While Captain America is undoubtedly the most famous comic book role that Chris Evans has taken on, an earlier underrated DC Comics movie from the actor featured one of the genre’s most impressive casts ever. Chris Evans’ Captain America is one of the faces of the MCU, and one of the most memorable onscreen incarnations of a superhero in cinema history. The actor’s portrayal will go down alongside Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Christopher Reeve’s Superman, and Michael Keaton’s Batman as a pivotal part of comic book movie history, but it wasn’t his first comic adaptation.
Videos by ComicBook.com
2010’s The Losers was a violent action comedy based on the DC comic book series of the same name by 2000AD writer Andy Diggle and Scottish cartoonist Jock. Effectively a dark, subversive spin on The A-Team, The Losers follows the titular US Special Forces Unit after they are betrayed by their handler and left to die. When a mysterious woman offers them a chance to exact revenge, they jump on this mission. Although director Sylvain White’s movie was a box office letdown and received mixed reviews, The Losers has one of the best comic book movie casts ever, with Evans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldaña, and Idris Elba playing its titular leads.
2010’s The Losers Has One of the Best Comic Book Movie Casts Ever
As well as Evans, The Losers featured leading roles for Morgan, Saldaña, and Elba. All three went on to become comic book adaptation legends in their own rights, with Morgan starring in Watchmen, The Walking Dead, and Batman Vs Superman, while Saldaña played Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Elba, meanwhile, played Heimdall in Thor only a year after The Losers was released, and reprised this role in 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, and 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok.
Elba’s comic book movie credits continued to stack up after that, with the actor also playing Moreau in 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Bloodsport in 2021’s The Suicide Squad. By the time The Losers arrived in 2010, Evans was already well known by fans of comic book movies thanks to his earlier roles in the Fantastic Four movies and 2007’s TMNT, but it was his iconic role as Steve Rogers that went on to define his screen career.
The Losers Deserved Better Than Its Lukewarm Reception
Although all of the movie’s main actors went on to more illustrious roles after its release, The Losers itself never received the critical reappraisal the movie deserved. Like 2006’s equally underrated Smokin’ Aces, the blackly comedic action thriller received criticism for its chaotic violence and balletic brutality, even though these same qualities went on to make movies like Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train, Nobody, and the John Wick franchise critical successes in the years that followed.
Tarantino was a fan of The Losers and, looking back on it, the underrated adaptation is arguably a better update of The A-Team formula than 2010’s reboot of the classic ‘80s series. It is certainly stronger than White’s other major movies, Stomp the Yard and Slender Man, and, if nothing else, the underrated DC Comics movie The Losers deserves credit for helping to establish its iconic cast as comic book movie legends well before their most iconic roles.
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Netflix -
Image Courtesy of Production I.G.
