2016 couldn’t end fast enough with all the bad news in politics, celebrity deaths, and just world events in general. As 2017 is shaping up to be another year filled with comic book films like, Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, and Justice League (breath that all in), it’s a good idea to be reminded of the comic book films released this year.

With that being said, let’s take a look and rank these films from worst to best and see what you think. We’ll start with the worst and make our way up to the top.

6. X-Men: Apocalypse

With the third film in the soft reboot of the X-Men franchise, Fox, Bryan Singer and Simon Kindberg sought out the bring one of the X-Men’s biggest baddy in their large gallery of villains to the big screen. Apocalypse was done in all other mediums, except for film; fans were excited to see the bringer of death and destruction to fight against Professor X’s class of super power mutants. And boy was it a big pile of shit.

From the start, the production ran into a lot of ridicule from casting to the design of certain characters (cough, cough, Apocalypse). But blinded fans still held out hope and when the movie was released, the film’s criticisms were justified. The backlash was so great that rumors started being thrown around about Fox possibly selling the X-Men franchise back to Marvel in hopes to give it the same treatment that Marvel did for Sony and Spider-Man. The movie made a ton of money at the box office but is in no way close to what Fox wanted.

The studio has plans to continue with the X-Men legacy with a film that takes another shot at the Phoenix saga (yawn) and without Singer, maybe Fox will bring the X-Men back to the level of expectations that fans have been wanting for years.

5. Suicide Squad

After the debacle of Batman v Superman (more on that later), WB/DC did an overhaul of this movie to make the movie more light-hearted and more jokey than BvS. People were already pumped from the trailers that sold the film as fun and the bad guys that you wanted to root for. Too bad we were all sold a bill of goods on this one.

A lot of the film was just a series of bad re-introductions, forced expeditions, plot holes, and a soundtrack that was like scanning randomly on your radio. This was a huge case of studio interference and not allowing the writer/director enough time to flesh out the script. They even went as far as to use the same tired trope of having a blue beam in the sky to show how great the danger the world is in.
It wasn’t all that bad, as WB/DC turned a serious profit and one spin-off, with one more possibly happening; there was some value to this movie. Let’s just hope the studio will finally get their shit together by next year.

4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

This procedural court battle – I mean superhero movie is something that fans of all types had been waiting for, for decades. You got two huge titans of comics that were set to clash in an epic way that hearkens back to a great battle between in Dark Knight and the Man of Steel in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. What could go wrong? Well…

The film has been polarizing among fans with one side talking about some of the action set pieces featuring Superman, Batman, and Wonder-Woman, amazing and other side screaming “MARTHA”. On the real, there are some great scenes in this film but WB/DC dropped the ball so bad on this film with a lot of plots that didn’t make sense and the over the top acting from Jesse Eisenberg that wasn’t called for.

This was a case of when a director is not reeled back just a tad bit in the name of a coherent story that would merit a pay off that fell flat. We still got Justice League to look forward to next year though, right?

3. Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange was one of those comic book superheroes that a lot of moviegoers would scratch their heads at and whisper, “Who”. The story of the wizard version of Iron-Man was a big gamble for Marvel, but Marvel is use to taking risk with most of the time having a huge pay off. Were people caught up in the Sorcerer Supreme? Yup.

The film’s star power helped greatly with the success of the film but also the fact that Marvel was finally introducing the mystical parts of their universe as well. Doctor Strange took some of the tropes that worked for Iron-Man and did a fresh take at the formula that makes Marvel the powerhouse that it is. As soon as the credits role, people wanted more of the superhero that didn’t have a whole of fans and will get much more in Thor: Ragnarok and in Avengers: Infinity War.

2. Deadpool

This had been a film so many years in the making after X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Granted, that film did almost completely kill the character but it still turn out to be something great. Deadpool had been kind of a fan favorite in the 90’s and was gaining a lot of momentum over time. A concept video was mysteriously released online showcasing the potential of a movie with the character and the fans ate it up like a steaming chimichanga.

When the movie was released in February, it quickly began to smash everyone’s expectations and was destroying the box office and topping at a whopping 783 (and some change) million dollars total gross. Fans and critics loved this movie and rightfully so. The action, acting, and comedy was on point all the way that it was an excellent installment in the comic book superhero genre. This 58 million budget film garnered a green light almost immediately after release and 2018 couldn’t get here soon enough.

1. Captain America: Civil War

I’ll be the first to admit that I thought this comic book storyline would never be turned into a movie. In the comic, Civil War was huge event that pitted superhero against superhero in a massive battle that would cost the lives and freedom of some of our favorite heroes. Once the movie was announced, I was still skeptic of the film on the fact that so many characters that are featured in the comic book storyline are owned my by other studies and thought it wouldn’t do the comic justice. Boy was I wrong.

Now I know it didn’t have everyone or even a huge fraction of comic book superheroes but, it was still an amazing feat nonetheless. The biggest seller of this was the fact that the audience would finally get to see Spider-Man interact with many of Marvel’s characters in a way that had never been done live action. The set-up was great; the airplane battle scene was great, even the fight between Iron-Man and Captain America was done in a way that many of the audience members were screaming for them to stop because it was so heartbreaking to see these two duke it out.

The film reminded everyone that Marvel knows what the hell they are doing and for that we should say, “Thank You”.

So that’s what we have for this year folks. 2017 is going to bring us another set list of comic book films that could make or break a lot of expectations for all moviegoers a like and should be another amazing season of good times at the cinema. Let’s just hope that these studios don’t fuck it up in the oncoming year.

Honorable Mentions:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of Shadows
I don’t think we’ll get another sequel from that franchise.

Max Steel
You guys didn’t even know this movie was made and released.

What did you think was the best superhero movie of 2016? Be sure to sound off in the comment section below!