20 Worst Performances In Superhero Movies

By Jack Pooley /

7. Mark Pillow (Nuclear Man) - Superman IV: The Quest For Peace

Warner Bros.

Oh boy. Superman IV is rightly regarded as one of the worst superhero movies of all time, not least because its sees the Man of Steel facing off against the hilariously-monikered Nuclear Man, who was created when Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor fired a nuclear bomb into the sun with one of Superman's hairs attached. Really.

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Nuclear Man is played by Mark Pillow, who had never acted in a film before though clearly met the statuesque requirements of the part at least.

Pillow's voice is dubbed over by Gene Hackman (his "father"), so it's hard to judge his delivery, but his stiff physicality is more unintentionally comical than unsettling, and it doesn't help at all that he's saddled with such a lame character.

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Pillow isn't among the very worst entries on this list because several of Nuclear Man's worst aspects aren't really his fault, but still, there's no denying he contributed to creating one of the worst movie supervillains of all time.