Movie Superheroes That Failed To Break Into The Big Leagues

Six tepid, stupid or just plain broken superheroes that ultimately failed to obtain their own franchise:

1. Steel

Proving once and for all that giant basketball players should stick to peddling footwear as far as their acting careers go. Shaquille O'Neal IS "Steel", a junkyard metalworker-slash-inventor whose non-lethal weapons are rejected by the military (hm, that explains why pillow fighting the Germans in WWII never got us anywhere). After a stupid accident, blah blah, he dons a suit of extremely tacky armor and goes to town on the bad guys. Burger King rejected marketing this movie on the basis of "You look like a freakin' goofball", and Steel went back into obscurity as a superhero whose biggest pitfall is sounding like a car with a broken transmission downshifting into third whenever he walks down the block.

2. Condorman

I suppose all of the good animals were taken already, but... geez. When choosing an animal to base your superhero motif off of, perhaps a carrion bird with a severe double chin is not the way to go. Girls are also turned off by guys with rotting carcass on their breath. But nobody told CONDORMAN this, for he will swoop in with his overly tacky costume (which includes the most inconspicuous hang glider in the world) and defeat evil because evil is laughing too hard at this moron to care.

3. The Phantom

Sure, you might've been big stuff back in "the day": the first costumed superhero, a proto-Indiana Jones/Lara Croft with jungle roots and dual .45 pistols. You even have a cool second nickname as "The Ghost Who Walks" (but never jogs). But let's face the facts, and call a big purple guy in tights a... well, big purple guy in tights. There's no way of getting around your familial relationship with Barney. Men will just scoff at, rather than fear, you. Women will rather have you color-coordinate their living room scheme than pull you into the bedroom. And goths will rip you to shreds just to take up quarters in Skull Cave. A Lose-lose-lose situation.

4. Pumaman

Pumaman! Now, with 40% more puma! Can fly like puma! What, puma doesn't fly? Pumaman flies, shows how much you know! Puma powered by Aztecs! Cool Aztecs, with magical gold! Pumaman fall from window, but lives! Has Puma-Sense, which is much better than Spider-Sense! Spider-Sense only detect mild danger from athlete's foot! Pumaman is GOD! Worship Pumaman, you weak dinky mortal! Bring him puma-grapes! Pray you don't become his next meal!

5. Blankman

Leave it to one of the Wayans to take the hallowed Batman franchise and desecrate it in as many ways possible. Perhaps I'm mistaken, and you're of the sort that enjoys grown men acting like immature idiots while draining you of the remaining brain cells that aren't dedicated to Halo and Grand Theft Auto. For the rest of you, I urge us all to an uprising against the Wayans clan, a revolution to a single united means: a world free of their stupidity. What's most frustrating is that after White Chicks and Little Man, I can't even say that this is the worst Wayans film out there.

6. Orgazmo

It's possible that some people found this [CENSORED] film a laugh riot, a send-up of Mormons, superheroes and the pornographic industry all at once, but we think that that is [CENSORED]. As much as our young ones need roles models for the 21st century, a man who gives [CENSORED] to evil doers, accompianed by his sidekick [CENSORED], won't probably meet the standards. Hey Trey Parker, we like you just fine, but giving villains a "happy tickle" doesn't help the rest of the heroic community any.