White Male Superheroes Who Deserve Less Movies

We all know that Wonder Woman should have had a movie by now.  The list of female and minority superheroes who have been severely underrepresented by the film industry is almost as long as the list of lists of female or minority superheroes who have been severely underrepresented by the film industry.  It should go without saying that promoting equality doesn't mean taking away from the more privileged, only to increase privilege for everyone like Oprah if cars were not-being-systematically-oppressed.  There's no way to trade the Green Hornet movie for a Black Panther, but let's imagine there were.  Let's imagine there's a Twilight Zone episode about a world that is just like ours but with slightly less white guy movies and in their stead are the Captain Marvel and John Stewart Green Lantern and solo Storm movies that have been missing from our world.  The best part about this fantasy land is that we have so many white guy movies that there are a handful of them that are so bad we could cut them loose without a second thought.  Their absences would probably be better than their presence.  These are some of the white male superhero movies that wouldn't be missed by most people, or at least myself and, as long we're imagining, my lovely wife 90's Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Man of Steel

I hate Man of Steel a whole bunch.  I hate it with every fiber of my being.  My personal (and reasonable and correct) feelings aside, most people can agree that it's the least Superman-like movie out of the six Superman movies.  Grim and gritty isn't really the best fit for a character who dresses in bright primary colors and plays fetch the Easter Island head with his super labrador.  If you were going to erase one Superman movie from history, it should probably be the one where the hero who supposedly represents hope and the best parts of humanity snaps a guys neck like he's Steven Seagal.  In the interest of attempting to be objective, I can admit that Man of Steel had some strong points, for instance, it was surprisingly feminist, especially coming from the director behind 300.  Speaking of which, Zack Snyder's experience with sword and sandal flicks and his apparently newfound competency with feminism make him a pretty good choice to run things behind the scenes for a Wonder Woman movie, which would be about a mythic Greek warrior who has no qualms about killing people.  It seems like Snyder will be doing just that in 2017 as the guy in charge of DC's Justice League, and it's possible he will do right by Wonder Woman, but in the better world he could do it without royally crapping all over Superman first.

Amazing Spider-Man

The first two Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi from the early 00's are among the best superhero movies ever and are largely responsible for the abundance of the genre we have now.  The third was not quite as good, but it shouldn't be erased because every trilogy needs an inferior final act.   The Amazing Spider-Man series, on the other hand, is only two movies in and has already reached Spider-Man 3 levels of awfulness.  Marc Webb's first attempt was fine, but unnecessary  considering Raimi's last attempt was released only five years earlier.  Then with this year's Amazing Spider-Man 2 everything fell apart.  The main villain Electro was practically unrecognizable after his transformation, the secondary villain Green Goblin was superfluous and his plotline was rushed and Peter Parker stalked Gwen Stacy who spent the whole movie looking into the camera and lip-synching "Don't Fear the Reaper" while pantomiming a noose around her neck.

If Emma's alternate universe doppelganger could read this

things would get pretty awkward at the 

Brown-Stone-Real-Life-Hermione-Granger-Louis-Dreyfus household.

The biggest problem Webb faced was distancing his movies from Raimi's.  If he had just waited a while, not only would he have time on his side, but he could make a movie about a completely different Spider-Man all together; Miles Morales.  Morales, who is mixed-race, first appeared the year before The Amazing Spider-Man was released.  That is not enough time for a movie studio to reasonably base an entire film franchise on, but three years later Miles Morales is still going strong, much stronger than the public's interest in a Spider-Man franchise that pales in comparison to the one that came less than ten years before it.

The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, is by far the least memorable entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Edward Norton was replaced by Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers, making Robert Downey Jr. the only actor to be in both movies, and he was only in Hulk's after credits scene at a time when audiences didn't know to expect an after credits scene in Marvel movies.  It's been six years since Norton played the role and there is no planned standalone sequel, even though one was set up within the movie by implying that Dr. Samuel Sterns would become Hulk villain The Leader when he was infected with Hulk-blood.  Now The Leader is running around leading with no consequences.   All those loose ends would disappear if only it had been a Black Widow movie instead of the Hulk.  Sure, there might be more but different loose ends, but at least we know Scarlett Johansson is in this for the long haul.

Just like her marriage to Ryan Reynolds.

I always liked them together.