There’s a greater depth to comic books than heroes defeating villains and good overcoming evil. For more than 100 years the combination of sophisticated narrative and smart illustrations has revealed how young people have identified and dealt with culture and politics through the decades.

But, more importantly, comic books are really cool. In many cases they’ve been brought to life by Hollywood producers, delivering the characters and their adventures to a worldwide audience. In fact, it’s easy to underestimate just how many films have come from the pen of comic book writers.

But it’s not easy transferring the stories told by coloured ink on floppy paper into big Hollywood blockbusters. Comic book fans generally agree that From Hell was a poor and thoroughly disappointing conversion, while anyone involved in the making of The Spirit is probably wondering whether it’s safe to come out from underneath the duvet yet.

With that in mind, here are five super cool comic book films that have done their paper-based counterparts justice.

Kick Ass

The plight of David Lizewski is an interpretation of what might have been for his creator Mark Miller, who wrote the comic book series with his friend and illustrator John Romita.

It’s a unique take on the comic book superhero. Kick Ass was a result of Miller’s secret ambitions to become a superhero himself when he was a teenager. Obviously he must have realised that he was much safer writing about his vigilante urges rather than acting on them.

Fans of the comic book series and the Hollywood film will be delighted to learn that Kick Ass 2 is hitting cinema screens this summer. But being massive fans you probably already knew that.

The Dark Knight

Batman has come a long way since the days when Adam West and Burt Ward used to punch, kick and throw poorly assembled wooden chairs at pesky goons to produce onomatopoetic explosions while someone strummed the show’s theme tune on a bass guitar in the background.

It’s only when you watch Christopher Nolan’s trilogy – particularly The Dark Knight, with Christian Bale as our superhero and the late Heath Ledger as the enigmatic Joker – that you appreciate what Batman has now become.

The Dark Knight was a massive box office smash and comfortably outperformed Batman Begins, grossing more than $1bn worldwide. In many ways it supported the success of The Dark Knight Rises, which recently became the ninth highest grossing film of all time.

Iron Man 3

Robert Downey, Jr (or should that be Robert Downey-Pants Jr?) doesn’t get out of bed these days unless it’s to play the role of an eccentric British detective from the nineteenth century or an eccentric billionaire who makes mechanical suits of armour.

The Iron Man trilogy has been a huge success for Marvel Studios. Downey gets to play a comic book hero who flies around a lot wearing metal suits. But every superhero has a weakness, and it begs the question why none of his adversaries have yet explored the possibility of bringing him down with a massive magnet.

Sin City

An all-star cast including Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba and Clive Owen really brought this comic book series to life. By using splashes of colour in a mostly black and white production, it created a dark and moody atmosphere, befitting of such a city and the twisted tales it had to tell.

Although not the biggest performer at the box office, Sin City is well respected as a movie that managed to capture the heart of the comics and successfully reproduce them on film. The fact that it was written, directed and produced by Frank Miller – the author of the comics – probably helped.

Superman

It seems outrageous not to include possibly the most iconic superhero of all time. The comics have been in existence for 80 years and several movies have been made – from the original in 1978 starring Christopher Reeve to the much anticipated 2013 recent release Man of Steel.

Superman, directed by Richard Donner, brought our DC Comics hero to life. It remains one of the greatest comic book films of all time and its success spawned several sequels and enough TV series to shake a fairly large stick at.

Today the Superman logo is universally recognised and worn upon thousands of fans’ chests with no apparent irony.

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