12 Greatest Ever Comic Book Movie Anti-Heroes

2. Deadpool

Deadpool's relationship with film-makers has been a difficult one, despite the fact that he's been given the most improbable of second chances after the awful X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He's not exactly marketable in mainstream terms: he loves violence, he looks pretty gruesome and he has a limiting fondness for saying f*ck.

But Deadpool has an astonishing tide of fandom goodwill precisely for those reasons. He is beloved because he's the anti-Superman: outrageous, sweary, sexually provocative and very much not the superhero you'd take home to your parents. He's a lot like Wolverine, whether either of them would care to admit it, and both are just as drawn to protecting weakness as they are to berserking.

And yes, Ryan Reynolds' original performance as the Merc With A Mouth DOES count towards the goodwill. The Wade Wilson side of the performance anyway. If it didn't, there's no way the R-Rated reboot would ever have been considered even remotely viable.