14 Superhero Movie Changes That Comic Book Fans Hated

More than any other rabid fanbase, comic book fanatics can be very protective of the source material adapted into film and television. It doesn’t matter if it’s the interconnected world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or one-off films based on DC Comics, many of these characters and stories have existed for over 50 years and hold great value for genre enthusiasts. It goes without saying, but many superhero movie filmmakers have been candid in the past about the rules everyone has to follow on set to live up to fan expectations.

However, whether comic book fans like it or not, some things have to be sacrificed in the journey of adapting these iconic stories from page to screen. Sometimes, the directions in which movie studios have taken beloved characters and franchises have incited outrage online, with varying degrees of justification. These 14 superhero movies certainly got their fair share of hate directed toward them by fans because of those consequential decisions — even the ones that seem minor enough to not matter all that much.

The Fantastic Four were one of the earliest Marvel franchises to hit the big screen in 2005’s “Fantastic Four,” starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis as the First Family. Even though the film was a box office success, many of its stars were never the same after “Fantastic Four,” and neither were comic book fans, who felt protective towards the popular Marvel team and were quite harsh towards the film’s modern-day take on the heroes, especially given their origins in the 1960s space race. The iconic and complex hero-villain relationship between Reed Richards and Victor von Doom in particular was poorly translated to the screen, thanks to its under-two-hour runtime.

As IGN stated about the film’s narrative shortcomings, “While the characters and sense of family were nailed perfectly, writers [Michael France] and [Mark Frost] should have sourced the comics for a suitable plot as well.” Fortunately, they didn’t fail as stupendously as the 2015 reboot by Josh Trank, but 2025’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” looks like it’s going to be the comic book adaptation fans have been waiting over 20 years for.

If it was up to original comic book writer Alan Moore, there wouldn’t be any adaptations of “Watchmen.” The 2009 film adaptation, directed by Zack Snyder, at least stays true to a lot of the comic’s gritty imagery, and features some stellar performances from the likes of Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. However, its ending made one big change that fans of the original graphic novel didn’t love.

At the end of the graphic novel, Ozymandias teleports a biologically-engineered creature resembling a giant squid into the middle of Manhattan, creating massive devastation for the sake of uniting America and Russia into an alliance against extraterrestrial threats. However, Zach Snyder’s “Watchmen” replaced this with a series of nuclear explosions pinned on Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) instead.

Although fans were upset at not seeing this iconic moment make it to the big screen, Snyder told Dark Horizons (via Comic Book Movie), “The squid was not in the movie when I got the script, the squid was never in any draft that I saw.” However, the HBO series from 2019 featured the giant squid in a flashback, giving fans an idea of what that moment looked like in live action.

Nobody has been a bigger advocate for Deadpool than Ryan Reynolds, whose attempts at making a movie based on the comic book character go back as early as 2005. However, Reynolds’ screen debut as the character was a disappointment for fans, to say the least. 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” a solo film centered on Hugh Jackman’s pitch-perfect performance as Logan, featured an appearance by Reynolds as Wade Wilson prior to his Deadpool days. Reynolds re-appears as “Deadpool” in the film’s climax, only to completely disregard anything that makes Deadpool an iconic character.

As Reynolds told GQ, even he felt the film’s betrayal of Deadpool’s comic book accuracy, saying, “It completely departed all canon and reason and he wound up being this abomination of Deadpool that was like Barakapool, with his mouth sewn shut and weird blades that came out of his hands and these strange tattoos and stuff like that.” Fortunately, in 2016, Reynolds finally got to bring the Merc with a Mouth on-screen himself, complete with a comic-accurate suit, in “Deadpool,” a massive hit which nevertheless changed movies while anyone barely noticed.

Critics have said the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a villain problem in recent years, but this is nothing new for the film franchise. The marketing for 2013’s “Iron Man 3” notoriously irritated fans by attempting to subvert expectations regarding the Mandarin, an iconic comic book antagonist of Tony Stark set to be played by Ben Kingsley. However, halfway through the film, audiences were blindsided by the twist that Kingsley was not playing the Mandarin, but Trevor Slattery, a naive actor posing as the terrorist to cover up the nefarious experiments of A.I.M., led by Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian.

While this fake-out frustrated many fans who were excited to see Iron Man’s iconic enemy on-screen, it ended up laying the groundwork for one of the best MCU movie villains in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” where Tony Leung plays Xu Wenwu, the real Mandarin and father of Shang-Chi. Kingsley even reprised his role as Slattery in the film, with director Daniel Destin Cretton telling Variety that “[having] Trevor just come in [and] just straight-up apologize for giving a terrible impersonation of [the Mandarin] just felt like the perfect way to say sorry.”

There are a lot of aspects of Marc Webb’s two “The Amazing Spider-Man” films that fans have issues with, from a lack of vision like Sam Raimi’s trilogy had to the portrayal of villains like Electro and Green Goblin. However, the one thing fans almost unanimously loved from the films was the chemistry between Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy. Sadly, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” stayed a bit too close to the comics by including Peter’s failure to save Gwen from one of the most tragic deaths in Marvel’s history.

As many die-hard “Spider-Man” fans pointed out, Gwen’s death in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” didn’t have the foundation of the iconic comic book moment. Not only were audiences surprised at the decision to remove the future Oscar winner from the franchise, but with the absence of Mary Jane Watson in Webb’s films, things seemed rather hopeless for Garfield’s Peter Parker compared to his comic book counterpart. Additionally, the film ends shortly after Gwen dies, a decision of which Variety wrote, “The filmmakers go to great lengths to lay the groundwork for Gwen’s death, only to shortchange the consequences … Gwen Stacy deserves better.”

Adapting Thanos and the Infinity Saga was always going to be a challenge, but it’s safe to say that in most aspects, directors Joe and Anthony Russo got it right. “Avengers: Infinity War” turned Thanos from a significant Marvel Comics figure into one of the most iconic villains in all of cinema, but at the cost of removing some key details from the character’s comic book origins. In the original “Infinity Gauntlet” story arc, Thanos’ primary motivation is, surprisingly, love.

The character of Lady Death, a cosmic personification of death itself, uses Thanos’ blind love to correct an imbalance of life and death in the universe, resulting in the snap that wipes half of all living things from the universe. However, “Infinity War” changed this to Thanos (Josh Brolin) having his own philosophy that the universe’s resources were finite and that overpopulation needed correction. Although fans felt this severely changed Thanos’ character, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige defended it, telling Vulture, “Much of the motivation connected to Lady Death is about balance … we wanted to make that the driving force of Thanos and his backstory.”

Venom has had a long history of controversial on-screen appearances, thanks to Sam Raimi’s reluctant use of the character in “Spider-Man 3.” When Sony decided to give the character his own solo franchise, starring Tom Hardy as both Eddie Brock and the voice of Venom, they made a bold yet divisive decision to keep this interpretation of the comic book villain separate from Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and the Spider-Man franchise. Predictably, some fans felt this was a missed opportunity on Sony’s part.

Although Tom Holland did shoot a cameo for the 2018 “Venom” film that was left on the cutting room floor, the characters had yet to meet as of October 2024. Only post-credits scenes in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” served to tease a symbiote storyline for the MCU Spider-Man. Although Hardy’s performances in the films have been praised, the lack of Spider-Man as a common enemy between the Venom symbiote and Eddie Brock has frustrated many fans who want the wrong-headed introduction of Venom in “Spider-Man 3” to be redeemed.

In 2019, Brie Larson’s transformation from sitcom star to Marvel super-heroine was meant to be a game-changer for the MCU, as Kevin Feige promised Captain Marvel was going to be an integral part of the film franchise going forward. While “Captain Marvel” was unfortunately subject to review-bombing due to comments by Larson regarding diversity in the entertainment industry, it still grossed over $1 billion at the box office and set the stage for the character’s team-up with Captain America, Thor, and others in “Avengers: Endgame.”

However, to the frustration of Captain Marvel’s fans, Larson’s role in “Endgame” was a lot smaller than expected, with the character not officially joining the Avengers and focusing her heroic efforts elsewhere in the galaxy, which led to many fans claiming she was underused and unimportant. 2023’s “The Marvels” incorporated this criticism of the character into the narrative, but it’s especially apparent how much Marvel Studios seems to have backed away from Feige’s initial promises about Carol Danvers’ future. Hopefully, Captain Marvel’s future in the MCU isn’t as in jeopardy as some fans fear it is, despite Larson’s enthusiasm about the possibilities.

Everyone can agree that there’s few superhero movie castings as perfect as Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn. The Australian actress got off to a rough start with the character in 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” which was panned by critics despite there being glowing praise for her performance. Robbie didn’t reprise the role until 2020, this time all by herself in “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn),” or just “Birds of Prey,” which focused on Harley establishing herself as a threat to Gotham’s crime lords after breaking up with Joker. However, some fans were surprised that Joker didn’t appear in the movie whatsoever.

As Robbie told NME, “It was either going to be a complete Harley and Joker story or Joker has got to be out of the picture,” emphasizing the importance of featuring an all-female superhero team in the movie. Many fans felt the Batman villain’s glaring absence was a betrayal of Harley Quinn’s comic book roots, especially with the possibility of Joker being the film’s primary antagonist over Ewan McGregor’s Black Mask. Some have also argued that the film received unwarranted backlash from sexist comic book fans, so maybe Robbie didn’t have to take any of the criticism about Joker’s absence too seriously.

“The New Mutants” ideally should have been an original take on the “X-Men” franchise, focusing on a group of dysfunctional teen mutants at the Xavier Institute who realize they’re being held for a more sinister reason. Although it was initially planned for release in 2018, it was delayed numerous times due to reshoots, and later Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, before finally being released in August 2020 and bombing at the box office. The end result, sadly, wasn’t even enough to satisfy fans of the comic book team.

Notably, the film takes some heavy creative license with its central mutants, such as Magik, played by Anya Taylor-Joy. In the comics, Magik is famously corrupted by the demon Belasco, and according to director Josh Boone in an interview with CinemaBlend, this was changed because he felt it was “really difficult to explain without a lot of crazy X-Men backstory.” Fans also felt “The New Mutants” went too far by having Magik insult Blu Hunt’s Mirage with anti-native slurs, and by not casting an Afro-Brazilian to play Sunspot. Even the co-creator of the comics, Bob McLeod, criticized the film for its lack of faithfulness to the source material.

2017’s “Wonder Woman” is one of the most critically acclaimed superhero movies of all time, a refreshing addition to feminist cinema canon with stellar direction from Patty Jenkins. Predictably, fans were excited to see more of Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince in “Wonder Woman 1984,” despite the film’s release in 2020 being pushed back several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time the film finally premiered in winter of that year, fan reactions were quite negative all across the board, but particularly towards the film’s villains.

Many fans were excited to see Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah, though the final film was quite a disservice to the character’s comic book origins. Wiig is particularly under-utilized in the film after Barbara uses the Dreamstone to make her more beautiful and strong like Diana, but as Vox wrote, her “lack of screen time doesn’t allow us to explore what makes the character tick — how evolving from a sheepish scientist to a sexy femme fatale affects her psyche.” Other fans were disappointed at the decision to not incorporate Cheetah’s queerness from the comics, as Jenkins opted to focus less on a potential romance between Barbara and Diana and instead on the return of Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor.

To say fans were excited to see Tony Masters, a.k.a. Taskmaster, in 2021’s “Black Widow” is an understatement. The Marvel Comics villain has the unique ability to copycat the fighting styles of popular Marvel heroes like Captain America and Black Panther, and early promos for “Black Widow” showcased a lot of potential for the assassin, whose identity was kept secret throughout production. In the film’s third act, it’s revealed that underneath the Taskmaster mask is Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), the presumed-dead daughter of Ray Winstone’s villainous Dreykov.

Many Taskmaster fans were notably upset at the change, as writer Eric Pearson told the “Phase Zero” podcast, “I made the mistake of looking in direct message requests and someone said, ‘I don’t mean to be out of line, but Taskmaster was the biggest betrayal of my life.’ I got mad for a second and then I was like, ‘Well, you’ve had a pretty good life then.'” Hopefully, the character’s return in “Thunderbolts*” will redeem Taskmaster for comic book fans who were expecting a much different villain in “Black Widow.”

2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” centers on Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) trying to protect America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) from being hunted by Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. However, prior to this film, Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff had just been redeemed in “WandaVision,” where she realizes she’s been torturing the people of Westview out of grief over Vision’s death, and sets off to learn more about the limits of her powers with the Darkhold.

By the time audiences reunite with Wanda in “Multiverse,” the Darkhold has corrupted her enough to kill anyone standing in the way of her retrieving her imaginary children from another timeline. For fans eager to see Wanda’s descent into madness from the “House of M” comic storyline, “Multiverse” was quite a letdown, especially since her comic book counterpart was more a victim of manipulation by Magneto rather than an evil book.

As writer Michael Waldron told The Playlist in regards to fans’ response, “I guess I would say to the ‘WandaVision’ fans, like, I get it. Watching a character you love do bad things sucks … We never would have done it if it didn’t feel like the next step in her character journey.” With Wanda’s future in the MCU unclear, fan outrage over this narrative choice has only gotten worse over time.

Although it was one of the most highly-anticipated films of 2024, both lovers and detractors of 2019’s “Joker” have been disappointed by “Joker: Folie à Deux.” The sequel sees Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck falling for fellow Arkham inmate Harleen Quinzel, played by Lady Gaga, and battling his own fantastical delusions. But in the lead-up to the film’s release, many fans pointed out how the changes from page to screen have left the characters with little correlation to the original comics.

In the film, Harley is not a psychiatrist who falls for Joker but a crazed super-fan who admires his alter-ego, which is a completely different power dynamic than the one comic book fans loved. As Todd Phillips told Variety about his interpretation of Harley Quinn, “The high voice, that accent, the gum-chewing and all that sort of sassy stuff that’s in the comics, we stripped that away … We wanted her to fit into this world of Gotham that we created from the first movie.” Given the film’s disastrous box office debut after its opening weekend, “Folie à Deux” not only fails Harley Quinn fans, but even Gaga herself, given how underused the actress is in the final movie.