Superheroes without a movie

2012 will undoubtedly be branded as a(nother) great year for superhero movies with The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises slinging into action on movie screens in the upcoming months. However, none of these heroes are new to the movies, as we've seen all of them in the cinema before. Therefore, I thought I'd take the time to produce a short list of superheroes (sort of, in some cases) that haven't been given a theatrical exercise yet. Most of them we can't expect to ever see in any audiovisual shape whatsoever, but their concept remains pretty sweet regardless.

Moon Knight

Moon Knight could be described as Marvel's take on Batman, another caped crusader, but more of a White Knight considering his colourless outfit. The similarities are uncanny (rich guy fighting injustice with his personal arsenal of gadgets and tailor made vehicles), but so are the differences (he got his life calling thanks to an ancient Egyptian god called Konshu, after living a violent life style as a mercenary: in his Ultimate Universe incarnation he even possesses the power of self-resurrection). His alter ego Marc Spector may not be as appealing a playboy as Bruce Wayne, but he fights crime with a vengeance at least as effectively as the Dark Knight thanks to his prowess in the martial arts, in a team if necessary – he is a reserve member of the Avengers – but preferably on his own so nobody can bitch about his sometimes ruthless methods. As he once put it himself:

'Someone has to do this. The other guys, the world savers, they got their own jobs to do. A giant monster pops out of the ground in the financial district? Call the Fantastic Four. Magneto trying to wipe out the human race? X-Men on the job. Invasion of alien vessels? That's what the Avengers are for. That leaves this. Spidey? He's got his hands full with all of the B-list super-villains. So someone has to do this. Someone has to do the fun stuff.' Cue Mooney violently intervening in a bloody gang fight, along with many many many rounds of gunfire and a bunch of neat-o explosions. Such a level of gratuitous violence, plus the distinct feel of copying Batman, is why we will probably never see a Moon Knight movie.

The Darkness

The Darkness might not have made the list because calling him a superhero is like calling Mongolian Death Worm the greatest cinematic masterpiece of the 21^st century (it isn't, you know), but considering he's not fully evil and does occasionally save lives, he's not a complete villain either. Call him an anti-hero if you must. He certainly would himself. Jackie Estacado is raised in a mob milieu by his crimelord uncle, so he's not the nicest guy around anyway, but on his 21^st birthday he turns out to be the carrier of the ancient Darkness force, a sort of living weapon that bonds to a singular human host and follows his commands only, with the full intention of being an agent of evil. Jackie himself turns out not to be totally beyond redemption and tries do keep his humanity intact before the Darkness completely overwhelms him, using his new power to protect the few people he loves, while on the run from sinister religious societies, both those working for the Church as the ones backing the opposition, who would use him for their own shady purposes. It's a bizarre mess of religious nonsense and the typical superhero conventions (which is the reason a movie for this character is undoubtedly a no-go), but it works surprisingly well if you can face this fantastic combination with an open mind. Plus, it's supremely well drawn and provides some of the best artwork you'll ever find in a single comic panel, even if it takes up a whole page.

Sub-Mariner

Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is an odd character. For one thing, he's half human/half Atlantean, which makes him both aquatic and terrestrial. For another, he's a mutant, probably one of the oldest around, equipped with two pairs of wings near his feet which enables him to fly. Above all, he's the monarch of Atlantis, and anybody who wants to contest his position is in for serious trouble, since he rules his realm proudly and leaves little room for people questioning this fact. Being one of Marvel's oldest characters (conceived in 1939), he has a long and intricate history, sometimes being a villain – though always with the right motives, usually protecting his kingdom from mankind's destructiveness or saving the seas from blatant pollution – but at least as often as a hero, fighting the Nazi's in WWII, or out saving the planet or even the galaxy together with the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, though it must be noted he has has plenty of skirmishes with both teams. His hobbies include stealing married women away from their husbands, most notably wooing Susan Richards (the FF's Invisible Woman), much to the chagrin of the rest of her family (she has a kid for crying out loud!). He's intelligent but also overly arrogant because of his royal heritage, which makes him such a fun character to read. However, he works best when playing off other superhero characters, but because his copyright isn't clearly established and might not lie with either the FF or the Avengers franchises, chances of seeing this fish on the screen seem slim. However, rumors of a Sub-Mariner movie have been swirling around for years, so who knows... Hopefully they'll give his a less revealing suit, to avoid something silly like this:

Thunderbolts

One of the hardest things to do in superheroland is introducing a team of superheroes, each character with his or her own backstories and motivations, but distributed evenly enough over the whole plot to make not one team member stand out too much over the others. X-Men did this very well, though it focused increasingly heavily on Wolverine at times. The Avengers was set up quite cleverly by introducing each character separately, thus being able to jump right into the action that causes the formation of the team in their own movie. One team for which this would just be too hard to do is the Thunderbolts, Marvel's most intriguing band of would-be wannabe superheroes. Formed as a ruse, the original team consisted of super villains who banded together to play superhero just long enough to convince the world they were good guys so they could conquer it. However, most team members were drawn to the status of genuine heroes and revolted against the mastermind plan, opting to 'come out of the closet' instead, after which they were allowed to be super heroes under government supervision. Nowadays, the Thunderbolts team is the Marvel Universe's prime super villain reform school. But of course, old habits die hard, and plenty of characters have ulterior motives, which set them at odds with the true super heroes (some of which they fought in the past), their team mates and usually themselves at some point. And this leads to some great story arcs and delicious character development, as one should expect from such a wonderful and original premise. But a Thunderbolts movie will never happen, since there's just too many characters, none of which - of the original team at least, though later incarnations featured several characters used in recent Marvel movies, including the Green Goblin, Venom, Bullseye and Deathstrike - have been featured in a Marvel movie so far so the general audience isn't really aware of these names, though in the comics all of them have had run-ins with well known superheroes before. Few people not 'in-the-know' with comic books will have heard of baddies Baron Zemo, Beetle or Moonstone. If each upcoming Marvel movie featured one of the Thunderbolts' super villains, in the long run this might pay off (though when they were villains, few Thunderbolts were ever really interesting characters). Copyright is also an issue here, since the Thunderbolts' respective histories are interconnected with a plethora of Marvel heroes' lives, the movie rights to which lie scattered among many different studios. For now we have to wait and see whether introducing each Avenger separately before releasing their first group effort actually pays off before we can dream of another Marvel movie project that deals with setting up characters by themselves before having them join forces. But the question remains, would the average movie-goer want to see a film about a team of virtual no-name ex-scumbags on a quest to clear their names? I would of course...

Dark Claw

If you think this superhero looks suspiciously familiar, you're right. This is the best character to come out of the Amalgam Universe, a separate comic realm which consists solely of characters comprised of various figures from the Marvel and DC Universes. It's obvious which two characters make up the bones of Dark Claw. His back story is a mix of both their histories: as a boy, Logan watched his parents gunned down in front of him. Later in life, he joined the military and got drafted into a top secret project in which an adamantium skeleton and claws were surgically grafted into his body. Afterwards, he decided to use his new strength to secretly fight crime in Gotham City, with his former friend and co-test subject Victor Creed becoming his arch enemy Hyena, a giggling maniac with a beastly appearance, animal senses and big nasty pointy claws. Sounds too familiar in some respects to general audiences who would ignorantly call it a rip-off, plus the rights lie with two different companies who are currently trying to top each other with their big epic super hero projects in movie theatres (with Marvel winning easily). So this is one cool character that will never see the light of day on film. And since the Amalgam Universe was short-lived, his time of fighting crime at night is also long past. A damn shame... Hyena alone would have made it worthwhile to watch.

So whenever you think there's too many superhero movies being made, remember that for each superhero that gets a film, there's a dozens others that remain sadly forgotten. And whenever you think there's not enough superhero movies being made (like I do), just remember how awesome (most of) the movies we do get are. And go and read more comic books, that certainly helps too.