Click to play videoMumbai: Comic book heroes have always made for exciting larger-than-life, big-screen superheroes.
The formula's pretty much the same -- the battle between good and evil and you even know how the film's going to end in most cases.
But it's always the visual spectacle that separates one from the other. In 2002, Spider-Man spun his web at the box office, weaving in $114.8 million, making it the biggest opening weekend in American film history till that record was beaten in 2006 by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
In May last year, the third in the X-men series, X-men: The Last Stand stormed the box office, earning $45.5 million on opening night alone.
And despite the less-than-spectacular opening of last year's Superman Returns, Bryan Singer's revival of the Man Of Steel ended up making a respectable $200 million in all.
Filmmakers love the dark side of these comic book heroes. So while Sam Raimi brought us the dilemmas of a freshly minted superhero learning to get into the swing of things in Spider-Man and its 2004 sequel, director Tim Burton tapped into the dark avenger that is Batman in his 1989 hit movie.
That franchise was laid to rest in 1997 after the dismal response to Batman & Robin and it took a brand new director, a whole new approach and a spanking new cast to revive the Batman legacy in 2005 with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins starring Christian Bale.
In the same year, The Fantastic Four about a group of people with recently acquired special powers grossed $56 million in its opening weekend, and a sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will arrive in cinemas this June.
The fantasy-fuelled figureheads of comic art are, however, sometimes lost in translation on the big screen.
Halle Berry's Catwoman coughed up a hairball, earning it the dubious distinction of the Worst Film of the Year in 2004.
Geek favourite Hellboy may be a fan's delight with its Molotov's cocktail of twisted characters, but the 2004 film didn't make much of a noise at the box-office.
Sadly, the same fate was met by 2003's Daredevil, which featured Ben Affleck as blind lawyer Matt Murdock who metamorphosed into the leather-pants-wearing superhero looking for justice on the streets of New York.
Even that film's spinoff, the Jennifer Garner-starrer Elektra turned out to be a dud in 2005.
And although Ang Lee's Hulk was a superhero film on the lines of a classic tragedy, its failure made it clear that audiences still preferred their punch-ups without too much psychobabble.
After all, on the comic book canvas, the hero saves the day, no questions asked.
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