Does that come with a cape and some tights?

John of Tosy and Cosh posts a list of his favorite superhero movies. So it seems right that I should do the same:

1. Superman. The original is still far and away the best superhero film I have ever seen. It's got humor, epic scope, and just plain fun galore. It's a great film. (Gotta get it on DVD.)

2. X-Men 2. This is the film that the first X-Men should have been. I loved the way it captured the whole "moral ambiguity" thing that marked the X-Men comic of the Chris Claremont years, when the X-Men would sometimes end up fighting side-by-side with a mortal enemy of theirs (Magneto, in this case).

3. Spiderman 2. The second Spiderman film got everything right.

4. Spiderman. The first Spiderman film almost got everything right, but the ending was a serious disappointment.

5. Batman Forever. The Val Kilmer installment, which is still my favorite Batman flick. I liked nearly everything about this film, and it still has my favorite line from a Batman film, when Alfred tells Bruce Wayne that young Dick Grayson has gone off in "the car": Wayne says something like, "he took my Porsche?" to which Alfred does a slow burn and says, "No, sir...the other car!" Cut to Dick Grayson having a blast in the Batmobile....)

6. X-Men. This film really needed an extra half-hour of running time to really get good. Some of the characterizations are really short-changed.

7. Superman II. This film is often cited as a rare sequel that's better than the original, but not by me. It doesn't gel together well for me, but I find it fun to watch. I don't really like the entire last half hour, though. Superman's ultimate victory over the supervillains is a great moment (the crunching of the bones in Zod's hand, and his subsequent moan of shocked agony, is priceless), but the stuff leading up to it goes on too long, the fight in the Fortress of Solitude just gets weird, and I hate the "hypnosis of Lois" thing at the end.

8. Batman Returns. I didn't like the first Batman flick that much, but I enjoyed the second a great deal. And you have to credit Tim Burton for making sure the film's best line, spoken to Catwoman, gets delivered by Chistopher Walken: "Can I get you anything? A ball of string?"

That's about it, I suppose.