21 Worst Comic-Book Movies

Sure, it was better than Wicker Man, but this Nicolas Cage-headlined flick — the tale of Marvel's motorcycle-riding, flame-topped superhero Johnny Blaze, who sold his soul to save his father — was one hot mess, no pun intended. —Kate Ward

If you look closely, you'll see that this Pamela Anderson Lee (yes, this was during ''The T-Bone Years'') disaster has pretty much the same plot as Casablanca: She runs a nightclub in 21st-century totalitarian America, and her old flame needs transport papers (here, fancy new eyeballs to pass retinal scans) to get himself and his new honey out of town. Of course, the plot is, ahem, enhanced to take full advantage of the star's particular, ahem, talents. Which consist of wearing clothes that barely keep those talents in check. —Marc Bernardin

The dated comic you always skipped over in the Sunday funnies in favor of Blondie came to life in this 1992 film that follows the ace reporter (Brooke Shields) into the South American jungle, where she scoops a story about a mad scientist trying to bring destruction to the world. And yes, the film really is as bad as it sounds. —Kate Ward

Much like The Shadow before it, The Phantom was an attempt to give new life to an old pulp action hero. Of course, when you cast the impenetrable Billy Zane as ''the Ghost Who Walks'' — the latest in a long line of white African folk heroes who guard against, er, pirates — put him in a ridiculous skintight uni-hero-tard, and ask him to look tough, bad things will happen. Treat Williams looks like he's in a totally different movie, as a power-mad American rich guy. Oh, and this is the movie Catherine Zeta-Jones wishes was not on her résumé. —Marc Bernardin

Daredevil's concept, borrowed from the Marvel comic, was cool — a blind superhero (Ben Affleck) fights crime using his other heightened senses — but the execution brought the film one Gigli away from disaster (see: that bizarre, ill-advised park fight scene). We're still not entirely sure how it spawned the just-as-bad spin-off/sequel, Elektra, whose sole accomplishment was tailoring a super-hot superhero costume for Jennifer Garner. —Kate Ward

If ever a comic-book movie should've been a cartoon, this is it. Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett's British comic — about a pint-size hellion who likes blowing stuff up, hanging out with mutant kangaroos, and blowing more stuff up — was full of mad, impossible-to-translate energy. And Lori Petty just wasn't cut out for carrying a movie all by herself. Notable only for the casting of Ice-T as one of the aforementioned mutant kangaroos and Naomi Watts as Tank Girl's gal pal, Jet Girl. —Marc Bernardin

Take one beloved comic series, add four bland, overrated actors, and what do you get? A horrible, tedious movie that somehow managed to make a buck — $330 million worldwide, to be exact — and generate one unfortunate franchise. Too bad the script wasn't money — the film's character development was so diluted, it was difficult to determine which of the four was the invisible one. —Kate Ward

My fondness for this movie is directly related to the fact that it's rated PG. See, when I was a downy soft 14-year-old, this movie hit HBO. And HBO back then didn't have too much of a back catalog, so this movie would pop up all the time. Especially when I was home sick from school. Did I mention that Tanya Roberts has a topless bathing scene? And, since PG movies could air during the day, you had a pretty decent shot of being able to flip channels between Transformers and boobs. The rest of the film is mindless pap about Roberts' animal-talking jungle girl saving the wild from crazed mercenaries. But, still... —Marc Bernardin

Who knew the title for this Thomas Jane-John Travolta film would be so fitting? There's likely no better punishment than sitting through this uninspired, mind-numbing revenge thriller. —Kate Ward

This Superman spin-off, starring Helen Slater as the female cousin to the blue-spandexed hero, worked like Hilary Swank in The Next Karate Kid: It didn't. Kara-El, niece of Jor-El, blasts to Earth on a mission to find a power-generating orb — Omegahedron — that had spiraled away from her home city on Krypton. Needless to say, things go haywire when Faye Dunaway gets her hands on the precious rock and wants to rule the world with it. —Youyoung Lee

One look at the opening credits to this erotic sci-fi cult favorite — in which Jane Fonda strips in zero gravity — and you'll know exactly what you're getting into. Director Roger Vadim (a.k.a., Fonda's then husband) may have enjoyed the tease, but we just couldn't stop laughing. It's nowhere near a good movie, but, honestly, it doesn't really matter. —Kate Ward

The late Steve Gerber's Marvel Comic of the same name was a trippy countercultural landmark of the '70s. The movie is one of the worst — of any kind — to come along since Plan 9 From Outer Space. We're not gonna tell you anything about what happens in the movie, other than to say that Howard comes to Earth from Duckworld and he knows ''Quack Fu.'' One more thing to blame executive producer George Lucas for. —Marc Bernardin

Let's pretend we were in the room for the conversation between Shaquille O'Neal's agent and the folks at Warner Bros. that led to this disaster, rivaled only by Kazaam. AGENT: ''Shaq really likes comic books...he's even got that Superman ''S'' tattooed, somewhere. Do you have a comic movie he could star in?'' WARNER: ''Well, it just so happens that DC killed Superman, and replaced him with a bunch of lame-ass poseurs. And one of them is a giant black dude who carries a big hammer and welds himself a suit of armor.'' AGENT: ''Sounds horrible. Where do we sign?'' —Marc Bernardin

In the comics, Swamp Thing — a sentient mass of heroic moss and muck who protects the planet from environmental and supernatural threats — is synonymous with sophisticated storytelling. But in the movies, Swamp Thing is synonymous with cheese. Wes Craven's low-fi 1982 flick has its charms: the moment where Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) regenerated a limb was kinda cool. Still, the movie's most memorable special effect was Adrienne Barbeau's jiggle. And because we usually don't get to drop these, we'd like to say, one more time: Dick Durock. Somewhere, some schlubby porn actor is banging his head against the wall (so to speak) and cursing his lack of imagination. —Jeff Jensen

There are nipples on the Batsuit. Nipples. On. The. Bat. Suit. —Marc Bernardin

In the comics, created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, the League was a band of monstrous and morally ambiguous adventurers and misfits — the Invisible Man; Captain Nemo; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Allan Quartermain; and Mina Murray, a.k.a., the lady Dracula bit in Bram Stoker's book — that secretly served the British crown and battled the likes of Professor Moriarty and the Martians from War of the Worlds. But the 2003 film version, starring a cranky Sean Connery, is an underfed, overblown fiasco devoid of the geek joy and inspired imagination of the comics. —Jeff Jensen

Did you even know that a fourth installment of the Superman franchise was made? Yeah, thought so. Even a muscled Christopher Reeve and sinister Gene Hackman couldn't save this meteor from hitting. The flying crusader impossibly saves seemingly all the landmarks across the globe, like the Statue of Liberty, Mount Etna, and the Great Wall of China. Sadly, he didn't get around to saving his dignity. —Youyoung Lee