Actors who have played more than one comic book super hero

I blogged about Ben Affleck being Batman the other day and why I think it could work.

One of the reasons I mentioned was his performance in Daredevil. While some critics and viewers didn’t like the movie, I thought it was decent, if not borderline good.

So Batman and Daredevil will both be on Ben Affleck’s list of super hero portrayals. Not too shabby.

He’s actually not alone in playing more than one super hero. Affleck joins a short list of actors who have played more than one hero or villain in the Marvel and D.C. universes.


Ryan Reynolds delivered two somewhat substandard performances as different heroes.

His first was in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In that movie, Reynolds played Wade Wilson.

By the end of the movie, it became obvious that Wade was actually the very bad-ass mutant known as Deadpool. I guess it was supposed to lead to a separate Deadpool movie, but the movie’s lower-than-expected box office results put a kibosh on that.

Reynolds had a chance to redeem himself as Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie. It was an alright movie considering the overabundance of CGI, but, at the end of the day, I can see why it didn’t leave a lasting impression with movie-goers.

Nonetheless, Deadpool and Green Lantern? That’s almost as impressive as Affleck nabbing roles as both Batman and Daredevil.

Halle Berry knows a little something about landing iconic super hero roles too.

When the X-Men movies were being cast, Berry was probably an obvious choice to play Storm, one of the more dynamic characters in the X-Men comics.

Halle, an Academy Award winning actress, left a lot to be desired though.

She came off as a wimpier, whinier version of the usually brave, strong Storm.

Then came Catwoman. Yikes! That was one hell of a shabby movie. Halle didn’t play Selena Kyle, the character who is traditionally known as Catwoman in the D.C. comics. Instead, the moviemakers put a new twist on the tale.

Berry played Patience Phillips, a woman who worked at a cosmetics company and ended up getting flushed down a tube. That lead to her transformation into Catwoman – but only after an Egyptian cat took a liking to her.

Regardless of her performances, getting cast as both Storm and Catwoman are arguably the biggest achievements a female could hope to have in comics-turned-movies casting. There aren’t many other female characters from Marvel or D.C. that are bigger than those two.

Lastly, there’s Chris Evans.

He was in 2011’s mildly successful Captain America and 2012’s wildly successful The Avengers.

To his credit, he did a great job in both movies.

I’m expecting Captain America: The Winter Soldier, set for release next year, to be just as good.

I knew I’d seen Evans in other movies, but he was one of those actors I couldn’t really place. It wasn’t until I found Fantastic Four in the $5 bin that I realized Chris Evans was The Human Torch.

He starred in two Fantastic Four movies prior to his role as Captain America.

Including the future Captain America and Avengers movies already in the works, Evans will have 8 projects with Marvel listed in his IMDB biography.

While Captain America and The Human Torch aren’t as impressive as Batman and Daredevil or Catwoman and Storm, Chris Evans may just be the most successful super hero actor of this bunch.


Related Content:
• Ben Affleck as Batman? That could work.
• 7 Super Heroes Who Deserve Their Own Movie
• Man of Steel – reviewed.
• The Wolverine - reviewed.