The Top Ten Superhero Movie Trailers

With the official release of the teaser trailers for Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" and Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" having just hit the web this week (and the teaser for "The Avengers" is said to appear after the end credits of Joe Johnston's "Captain America: The First Avenger"), I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the best trailers ever compiled for superhero flicks. There have been a boatload of superhero movies over the years, and all the crime-busting awesomeness of the ass-kicking vigilantes at the centre of their stories must be condensed into under three minutes of footage at some point or another for marketing purposes. Intended to wow the comic book nerds as well as entice general moviegoers, some of these trailers turn out to be rather awe-inspiring, and are known to make the nerds a teensy bit aroused on occasion. So, here is my list of the top ten superhero movie trailers ever to make the geeks jizz in their pants with sweaty excitement; grab a box of tissues if necessary.

10. "Blade 2" (2002)

First up is the trailer that attracted audiences to go see Guillermo del Toro's superior sequel to Stephen Norrington's vampire-slaying superhero feature "Blade." The trailer crams in a plethora of cheesy action, slow-motion thrills, electrifying music, gravelly voiced narration, and a smidgen of tongue-in-cheek humour, succeeding in making "Blade 2" look just a little bit cool; as if that was a hard task. And I love how they changed the line, "You do not know who you are fucking with!" to, "You do not know who you are messing with!" Gotta get the kiddies to see this too, I guess.

9. "Daredevil" (2003)

Say what you will about the movie itself (boo, Ben Affleck, hiss, etc.), but this promotional video is friggin' badass, ain't it? While Mark Steven Johnson's "Daredevil" may not 100% live up to the trailer's promises, these 150 seconds of video are undoubtedly awesome in their showing off of the film's action and the introductions of its intriguing characters. And doesn't the use of Evanescence towards the end make the hair on the back of your neck stand up? No? Just me then. I like Evanescence...

8. "Superman" (1978)

A bit of an oldie now, and it's for the superhero film that partly started it all: Richard Donner's "Superman," which apparently stars Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman more than it does Superman himself, Christopher Reeve, if the trailer is to be believed. Anyway, it's an enthralling two-and-a-half minutes that appropriately muster up a sense of awe and wonder for what would of course turn out to be a wonderful film and an instant classic. Still, why does Brando get top billing? He's in the film for, what, like, five minutes at the beginning? Eugh.*

7. "Superman Returns" (2006)

Staying with the man of steel, here's the much-anticipated fourth sequel to Donner's original. Yes, it’s "Superman Returns," the film that made everyone hate director Bryan Singer (cut him some slack, he made "X-Men 2!"). You can tell just from these 90 seconds of footage that it's a film made with much love for the original, with the original theme tune humming in the background and Brando's voice intellectually narrating away. Whatever your feelings are on the film, this is definitely a fabulous little teaser which intrigues without giving much away in terms of plot (though I think Superman returns in it).

6. "X-Men 2" (2003)

The trailer for the second (and some would say best) outing of the X-Men team promised big action, cool thrills, more mutants and Hugh Jackman knifing strangers in a vest, and that thankfully is exactly what we got. There are two things I love about this trailer: 1) The introduction of each of the protagonists with title cards, each of them given their own 5-second tribute, and 2) The sound-effect at 2:09 when Mystique kicks a dude in the face. Seriously, did she shape-shift her foot into a fist?

5. "Iron Man" (2008)

And the marketing for "The Avengers" begins, with the first big-screen adaptation of one of the team's heroic members. When the trailer was first released, "Iron Man" was not what many would consider a household name, but after they caught a glimpse of this explosive arrangement of footage, the man in the metal suit was quickly dead-set on becoming one. The trailer showed the movie off as a true summer blockbuster, all jam-packed with explosions, colourful visuals, light-hearted comedy, Robert Downey Jr. with very fashionable facial hair, and a Black Sabbath soundtrack. Hellz yeah. And Ozzy Osbourne saying, "I am Iron Man" at the end is pure brilliance; his voice should be at the end of every trailer, shouldn't it?

4. "Kick-Ass" (2010)

"Kick-Ass" was very unconventional for the superhero genre, what with its blood-splattering violence, morbid sense of humour, overuse of profanity (OMG, a 12-year-old girl says the C word!) and its scenes of people exploding in giant microwaves. And every one of its trailers showed off all this family-unfriendly content very nicely, giving a full sense of the zany craziness that is Matthew Vaughn's crowd-pleasing vigilante comedy. They can't see through walls and they can't fly, but they can sure make an impressive trailer.

3. "Spider-Man 2" (2004)

If there's one trailer that's ever made a movie look ridiculously entertaining, it's this one for Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 2," the magnificent sequel to the 2002 box office smash (and this one unsurprisingly was an ever bigger smasher of box offices). This trailer packs in drama, comedy, emotion, romance, and, of course, web-slinging action, culminating in the goosebump-inspiring last 40 seconds, set to a heart-racing orchestral song by Immediate Music. I want to make love to that music. How may this be arranged?

2. "Watchmen" (2009)

It was long-said that Alan Moore's ground-breaking graphic novel "Watchmen" was unfilmable (Terry Gilliam tried and failed to do so). And when it was announced that Warner Bros. were doing a big-screen adaptation of the cult superhero book, hopes were not exactly high for it. And then this trailer landed online, and all the naysayers quickly shut the hell up. This is a trailer with which the word "epic" is very, very appropriate, with the visual magnificence of it all just absolutely stunning. The choice of music ("The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" by The Smashing Pumpkins) is breath-taking, and the abundance of slow-motion is very eye-pleasing indeed. Sure, the movie wasn't too great itself, but this trailer is unmistakeably a spectacular work of art, naked blue men and all.

1. "The Dark Knight" (2008)

How could you watch this and not want to see the movie as soon as humanly possible? I guess it seems many felt the same, judging by the enormity of the money Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" proudly raked in. This is the kind of trailer that truly does make a great film look great, it doing absolute justice to what is a deftly crafted piece of superhero entertainment. The way it teases at Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning performance as The Joker, the way it sums up the scale of the film, the little snippets of action, the use of Hans Zimmer's tremendous score; it's all very spine-tingling, and we are very lucky that it met expectations after this, let alone exceeded them.

*Yes, I'm aware that Brando and Hackman were given top billing due to them having more recognisable names than Reeve at the time. But still, come on, Reeve is Superman, for Christ's sake!