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Jim Van Nest - As a non-comic book reader who knows everything he knows about super heroes from TV and movies...really, there's only 1 major super hero (and by major, I mean "known to people outside of of comic shops") and that's Wonder Woman. You might be able to throw someone like Aquaman in there, but after Entourage, maybe not so much anymore.

Brett Beach: As a major comic book reader many many moons ago - and never really since - I am going to go '80s retro (and group mentality over individual mentality) and say Power Pack or The New Mutants. Truth be told, I think I liked those a little more than X-Men at the time I was reading them. And since Secret Wars and Secret Wars II have also been in my conscious mind, the Beyonder would make a great character for a writer and/director up for the challenge. I have now exhausted my patter on this topic.

David Mumpower: Bruce mentions Deadpool and I want to examine that for just a moment. When I was playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 last year, I finally "got" Deadpool. There was a sequence in a train station and a random piece of dialogue was Deadpool offering this non sequitur: "Sure, Villain X is a bad guy but at least he keeps the train running on time." I busted up at that and ever since then, I've appreciated just how much fun that character is. I was disappointed how poorly used he was in the disastrous Wolverine movie but if Ryan Reynolds gets to make that movie, I'm there on opening night.

With regards to everyone else in DC and Marvel, we have reached a point of diminishing returns. Wonder Woman has failed to get off the ground as a movie and a television show. The problem the character has is that there isn't that one memorable villain in the rogues gallery that jumps off the page, leaving us with a super-hot, semi-invincible Amazon warrior. And Xena already knocked that story out of the park. I cannot take Ant-Man as a movie seriously as it fails the laugh test. While I would personally enjoy an Iron Fist/Luke Cage buddy flick, it wouldn't have a lot of mainstream appeal and with a Jessica Jones television show in development, I would imagine all three characters have their rights locked up anyway. Martian Manhunter is the most powerful DC superhero yet to get a movie but given the stifled yawn directed at Green Lantern, I don't see that project getting off the ground any time soon.

Looking over the options, I think DC has a lot of trouble in this regard. Ignoring the latest Superman reboot for a moment and laughing away the very thought of Aquaman, the most established remaining icon is Green Arrow. Even if there were a way to distinguish the character away from its Smallville implementation, the perception among fanboys is that Hawkeye, soon to be featured in The Avengers, is the much better character. I disagree with this assertion, but I don't have a lot of hope for a Green Arrow project in the short term. Similarly, if a Justice League movie cannot get off the ground, I would suggest moving toward a Justice Society film (they're entirely different in spite of the similar names if you didn't know), but people will continue to tilt windmills at Justice League instead.

The one character with a huge reputation that I think could star in a popular film is Batgirl. While everyone remembers Birds of Prey as a huge failure as a television series, the initial ratings for it were *massive* and it wound up averaging about 7.6 million viewers per episode. That's a solid hit these days rather than a canceled series. With the era of chicks who kick ass in full bloom, this is an idea that needs reexamining although the disaster that was Catwoman makes it unlikely. This leaves us with outsider projects such as Sandman/Death from Neil Gaiman or Y the Last Man as the titles with the best combination of fertile ideas and awareness. We're also about due for another Spawn reboot as well. In fact, with Walking Dead so popular right now, Image Comics is probably the best place to look for the next major comic movie adaptation. I would also love to see Irredeemable and Incorruptible get adapted at some point, but I'm not sure the Boom! Studios releases have enough familiarity quite yet.

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