1. Thunderbolts The problem, really, is that in order to work best, a movie would need recognisable villains, and those are mostly tied up with other franchises. Likewise, the big reveal of the debut issue of Thunderbolts – that the new team was actually composed of the Masters of Evil impersonating heroes – would be incredibly hard to pull off on film, especially if it was using a cast of otherwise unknown villains. It’s not an impossible task, but the chances of it ever happening seem unfortunately slim.
  2. Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics version)
  3. Green Arrow The “heroic archer” archetype is, in itself, an enduring one. Who amongst us hasn’t heard of Robin Hood, for example? It’s a concept so strong that both DC and Marvel (in Hawkeye) both have their own versions – unfortunately, translate the characters to the screen, and what you have is less a super-hero movie, more “Robin Hood in New York.” In Oliver Queen’s case, you’ve also got some fairly ridiculous facial hair as well.
  4. Captain Britain It doesn’t matter how fantastic the current comic, as written by Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell is, nor does it matter that Alan Moore himself wrote plenty of Captain Britain material – in a country where jingoistic flag-waving types are currently looked down upon as being slightly backwards at best, and bigoted racists at worst, a country where the national traits are mild embarrassment and a love for understatement, – the very people Captain Britain would be directly aimed at to are the same people who would treat the concept with the most amount of disdain. Britons: don’t try to understand us.
    Furthermore, it’s widely suggested that films can’t really carry more than one ridiculous concept at a time. A Captain Britain film would not only ask viewers to believe in the need for a patriotic, flag-wearing Brit vigilante who ISN’T a member of the National Front, but also with the fact that he gets his powers from the same place as King Arthur and fights an invincible reality-hopping robot from another dimension. Er, right. I’ll file that under the “maybe” pile, shall I?
    Now, bear in mind that I’m not suggesting that these characters could NEVER make it to the screen – after all, if someone out there has the correct ratio of money to sense that lets them fund a Man-Thing feature, anything is possible – but chances are that these characters and concepts will require extensive reworking in order to make it onto screen. The kind of re-working that will make you wish they hadn’t, in fact.
    Still, if you think I’m wrong, feel free to say – and if you think you have your own ideas about a comic that’s never getting made, well, let’s hear it!