The summer movie season kicks off with Thor. I’m going to spend the next four weeks counting down the best comic book movies of all time. Before I can do that, I thought it would be fun to see what the worst comic book movies ever made is. I started with a humble list of 10 but it soon ballooned out to 20.

There have been many horrors committed on the public through bad comic book adaptations. It doesn’t have to be this way. Hollywood, you’re better than this.

20. Howard the Duck – I know Howard the Duck is a bad movie but honestly, watching it today, it has a lot of goofiness and charm. It has a good cult following and I really didn’t want to include it on the list as it’s one of the more faithful comic adaptations but at the end of the day, it’s still a bad movie and nothing can overcome the creepy duck suits.

19. X-Men Origins: Wolverine – This should have been on the other list but FOX executives don’t respect comic book properties and their constant mucking around destroyed anything that could have made this worthwhile. From cheap special effects, rubbery looking claws and a lackluster story, this was almost Wolverine’s only solo film.

18. Whiteout -  This self-contained story is a thrilling murder mystery set in Antarctica. The comic is virtually a storyboard for anyone making a movie version. The film ignored all that. Wrote out one of the better characters and made mess of the story.

17. Spider-Man 3 – Spider-man 3 suffers from Batman-itis. After two successful efforts, Sony decided it was time to go all out and what we get is a mess of a film. When will Hollywood learn that we don’t need two or three villains per movie. Just focus on the main villain and build a good story around that. That’s why the first two movie’s work so well.

16. Spawn – The comic has always been more style over substance. It only figures that the movie would do the same, expect it doesn’t. The action sequences are good but everything is hampered by third rate computer graphics which make the film look like an Asylum reject.

15. Red Sonja – After the success of Conan, it made sense to pull out other characters from that universe to exploit. What made Conan a success is that it was violent and didn’t pull any punches. Red Sonja made two mistakes: it went for a more kid friendly feel and starred Brigitte Nielsen. Both decisions were a catastrophic.

14. Judge Dredd – This is a difficult film to pull off. In the comic the main character never takes his helmet off and when you cast an A list actor in the lead, you’re damn well going to show his face. So what’s the first thing you do? Redesign the character, thus stripping away half the charm. Then you add an annoying sidekick in the form of Rob Schneider and things quick devolve from there. Hopefully the new film will correct some of these problems.

13. Ghost Rider – How is it we have a Ghost Rider movie and Wonder Woman is still having troubles getting made? This was a dream project for Nic Cage. It his appears his dream involves making shitty films. Ghost Rider is another in a long line of bad career moves for Cage and the soon to be released sequel could prove his taste will continue to be questionable.

12. Barb Wire – To be honest, the Dark Horse comic isn’t that good to begin with but when one of the hottest stars in the world wants to make a movie, you have to get a movie made. There aren’t many roles Pamela Anderson could choose from that would accommodate her need to exploit her body and shoot guns at the same time. Fortunately, the world realized that Anderson is a horrible actress. This not only killed the possibility of a sequel but also any chance of her becoming a film star.

11. Sheena – Tanya Roberts in a fur bikini, what could go wrong? Well, that one sentence sums up everything good and bad about Sheena. Roberts works great in small doses on TV but watching her carry a movie is like dying by quicksand while being poked at with a sharp stick. It’s slow, painful and feels like the torture will never end.

10. Alien vs. Predator – Not content to screw this up once, they made two Alien vs. Predator films. Both suck. While Alien vs. Predator: Requiem is incompetent, it at least has some intense violence and action. Alien vs. Predator commits the first cardinal rule of action films, don’t be boring. Instead of seeing Aliens and Predators fighting to the death, we get a lifeless story about a group of humans that find a secret Predator training base deep within Antarctica.

9. Catwoman – You know a film is going to suck when the costume redesign is revealed and it looks like a lost Warriors costume. Halle Berry was hot shit in the middle of the last decade. After the success of X2, Berry wanted her own comic book franchise, that dream died a horrible, horrible death. The only saving grace in the film is Sharon Stone, who appears to be acting in a totally different film.

8. Jonah Hex – Jonah Hex smacks of studio tampering. There appears to be the basis of a good film but something went horribly wrong. The scenes don’t always match up and the script doesn’t make much sense, which is a shame sense it has a great performance by Josh Brolin and John Malkovich is a fun villain. Maybe we’ll see a director’s cut of Jonah Hex someday.

7. Supergirl – Supergirl basically killed the aspiring career of Helen Slater and ruined the character not just for the big screen but for comics as well. I’m not saying this film is responsible for DC killing Supergirl in the Crisis on Infinite Earth story but it wouldn’t surprise me.

6. The Spirit – It’s hard to believe that director Frank Miller didn’t intend for The Spirit to be this bad. Miller has a huge love for Will Eisner and the character but after watching The Spirit, you would think he was getting revenge on Eisner for raping his mother.

5. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace – Deciding that Superman III didn’t do enough to destroy the franchise, Superman IV did what kryptonite and Lex Luthor could not do, it killed Superman. In fact, it pretty much killed comic book movies until Tim Burton and Batman breathed new life into comics onscreen.

4. Elektra – After the moderate success of Daredevil and the rising star that was Jennifer Garner, Elektra seems like it could be a moderate success. Combining sexiness and action in a boring convoluted abortion of filmmaking, Elektra not only killed any further adventures of the character and took Daredevil with it.

3. Steel – I’m so glad that Shaq has given up on being a movie star. Before he gave up on that dream, he adapted the DC comic character to screen. In the comics, John Henry Irons aka Steel is a super scientist that creates a super suit similar to Iron Man and kicks ass as Superman’s replacement. The movie distances itself from any connection to Superman, which is fine but Shaq takes a smart, clever character and basically reduces him to “Hulk Smash” level of intelligence.

2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Because American audiences are too stupid to understand characters from literature, LXG took a brilliant take on Victorian characters and dumbed them down a drooling imbecile level. After watching LXG, it’s easy to understand why creator Alan Moore hates movie versions of his films. I would hate them too if my best creations were used as toilet paper.

1. Batman & Robin – Not only the worst comic book movie ever made, it is a close contender for the worst Hollywood movie ever made. Filled with bad puns, overly campy set design and the worst product placement in film history (wouldn’t a Batman American Express kind of defeat the purpose of being a mysterious force of vengeance?), Batman and Robin is a perfect storm of bad decisions. Poor costume design, too many villains, bad casting choices and crappy looking sets would usually add up to a “so bad it’s good” kind of film but none of it works. This film fails on every level.

What is the worst comic book movie you’ve ever seen?