10 Comic Book Movies Everyone Tried To Copy

7. Batman

When comic book movies were just beginning, everything was about the confident superhero. From the first time that Superman graced the big screen, it was always about making everything feel like a comic book being brought to life in front of your eyes. It may have been a lot of fun, but Tim Burton had a few other plans for the tale of Batman.

A far cry from the original Adam West show, 1989's Batman was the first time moviegoers got to see an actual dark superhero coming to the forefront. Even though there were some fantastical elements to the production, this Batman felt like a true adaptation of that same hardened vigilante we had gotten used to reading about in the comics.

The formula proved so well with the original story that Burton himself became one of the first to copy his formula on Batman Returns, which doubled down on the darker side of the character. Though it may have been released at the tail end of the '80s, Batman gave many directors incentive to go darker into the '90s, with movies like the Crow and Blade playing up the more grim aesthetic of what these superpowered beings could really do. Even with over 3 decades under its belt, this Tim Burton masterpiece remains one of the most ever-green comic book stories ever told.