14 Times Comic Book Movies Completely F*cked Iconic Villains

Hollywood has a problem with comic book movie villains. It's not simply because of the high benchmark set by the likes of Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson with their Jokers, or Tom Hiddleston with his Loki, it's because there are just so many of them that flat out suck.

It's inevitable, given the precedent of those problematic examples that people would have some reservations about comic book movies trying to bring iconic villains to life. Even with a whole universe of source material, iconic story arcs and years of helpful establishing work to base their portrayals on, several film-makers (and not even all bad ones) have failed to do them justice.

Perhaps it's because film-makers inevitably seek to put "their own spin" on these characters, seemingly ignoring the source with the arrogance of people absolutely destined to fail. Occasionally, such frivolous impetuousness works - as it did for Ultron, Ledger's Joker and The Mandarin (if you think the racially charged stereotype would have been better, there's something wrong with you), but all too often, they inevitably lead to betrayals of great characters.

When you think about it, it's all pretty insulting.