Top Movie Superheroes

The Hulk allows Edward Norton a mainstream hit that doesn’t soften his edge. He first gained notice as Primal Fear’s fiendishly clever killer and then scored as American History X’s militant bigot. Other stand-outs include Fight Club’s conflicted white-collar worker and 25th Hour’s drug dealer. On a more outwardly respectable level, he played Nelson Rockefeller in Frida. He’s got a rep for making trouble on the set, all for the right reasons.
 
Meanwhile, Eric Bana, whose much-maligned Hulk appeared five years ago, retains his standing on the A-minus list and just completed the latest Star Trek, due next summer.

Hellboy is the season’s hairiest superhero and hails from a birthplace not generally associated with good guys. Ron Perlman got a start at hell-raising in television’s Beauty and the Beast. Hellboy: The Golden Army opens July 11, and buzz is blazing hot.

Indiana Jones’ continued success makes us thankful for Magnum P.I., the TV series that kept original choice Tom Selleck from playing Indy. The role requires an Everyman approach that Harrison Ford effortlessly provides, whereas Selleck is no Everyman.

James Bond has had a successful reincarnation courtesy of art house fave Daniel Craig, acclaimed as killer Perry Smith in Infamous (generally known as “that other Truman Capote flick”) and as a devious gangster in Layer Cake. His edgy Agent 007 will return Nov. 8 in Quantum of Solace, and Craig will even be edgier playing Satan in I, Lucifer, currently in production.  

Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore made cheeky Bonds, while Sean Connery’s smug superiority remains the yardstick by which most Bonds are measured. Bondphiles generally brand George Lazenby as the most regrettable OO7, but we should consider that Timothy Dalton floundered in two iconic roles, James Bond and Rhett Butler. He played the southern rogue in the mini-series Scarlett, sequel to GWTW, and created a mild sensation at a media gathering by using a four-letter word to describe Miss O’Hara.

Superman has been a bad-luck omen for actors. George Reeves, TV’s early Superman/Clark Kent, was either a suicide or a murder victim (the latter theory dramatized by Ben Affleck in 2006’s Hollywoodland). Christopher Reeve also met a tragic fate, but in a more heroic manner. Brandon Routh, the star of 2006’s Superman Returns, was dismissed as a sap and relegated to indie films, which is not exactly artistic purgatory. But he’s back in fantasyland, currently before the cameras as a supernatural private eye in Dead of Night. 

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