Top Ten Greatest Comic-Book Movie Posters
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
The Poster: Wolverine makes his presence known by using his knuckle-knives to inform us that this is the third X flick.
Designed By: The Cimarron Group, the folks also responsible for those bad-ass Bridesmaids posters, plus one-sheets for Twilight: Eclipse , Gran Torino and Hellboy .
How Faithful: Super-faithful. Brett Ratner’s trilogy-capper may have a menagerie of super-powered characters at its disposal, but as always, it’s Wolverine who provides the heart (and face fuzz) of the picture. It's here, after all, that his trilogy-spanning love affair with Jean Grey comes to an explosive head...
Superman (1978)
The Poster: A Japanese ‘B1’ poster used to promote the comic book adaptation on distant shores.
Designed By: Movie poster guru Bob Peak provided the artwork (the shot of Reeves is one that wasn’t used in American marketing). We can only assume the Japanese distributors added the Japanese text.
How Faithful: More exciting than the American version, this one features both the man you’ll believe can fly (staring right at you for added drama) and a title logo in swooshy 3D.
A History Of Violence (2005)
The Poster: Deliriously moody, with pregnant clouds threatening a downpour as Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) protects his wife (Bello) from some dude with a firearm.
Designed By: Intralink Film Graphic Design, who also gave us those awesome Batman Begins posters, the iconic 300 one-sheets, and Schwarzenegger being all muscular on the poster for Raw Deal . Plus loads, loads more .
How Faithful: It’s basically an artistic freeze-frame from the movie itself, this being that moment when Tom goes up against a gun-wielding goon. Also, the fact that the gun’s covering half of Mortensen’s face is seething with subtext – this guy isn’t who he seems to be.
Thor (2011)
The Poster: An almost two-toned character one-sheet introducing us to the mighty Thunder God. It’s part of a series of character posters for the film that also included Odin, Loki and love interest Jane.
Designed By: BLT & Associates, the chaps who also brought us awesome artwork for Avengers Assemble (more great character sheets), Red and Tron Legacy .
How Faithful: Thor means business, all suited and booted to kick some ass – this is definitely the heroic Thor from the second half of the film, not the flippant manchild of the first half. Also, Chris Hemsworth’s wavy locks are just as shiny as in the movie.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
The Poster: Bruce (Ed Norton) and his angry alter-ego shield us from a scene of downtown carnage that’s straight from the movie itself.
Designed By: Crew Creative Advertising, the company that also had us swooning for Megan Fox with their Jennifer’s Body ads, made us giggle at Sacha Baron Cohen on their Bruno one-sheet, and marvel at how wrecked Naomi Watts looked on their Funny Games poster.
How Faithful: The Hulk sure is huge in this sort-of-reboot second outing for the green giant, and Norton looks fittingly tortured as Brucie. It resembles the classic TV show more than the film, though, and now we have them back-to-back, the change in trouser size is really noticeable, isn’t it?
Batman (1989)
The Poster: A gleaming teaser for Tim Burton’s defining comic adaptation that doesn’t reveal Batman, but still has us chomping at our fingernails in excitement.
Designed By: B.D. Fox Independent, who previously gave us that phenomenal pumpkin-knife Halloween (1978) poster, the cycling-past-the-moon E.T. ad, and the evil-storm-clouds-rolling-in Fright Night (1986) placard.
How Faithful: Well, it’s an exact replica of the insignia on Batman’s chest, so yep, pretty faithful. The twinkly light flares also hint at Burton’s slightly campy pop-art take on the material (campy in comparison to Nolan's trilogy, of course, and a model of restraint next to Schumacher's disasters).
The Crow (1994)
The Poster: A dark, minimalistic ad for Alex Proyas’ tortured (in more ways than one) comic adap. The touted remake will need to do something really special to top it.
Designed By: Intralink Film Graphic Design, the same chaps who gave us the History Of Violence poster on this list. As well as that, they gave us one-sheets for 28 Weeks Later , Deep Blue Sea and the 1999 version of House On Haunted Hil l (yes, the bloody handprint one).
How Faithful: Simply oozing a tangible, gothic mood, this one-sheet easily reflects the ambience of the movie itself, with Lee’s hunched anti-hero as enigmatic in pose mode as he is on-screen.
Sin City (2005)
The Poster: Wet as an April weekend, with Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen and co all braving a downpour for one seriously bad-ass one-sheet.
Designed By: That’d be BLT & Associates again ( Thor ). Their other stunning credits include the arachnid-shadow Amazing Spider-Man poster, that beautiful red planet John Carter poster and the recently released Django Unchained tease r.
How Faithful: Uber-faithful, without a doubt. This is damn near a carbon copy of the comic artwork by Frank Miller – only with a few A-listers thrown in for good measure. Even the title font is the same, reflecting the fact that the film is as much a companion piece for the graphic novels as it is a movie adap.
Iron Man (2008)
The Poster: Robert Downey Jr. and an impressive cast of A-gamers strike contemplative poses, as Iron Man’s gleaming eye-sockets bore right into us.
Designed By: Only BLT & Associates again. These guys seem to have cornered the market when it comes to awesome comic book artwork. Wonder if they’ll give us a Catwoman version of The Dark Knight Rises poster any time soon…
How Faithful: It’s slick, it’s got explosions, and Paltrow looks good with a red ‘do – we’d say this is a perfect representation of the movie.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Poster: Easily one of the coolest, most iconic one sheets out there – whether we’re talking about superhero posters or posters in general.
Designed By: Well, it had to be BLT & Associates, didn’t it? These guys have four posters on this list, and it’s not hard to see why – they’re basically the Saul Basses of poster-making. (On a side note, we swear this list isn’t sponsored by BLT… No really.)
How Faithful: So faithful we’ve got shivers. Not only is that a line The Joker barks himself with lip-smacking craziness, but the imagery reflects the mad man's characteristics – here, he’s all misty and out of focus, because we never know anything concrete about this Joker. Shiver.
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