Marvel's 10 Greatest Movie Characters

Marvel’s 10 Greatest Movie Characters

By Jim Law

March 7th 2012, 12:32pm

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Let’s be honest, by the end of Summer 2012 this list could be even more useless than normal. Renner’s Hawkeye could end up stealing the show in THE AVENGERS, Garfield looks like he might nail SPIDER-MAN, and Ruffalo’s HULK might out-CGI all prior versions. Until then let’s just deal with the class we have now. In a universe filled with thousands of unique heroes and villains very few have actually made the leap from page to screen interesting enough for anybody to care about. Let’s just get to it so I can stop downloading pictures of men in tights.

1. Hugh Jackman’s WOLVERINE

It seemed like an impossible task at the time but Jackman took, arguably, the comic’s most popular character and made him even cooler. There were endless opportunities to screw this up and he literally nailed it.

2. Robert Downey Jr’s IRON MAN

There’s a little more human depth to Tony Stark than your regular superhero. Downey brings the depression, humor, brilliance, personal demons, and bad-assery and effortlessly stirs them up and delivers something heroic on every level.

3. Ian McKellen’s & Michael Fassbender’s MAGNETO

It’s the comic book movie equivalent of Brando and De Niro’s Don Corleone. McKellen’s eerie confidence and evil demeanour is very much complimented by Fassbender’s revenge thirst and wide-eyed vision of power.

4. Wesley Snipes’ BLADE

Love or hate these films it’s hard to deny Snipes’ passion for the character. I guess it’s not hard when you get to play the coolest superhero in the universe. Nobody gets more ass in the comic kingdom than Blade. And he gets to eat some of them. Most of them.

5. Chris Evans’ CAPTAIN AMERICA

There’s a good chance Cap will have an even more interesting arc in THE AVENGERS what with waking up from the world’s longest nap and being asked to lead a group of super beings in a modern world he has no idea about. And his girlfriend is an old bag.

6. Alfred Molina’s DOCTOR OCTOPUS

When one of the best villain concepts jumps to the big screen and loses absolutely none of it’s imagination it’s almost hard to comprehend it’s perfection. When an entire generation of cynical fanboys are sitting silent, nodding, you know you’ve done something right

7. CGI Edward Norton’s INCREDIBLE HULK

Not perfect but easily the best version we’ve ever had of this giant bitch. We’ll see this Summer if Hulk has what it takes to be a real superhero but until then, that’ll do, Ed, that’ll do.

8. Thomas Jane’s THE PUNISHER

Rarely does a superhero movie get better with age but the realism of this film seems to fit in more with the modern day super-film than it did back in the day. There’s still a better version of this film waiting to be made and I truly believe Jane could still pull it off.

9. Toby Maguire’s SPIDER-MAN

Really took a dive because of that third film but Tobey had stretches of nicely channelling Peter Parker. I really hope the new Spidey film leaves his mask on for the entire movie. I always hated Raimi’s agenda of making the character more human by exposing his face for the last third of these movies.