Top 8 Worst CGI Characters In Marvel And DC Superhero Movie History

Many Marvel and DC Comics adaptations have utilised fully CGI characters over the years, and while they often bring the comic books to life to great effect, these are truly the worst Hollywood has dished out.

By JoshWilding - Aug 18, 2016 08:08 AM EST

Filed Under: Batman vs. Superman

As superhero movies get bigger and better, so too does the use of special effects inevitably increase. In order to bring the comic books to life in the most effective way possible, movie studios need to make the craziest action scenes possible and use technology which makes fans believe that their favourite superheroes and villains have leaped straight off the page and on to the big screen in live-action.

However, while many comic book movies attempt to keep things pretty grounded, there are some characters who simply can't be played by an actor in a costume. It's then that we see them created solely with the use of CGI, and while there are many great examples of those, there's plenty which are truly abysmal. It's them you'll find here, so read on for the eight most shockingly bad creations...

8. Thanos

I didn't hate Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy as much as some fans, but when you compare him to Rocket and Groot, there's no denying that he sticks out like a sore thumb. The fact is, he just looks like a character brought to life by special effects, and that makes the guy who should be the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most terrifying villain a hell of a lot less frightening.

On the plus side, the Mad Titan definitely looked better here than in that after-credits scene for The Avengers, but by the time Infinity War rolls around, Marvel Studios needs to have perfected his appearance. After all, when you consider just how ultra realistic The Hulk looks these days, it would pretty damn ridiculous for Thanos to pale in comparison to him when they inevitably come to blows. Either way, Guardians of the Galaxy was definitely a bad start for this iconic bad guy.

Green Lantern's costume in his first solo outing obviously looked abysmal, but that paled in comparison to the other members of the Green Lantern Corps who were brought to life solely with special effects. Warner Bros. attracted some seriously awesome voice talent for this lot, and while they all unfortunately disappointed in terms of appearance, by far the biggest let down was Kilowog.

Voiced by the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan, the fan-favourite hero not only received nowhere near enough screentime, but he also looked like he'd stepped directly out of a video game. The CGI wasn't good back in 2011, but it looks even worse now, and the effects are so poor that Duncan's voice doesn't even feel like it's coming from Kilowog. This was a crushing disappointment and we now have another four years before we get to see him in live-action again.

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6. The Thing

20th Century Fox's reasoning behind making a "grounded" Fantastic Four movie boiled down to them wanting to save money, but you have to give them credit for bringing The Thing to life through CGI rather than going for a foam costume like the movie which came a decade earlier. Unfortunately, this version of the iconic superhero ended up looking even worse than the one played by Michael Chiklis, something not helped by some baffling creative decisions.

The face design was particularly ugly, and while you might think that's the point, it was done in a way which meant that pretty much no emotion could be conveyed by The Thing. Throw in his bizarre lack of genitalia (was it really so hard to give him some pants and leave that up to the imagination?), and this character was one of many elements of the reboot which was an epic fail.

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5. Daredevil And Bullseye

While neither of these characters were CGI throughout the vast majority of Daredevil, the decision was made in the final act to create special effects doubles so they could engage in a fight which was far too ambitious for its time. The movie simply didn't have the budget to pull this off, and as the Man Without Fear went into battle against the man who never misses atop some ludicrously large organ pipes, they went from being live-action actors to something out of a PlayStation 2 game (and that's being generous).

How anyone could look at this sequence even back in 2003 and think it was anything other than abysmal is hard to say, and this would have been better off left on the cutting room floor. Many superhero movies use not always convincing CGI doubles of heroes and villains for particularly tricky action scenes, but this is by far the worst example.

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4. Doomsday

I liked Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice way more than most, so I almost feel bad for piling on all the hate Doomsday has received since that trailer was released. Still, let's be honest...he looks like sh*t. While it makes sense that he would look like he did when he was "born", why a comic book fanboy like Zack Snyder wouldn't have him transform into something a lot closer to the source material is baffling.

Yes, he underwent some changed, but none that were anywhere near significant enough to make him appear anything other than awful. The fact that the special effects were pretty weak didn't help of course, and while most fans could forgive Doomsday's appearance in the trailer (because surely he wasn't finished, right?), the fact that he looked pretty much identical to that in the movie was a shocker and a major let down.

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3. The Hulk

I ever so briefly considered putting the Jade Giant seen in 2008's The Incredible Hulk here, but that wouldn't be fair. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but when you compare him to the version of the character that appeared in Ang Lee's movie five year prior, he was leaps and bounds ahead. While I suppose this CGI creation was relatively impressive for his time, he still looked pretty daft, something not helped by the hero's weird skin texture or the fact that it looked like Eric Bana's face had been superimposed on some sort of Hulk maquette.

Throw in his fluctuating size (his height varied throughout the movie, leading to Green Goliath looking like a literal giant in places), and this version of the Marvel superhero didn't exactly have a lot of redeeming qualities. It's fair to say that the character wasn't perfected in live-action until The Avengers, so thank goodness for Joss Whedon and ILM.

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2. Incubus

Doomsday looked bad, but the fact that a CGI character as awful as Incubus was brought to the big screen in 2016 is inexcusable. Before the release of Suicide Squad, fans were fascinated by who this mysterious character could be, and while the answer was massively underwhelming, him looking like he'd stepped out of a superhero movie released well over a decade ago was even worse.

Incubus may be an ancient demigod, but he didn't seem to be even remotely real! Don't forget that his presence in some of the movie's earliest trailers seemingly point to him not being added at a late stage in production, so there's really no excuse for why he looked so bad. Perhaps Warner Bros. spent all their money on Batman v Superman, but this freakish monster is now only memorable because of how utterly terrible he ended up looking in Suicide Squad.

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1. The Lizard

The Amazing Spider-Man was a disappointment, but most of the CGI was pretty great. The hallway fight scene between the wall-crawler and The Lizard was a good example of that, but the movie's lead villain otherwise looked abysmal. Footage shown at Comic-Con promised the character's classic comic book appearance, but that was replaced in the movie by a version which admittedly paid homage to The Lizard designed by Steve Ditko, but just did not work in live-action.

He ended up looking like Goomba from the Super Mario Bros. movie, and wasn't in the least bit terrifying. Those associated with The Amazing Spider-Man claimed that he took on this form because it would allow the villain to convey emotion, but some dodgy special effects meant that the reboot couldn't even pull that off. As a result, one of Spidey's most fearsome foes looked like a joke.

Which of these CGI characters do you think was the worst? Have we missed any deserving of a mention here? As always, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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256 Comments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Kr08 - 8/16/2016, 5:03 PM

I agree with all of these. I would've put Ultron on the list though. His character design sucked, and his frame rate was off the entire film.

I also didn't like that they gave him eyebrows, teeth, and made him smile. It would've been more terrifying to see Ultron like this. Without facial expressions so you wouldn't be able to tell what he feeling or thinking. He would be completely unpredictable, and that is scary.

dubjon - 8/18/2016, 8:38 AM

@Kr08 - Agree 1000% IMO the worst character in the entire MCU, maybe even in the entire history of action/sci fi films.

Quicker - 8/18/2016, 8:33 AM

I didn't hate SS, but I agree with everyone on Incubis. Terrible villain on levels of Malekith and Lex Jr. And the CGI looked like some Gods of Egypt shit.Enchantress was just kind of bland.

r3negade - 8/18/2016, 8:33 AM

Wait... Doomsday... Worse than The Thing?

ForceOfLegend - 8/18/2016, 5:35 PM

@anthonyEstark - that's what I was thinking...Doomsday looked like a LOTR troll extra, but the CGI wasn't "horrible". The Thing looked pretty bad, but wasn't the worst thing (see what I did there?) In that abysmal "movie".

IronGenesis - 8/18/2016, 8:33 AM

Hulk?
Noooooo!
Lol!

Raiders vs. Bucs
Super Bowl

The Hulk Teaser!

Yes it doesn't hold up, but during that TV Spot of the Super Bowl...it was awesome.

Supes2323 - 8/18/2016, 8:34 AM

The Ang Lee Hulk I thought looked So much better than Ed Norton Hulk.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Top 8 Worst CGI Characters In Marvel And DC Superhero Movie History

Many Marvel and DC Comics adaptations have utilised fully CGI characters over the years, and while they often bring the comic books to life to great effect, these are truly the worst Hollywood has dished out.

8. Thanos

7. Kilowog

6. The Thing

5. Daredevil And Bullseye

4. Doomsday

3. The Hulk

2. Incubus

1. The Lizard

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