It’s fair to say that after more than a decade’s worth of Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe content, we’ve gone a bit crazy for major superheroes. Perhaps more even than the Westerns cowboys of old or the muscled action heroes of the ‘80s and ‘90s, comic book superheroes have completely taken over the film industry, to say nothing of the way they’ve infiltrated our lives through other means. Let’s be clear: We now have Marvel-themed workout mouthpieces.
This is all well and good. What’s fun is fun, and untold millions of people have gotten a great deal of amusement and joy out of the Marvel and DC takeover. At this point though, after more than a decade, it’s also fair to suggest that if superhero cinema is to endure, it’s going to need some new ideas and characters. Driving popular heroes into the ground, or reimagining them every few years (looking at you, Batman and Spidey) seems to be a surefire way to bore the public with this genre before another decade is up. If new heroes could capture similar magic though, superhero cinema could remain fresh.
These are the types of characters we’d love to see as part of the effort.
Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd is a rare comic book character from beyond DC and Marvel spheres who’s at least relatively well known. He’s been depicted in film multiple times, first by Sylvester Stallone and later by Karl Urban, and there are fans out there who have actually petitioned for further adaptations. A potential Netflix series has been reported, though there have been teases about Dredd before without anything coming to fruition. Our take is that at this point, with the potential for a show or film to take off on a streaming site without needing a feature film’s budget, the time is ripe for Dredd to come back, and for his fans to make themselves heard. This crime-fighting, dystopian super-cop is a blast to root for, and a far cry from the more formulaic Marvel and DC types.
Moon Knight
Not all fresh superheroes have to come from outside of Marvel and DC, and in fact we already know that Moon Knight is on the way. The mysterious Marvel hero is supposedly getting his own steaming show on the new Disney+ platform. The hope here is just that Marvel really goes for it with this series. Moon Knight is a delightfully bizarre character – a sort of Batman type powered by Egyptian mythology – and could, with the right approach, be darker and more unique than any cinematic superhero to date.
Universal Monsters
Thanks to the horrific debacles that were Dracula Untold and The Mummy, Universal’s efforts to build a “universe” out of their extensive monster properties have fallen flat. At this point, people still associate these monster properties with old, black-and-white films, or else with the free slot games at Canadian gaming sites. While Jekyll and Hyde might have their own slot reel though, and Frankenstein and Dracula may exist in dated horror classics, justice is not being done to these iconic characters. A true series of carefully crafted monster movies could just establish a new wave of Gothic and/or Victorian antiheroes – a sort of next iteration of the hero cinema phenomenon.
Gods
Ancient gods pop up here and there in comic book lore, and of course Thor – a prominent character thanks to the emergence of Chris Hemsworth – is a central character of modern superhero cinema. But it would also be thrilling to see superhero-style films revolving entirely around the same ancient gods as central characters. Imagine, for instance, a series of adventures about the likes of Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Ares; think about a streaming series exploring Norse mythology beyond Marvel-ized versions of Loki and Thor. Any version of this could represent an incredibly exciting next chapter for the genre.
