as director. He did, however, review his own film some four years later and came to the conclusion that it was "alright." For our part, there just isn't enough coherent on screen to even call this a movie, much less a comic book movie worthy of the source material or the talent involved.

If there's one thing we can say in defense of "Steel," it's that it's not the worst instance of basketball being forced into a comic book movie. That honor belongs to "Catwoman."

Horrifying flirting scenes aside, this 2004 disaster ignores everything comic book fans love about the titular character and replaces them with what a distracted studio exec might think a "Catwoman" movie should be about after seeing the words "cat" and "woman" next to each other. Rather than a skilled cat burglar with a complicated past, this character (played valiantly by Halle Berry) is a quirky-girl with ancestral cat powers and an arch-nemesis who sells evil makeup. Even if it weren't obviously sexist, it's a movie that has zero respect for the source material or audience.

To her credit, Berry met the harsh reaction the film received with her head held high, and even accepted "Catwoman's" Razzie award (before setting it on fire). Now, 20 years later, she doesn't view the film as an utter failure but a testament to her willingness to take risks and learn from her missteps. The actor is even open to returning as the character — on the condition that she directs the film this time around. 

Of all the films on this list, none are quite as infamous as the 2017 film "Justice League" — a box office disaster that doomed the DCEU. After making his mark as a visionary in the comic book movie space with generally well-received adaptations of "300" and "Watchmen," Zack Snyder was poised to shape the entirety of Warner Bros. long-awaited answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He began with "Man of Steel," a polarizing and stoic take on Superman that nonetheless generated buzz for the future of this universe — then came "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," a film almost as unwieldy and full of pseudo-intellectualism as its title. At this juncture, with critics, fans, and studio executives all losing faith in his mythologically-driven vision for the DCEU, personal tragedy struck Snyder and forced him to exit his next film "Justice League" midway through production.

Of course, this story eventually ends with Snyder willing into existence a four-hour "director's cut" in the middle of the pandemic, but that could only come after a horrific theatrical release in 2017. Many have blamed the film's flaws entirely on replacement director Joss Whedon, with the awkward humor, oversaturated lighting and colors, and simplistic narrative all being recognized as characteristic of what Snyder fans call "Josstice League." But, like "Eternals," the theatrical cut also lays bare the fundamental issues with Snyder and WB's failings for the DCEU at large. 

A rushed counter to "The Avengers" could only ever be so good, especially when it's further dragged down by poor writing. In many ways, the two films show just how far the genre had fallen even by that point, as it had become fully subdued by the cynical and shallow studio system of blockbuster filmmaking.