For nearly the last two decades now there has been a constant stream of new comic book movies coming to theaters. While before you could only expect movies of big names like Spider-Man or Batman, with the occasional film thrown around for a lesser known hero like Daredevil, nowadays the floodgates are well past open. Any and every superhero and comic seems to be up for adaptation, from Marvel’s First Family in Fantastic Four: First Steps to Metamorpho in the upcoming Superman film. Between the two comic powerhouses there are hundreds, if not thousands, of awesome heroes to adapt to film. However, for every great superhero that deserves a spotlight on the silver screen, there’s a few who definitely shouldn’t, or maybe even couldn’t, be taken out of the comic pages.
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Let’s take a look at five superheroes that will never be seeing the light of a movie theater. Some of these reasons are practical, some are legal, and some are just because these ideas never should have made it past the pitch.
5) Matter-Eater Lad
Out of all of the heroes listed here, Matter-Eater is the one I think is the most likely to ever be adapted, and when he’s at the top of the list, the list is pretty bad. Matter-Eater Lad is infamous as one of DC’s goofiest characters of all time, with his superpower literally being able to eat anything, and if he eats enough he can temporarily speed up his metabolism to give him quasi-super speed. Of course, he might have to eat literal tons of food to do that, depending on what it is. While Matter-Eater Lad is a longtime member of the Legion of Superheroes, I don’t ever see him appearing in any live action, because frankly having a real person pretend to eat a jet as a superpower isn’t interesting to watch. It could be a funny gag in a comedy, but I imagine it would get old fast without someone keeping it fresh.
4) Captain Marvel
No, not Carol Danvers. Not DC’s Shazam-shouting Captain either. This Captain Marvel is an entirely unrelated character created by the short-lived M.F. Enterprises way back in 1966. He was an alien android with the ability to split himself apart by shouting “Split!” and recombine by shouting “Xam!” He teamed up with his sidekick/assistant, the young boy named Billy Baxton. Wait, so his name was Captain Marvel, his powers were activated by shouting, and there was a young boy named Billy Ba-last named. Yeah, needless to say Captain Marvel is a legal nightmare. The character he was so clearly ripping off doesn’t even go by the name anymore after DC lost a legal battle for it. This Captain Marvel isn’t an inherently bad character or anything, but I can’t imagine any major company touching him with a thirty-foot pole. And seriously, Split-Xam? Try a little harder to cover the plagiarism, please. At least split is a real word that makes sense, xam is just nonsense!
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3) Snowflake and Safespace
These two superheroes are special, because not only are they the first widely controversial characters on this list, they never even left the concept art stage of development. These two were meant to be part of Marvel’s 2020 relaunch of their New Warriors book, which has always been a book that introduced new heroes that their younger readers were meant to relate to. That entire situation is a controversial mess, but these two are particularly egregious for what they represent. Snowflake and Safespace are two very charged words in our world, with both often being used in mocking terms by bigoted people. The idea was that these two were meant to be reclaiming the words for something better, which could be cool if these two weren’t the exact stereotypes that were being made fun of. If they were meant to be social commentary, it was so on the nose that the people they meant to criticize could only laugh, and the people they meant to represent were insulted by the two-dimensional, stereotypical dissection. Needless to say, if they can’t even make it to a comic book, I can’t imagine Marvel ever touching them with movie money.
2) Big Bertha
In her spare time, Ashley Crawford works as an internationally famous supermodel. When she suits up as the superhero Big Bertha, she has the mutant ability to exponentially increase her bulk to become far taller and stronger. Now that doesn’t sound so bad, until you see that her “increase in bulk” is her becoming very obese in appearance. Again, that wouldn’t be so bad, until she has to expel her excess bulk. Bertha can simply add the extra mass to herself at will, but in order to return to her smaller size, she has to vomit it up. Yes, the model’s superpower is to make herself fat and then vomit up the excess weight to return to her “normal” body. Not only is this disgusting and a walking fat joke, and believe me they use her for plenty of fat jokes, the requirements of her transformation are behaviors associated with the eating disorder bulimia. And that’s not ever taking into account how she uses her powers to appear near-dangerously underweight for her career. Big Bertha inspires a lot of dangerous stereotypes.
1) Gin Genie
The number one most unadaptable hero on our list is Gin Genie. Another mutant, she can generate seismic waves proportional to the amount of a certain liquid in her bloodstream. What liquid? Alcohol, of course! Yes, the drunker Gin Genie is, the stronger she becomes. I don’t think I need to explain why having a superhero whose abilities are related to her level of alcoholism is a terrible idea. Marvel seemed to agree, given that she died in the first X-Force issue she appeared in, and hasn’t made an appearance since. Promoting constant, excessive drinking is the exact opposite type of behavior a superhero should be exhibiting, so the idea of her appearing in a live action movie is just about the worst thing I can imagine for her character.
That’s our list. Funnily enough, the last three entries were all Marvel. The House of Ideas never stops trying to innovate, and for there to be good ideas, the bad ones have to flow too. But what heroes do you think should never reach the movie screen? Let us know in the comments!
