All of 2018’s comic-book movies - ranked

It feels a bit mean to stick Once Upon A Deadpool at the very bottom of this list, but, let’s face it, it was a bit of a noble failure. Noble, because the profits went to charity. Failure, because it was essentially an editing experiment that didn’t work, removing all the stuff that makes Deadpool special (the violence, the rude stuff), which negatively impacts the flow and feel of the film.
The additional Fred Savage scenes are funny, but this should have been a DVD extra, not a full cinematic release.

With an astonishing performance at its centre, I Kill Giants transcends its low-budget origins to create a genuinely fascinating adaptation of the Image fantasy series.
It’s definitely not perfect, with a strange – dark – tone that makes you wonder who it’s aimed at, but if you can move past that, I Kill Giants is worth tracking down.
Just don’t expect action – this is more A Monster Calls than Pacific Rim.

Look, we enjoyed Venom – the dictionary definition of a guilty pleasure. And audiences did too, the film’s earned $852,695,076 at the worldwide box office at the time of writing, which is fairly astonishing.
Weird, creepy, and truly bizarre, Venom lands near the bottom of our list, but we’re still probably going to buy it on Blu-ray.

It’s a reflection of how good a year for comic-book movies 2018 was by how low down Ant-Man And The Wasp is on our rankings. It’s well-made, charming, funny, but a bit too slight, feeling like only the last moments really mattered.

Not a typical comic-book movie by any means, but it was based on the 2012 autobiographical graphic novel by cartoonist John ‘Derf’ Backderf, so it totally counts.
And, in a way, this is as much an origin story as most opening entries in a new superhero series, except here we’re watching a serial killer coming into existence, as opposed to a vigilante in a cape.
Disturbing, but very compelling – you might have missed My Friend Dahmer on release, but it’s worth tracking down on DVD. Just don’t double-bill it with anything else on this list.

Proving that the first film wasn’t a fluke, the foul-mouthed and funny superhero satire provided more evidence that playing Deadpool is Ryan Reynolds’ mutant power, Hs pitch perfect delivery (of one-liners and bullets) is the secret to the movie’s success.

The DCEU’s resurgence continues following Wonder Woman (we’re just going to pretend Justice League didn’t happen), with a fast-paced and fun Flash Gordon meets Romancing The Stone take on the character. In another year, this probably also would have a higher placement.

Superhero animation went next-level in 2018, with Teen Titans Go To The Movies finding critical and commercial success, entertaining kids and adults alike. Packed with gags, references and genuinely catchy songs, this was essentially The LEGO Movie, but for superhero geeks. Yep, that good. Even so, it’s still not the highest placed cartoon on our list.

Watching Into The Spider-Verse is like living in the greatest graphic novel ever written. Vibrant, imaginative and pulsing with brilliant ideas, Spider-Verse achieved the impossible and made us care about YET ANOTHER Sony Spider-Man origin movie, by deconstructing what it means to be the character. A stunning artistic achievement in basically every respect.

We know, we know – the most hyped movie of the year (decade?) has topped most superhero fans’ end of year lists, but we’ve got our eye on the future with our number one pick this year, for reasons we’ll get to in a moment.
Still, that’s no shade at Infinity War, it’s obviously one of the best blockbusters ever made – gathering all of our favourite MCU heroes and effortlessly weaving them together in a genuinely compelling – and extremely surprising film. And, we’re in the Endgame now, so who knows where the second part of this saga will rank next year.

Black Panther has made such a cultural impact this year, the Academy Awards almost added a new category – ‘Best Popular Film’ – just so they could give it an Oscar in 2019. Its director, Ryan Coogler, was shortlisted for Time’s Person Of The Year.

This is a film that has a genuine shot at being the first superhero movie to make a clean sweep at every major awards ceremony next year. So, it couldn’t be anywhere but number one on our list.
It helps that it’s ridiculously entertaining, with stand-out characters and cleverly choreographed set-pieces combining to create genuine thrills. It might not be the logistical achievement of Infinity War, but in terms of impact, it’s the most significant superhero movie since The Dark Knight.