The success of “X-Men” and “Spiderman” earlier this decade jump started the phenomenon of “superhero” or “comic book” movies. Sure, the “Superman” and “Batman” movies of the 80’s and 90’s were successful, but the former really established that these movies have serious mainstream potential. If you ask me, the real key was that both “X-Men” and “Spiderman” confirmed that special effects advances created the ability to negate the cheesiness that coincides with translating animation to live action.

But, of course, like with any sort of overwhelming success, there’s a dark side. We’re all familiar with hangovers, morning afters, and rebuilding years. Here the equivalent is REALLY bad superhero movies.

And the weird thing about bad movies in this genre is that–for the most part–regardless of just how mind numbingly shitty they are, they all seem to make money. Even the ones that don’t crush the box office do enough to break even, creating a more than acceptable risk for studios.

After waking up Monday and seeing that “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” did $58 Million in the box office, I knew this column needed to be written. Did nobody see the first “Fantastic Four”? Outside of the gratuitous shots of Jessica Alba–who’s awesomeness has been well documented on this site–the first “Fantastic Four” was excruciatingly bad. “Caddyshack 2″ bad. Michael Chiklis looked like a post hangover turd. Some movies just shouldn’t be made. Some things–regardless the advancements in special effects–are just going to be unwatchably cheesy when translated to live action.

So in honor of all the fanboys sprinting to the multiplex, generating revenue for really shitty movies and paving the way for sequels, I’ve put together my Top 5 Crappy Superhero Movies list. The only caveat is that they had to have had a successful opening weekend (over $40 mil), which, sadly enough, turns out isn’t much of a caveat.

5) “Daredevil”: $40.3 Million

This movie is the height of the ‘Affleck doing movies outside of his range’ era. The dude went through like a three year spell where he starred in a bunch of movies he had no business being in. Affleck thrives when cracking jokes in Kevin Smith films, not shoving a stick up his ass and pretending to be a blind superhero. Fifty dollars to anyone who could take him seriously in this movie.

The real question is though: who went and saw “Daredevil” on opening weekend? Going into this column and establishing my 40 Mil threshold, I didn’t think “Daredevil” had a chance. Lesson learned: never doubt the fanboys.

4) “Ghost Rider”: $45.4 Million

Two problems here:

#1. A protagonist with a burning skull head is just not going to make the transition to live action. This movie was destined to be a suckfest. Anyone over 14 with a relevant opinion was going to find it difficult to take a skull head seriously.

#2. This is a classic Nic Cage trap movie. The dude says yes to too many movies not to churn out some serious bombs here and there. Anyone who went and saw this in the theater not solely for Eva Mendes should have known better. Too many warning signs.

Think about it the warning signs. Before “Ghost Rider”, Cage had just turned in a couple of solid flicks (i.e. “National Treasure”, “Lord of War”, and “The Weatherman”). He was too fucking old to play this character (see shitty hairpiece). The guy is a deep seeded dork and this movie provided too many opportunities for him to ham it up. Cage almost massacred “National Treasure” with his overacting, no way he wasn’t taking the opportunity to butcher this flick with a bunch of hard guy staring off into the distance moments.

3) “X-Men: The Last Stand”: $102.3 Million

First, let’s be clear that this ranking is no slight to the first two “X-Men” movies. They were both solid, especially the second one, it really kicked ass. And that’s why 3 is this high on the list. Was it as bad as “Daredevil” or “Ghost Rider”? No. But not only did it not even remotely live up to expectations set by the first two, it also made entirely too much money than the quality of the movie warranted.

Who’s idea was it to get the short chubby director who’s best movies star Chris Tucker to direct this thing anyway? Seems like there were better options.

2) “Hulk”: $62.1 Million

“Hulk” is #2, surpassing X-Men 3, because it’s the trifecta: didn’t live up to expectations, made a substantial amount of money, and was just an utterly painful movie to watch.

The most unsettling part about this movie is that a TV show from the 80’s starring Lou Ferrigno did a better job than big budget Hollywood on making this idea work. If you need a further point of reference, after this directorial triumph, Ang Lee made a movie about gay cowboys. What’s that tell you?

Side Note: There’s a second Hulk movie in the works by the guy who made the “Transporter” flicks. It’s starring Edward Norton. The way I look at it, as long as Ed Norton doesn’t end up open mouth kissing Jake Gyllenhaal at some point in this movie it will be a significant improvement on the first.

1) “Fantastic Four”: $56 Million; “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”: $58 Million

And in the top spot–based purely on how fucking awful these movies are, and that somehow two of them were made, and that somehow they’ve both made money–we have the “Fantastic Four” movies. (I haven’t actually paid to go see the second one, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have to to know it sucks.)

I have no real analysis here, except to say the success of these two movies is on you America. It’s on you.

Thank god Alba is in these movies so I can reason with myself that she’s driving the box office numbers, because otherwise “defection to Canada” might be a phrase I start seriously find myself thinking.

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