10 Terrible CGI Characters In Marvel And DC Superhero Movies We Wish We Could Unsee

Visual effects have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but there have been some heroes and villains who have been brought to life with terrible CGI, and this feature looks at the worst of them...

By JoshWilding - Mar 02, 2021 07:03 AM EST

Filed Under: Justice League

As visual effects have improved, it's become possible for studios to create characters with the use of CGI from the ground up. Josh Brolin's Thanos in the last two Avengers movies, for example, felt as real as the rest of the heroes and villains on screen, but not every VFX creation is a winner.

Both years ago, and today, we've seen characters in comic book movies who just look abysmal. Whether it's the first CGI Hulk to smash his way on to the big screen or some monstrous creations in the DC Extended Universe, those listed here are truly among the worst Hollywood has had to offer.

We're not saying those who worked on them didn't try hard, but for whatever reason, these designs either didn't resonate with fans or just looked out of place in the movies they were part of.

To take a look through this feature, all you guys need to do is click on the "Next" button below!

10. The Hulk

The Jade Giant certainly didn't look perfect in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, but when you compare him to the version of the character that appeared in Ang Lee's movie five years prior, he was nothing short of a masterpiece.

This CGI creation was relatively impressive at the time, but looked really silly in action, and that wasn't 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 (the bright green was certainly...something).

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 ILM's stellar work.

9. Kilowog

Green Lantern's costume in his live-action debut looked terrible, but that paled in comparison to the other members of the Green Lantern Corps (who, aside from Sinestro, were brought to life solely with special effects).

Warner Bros. attracted some heavy-hitters to play these heroes, and while they all looked like extras from a video game cutscene, Kilowog was the biggest let down. Voiced by the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan, the fan-favourite hero not only received nowhere near enough screentime, but never felt like more than a walking, talking cartoon.

The CGI wasn't good a decade ago, but 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, so here's hoping the next iteration is better.

8. Cyborg

Cyborg could have very easily been brought to life with a mixture of visual and practical effects, but Zack Snyder instead chose to make him an almost entirely VFX creation.

It was an ambitious plan, but Warner Bros.' visual effects artists simply weren't up to scratch, and the robotic hero simply never looked real. While it was good to have Ray Fisher's face there to convey some human emotion, it looked like that was just floating on a CGI body, and there were some moments, in particular, which pulled us out of what was playing out on screen.

Justice League made worse mistakes than this (we'll get to those), but making Cyborg fully unfortunately robotic robs the character of a little too much of his humanity on screen.

7. 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 finally giving us a CGI Thing rather than going for a foam costume like the movies which preceded it in 2005 and 2007.

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 just plain sucked.

6. Doomsday

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice remains a divisive movie, but something we can all agree with is that Doomsday did not look good. In fact, this take on the iconic monster was beyond disappointing.

While he did evolve a little during the battle against Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, those were nowhere near significant enough to make him look anything other than awful. More akin to one of the trolls in The Lord of the Rings than the villain who killed the Man of Steel in the comic books, this was a complete misfire.

Warner Bros. failed to take note of the negative response to the Doomsday reveal in a trailer for the movie, and fan-art has shown has simple it would have been to improve on this design.

5. The Lizard

The Amazing Spider-Man was a disappointment, but most of the CGI looked pretty spectacular. The hallway fight scene between the wall-crawler and The Lizard was a good example of that, but as soon as you got up close with the movie's lead villain...well, it wasn't good.

Footage shown at Comic-Con reportedly included the villain's classic comic book appearance, but 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. He looked like a joke.

4. Incubus

Suicide Squad had its fair share of problems, most of which were caused by reshoots inflicted upon director David Ayer by Warner Bros. We're not sure if Incubus was a result of those, but what a dumb choice of villain...who looked nothing short of appalling on screen.

Incubus may be an ancient demigod, but who knew that's how dreadful God-like beings looked thousands of years ago? Cartoonish, goofy, and worst of all, not remotely threatening, no one took this villain seriously, and he wasn't a fitting choice to square off with Task Force X.

The original plan was for Enchantress to report to Steppenwolf, but the plug was pulled on that idea, and that could help make sense of what Incubus ends up being so hard to look at here.

3. Seven Deadly Sins

Objectively speaking, the special effects used to bring the Seven Deadly Sins to life in 2019's Shazam! weren't bad, but these monstrous creatures were forgettable, boring, and completely uninspired. Those qualities mean they have all the makings of bad CGI creations.

There was so much Warner Bros. could have done with this personification of the Seven Deadly Sins, but instead, they were all brown, generic creatures impossible to tell apart.

We can only hope we see some improvement in the upcoming sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, as the heroes who make up the Shazam Family will benefit from taking on one big bad, and not a series of CGI baddies we have no reason to care about like the Seven Deadly Sins.

2. Steppenwolf

We've seen what Steppenwolf will look like in Zack Snyder's Justice League, and you have to believe much of that $70 million budget has gone towards bringing that complex design to life on screen.

In 2017, Warner Bros. were looking to finish off Geoff Johns and Joss Whedon's vision of the movie as cheaply as possible, so Steppenwolf being simplified does make sense. However, that doesn't excuse how horrendous the villain looked on screen, and he is one of the worst comic book movie bad guys we've ever seen (compare him to the level of detail on Thanos, for example).

We're not sure what Whedon was going for here, but he'd have looked pretty good...in 2003.

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154 Comments

1 2 3 4

Blergh - 3/2/2021, 7:01 AM

Honestly, compared to the new Steppenwolf footage released the 2017 version doesn't look that bad

bkmeijer2 - 3/2/2021, 7:06 AM

@TheDoctor1225 - would be a shame if he didn't return for Superman, but I think Cavill has enough things to keep him busy I also wanna see

bkmeijer2 - 3/2/2021, 7:05 AM

At the time I wasn't too bothered by the Hulk. Those hulkdogs though, that is something I wish I could unsee.

In my opinion, both The Lizard and Steppenwolf looked fine though.

Repian - 3/2/2021, 7:06 AM

Seven Deadly Sins? I liked them.

soberchimera - 3/2/2021, 7:40 AM

@Repian - They should've been different colors to accentuate them more.

CAPTAINPINKEYE - 3/2/2021, 7:08 AM

Black panther had some bad cgi near the end.

Reeds2Much - 3/2/2021, 7:09 AM

Replace Sin with NuSteppenwolf, please and thank you.

YonnyLayna - 3/2/2021, 7:11 AM

lordSTALE - 3/2/2021, 7:11 AM

New #2 right here

BuzzKillington - 3/2/2021, 7:34 AM

@lordSTALE -

lordSTALE - 3/2/2021, 7:39 AM

@BuzzKillington - Remember when he used to be a white guy with a goatee and it was just a horned helmet?

Remember when Snyder fanboys used to cry endlessly about how comic accurate he was?

WruceBayne - 3/2/2021, 7:50 AM

@lordSTALE - is it bad CGI or is it just a bad design?

TheBlueMorpho - 3/2/2021, 7:59 AM

@lordSTALE -

I still maintain if Snyder wanted to use a monster looking character from Apokolips, Kalibak was the way to go.

I also prefer the main New 52 design as opposed to the Earth 2 one for Steppenwolf.

lordSTALE - 3/2/2021, 8:14 AM

@WruceBayne -

The72nd - 3/2/2021, 11:29 AM

@WruceBayne - I think there's definitely a distinction to be made there. Cavill's mustache and 2003 hulk for sure have some wonky CG, but the deadly sins and lizard look fine I think, the designs are just weak

BuzzKillington - 3/2/2021, 11:59 AM

@lordSTALE -

WruceBayne - 3/2/2021, 2:57 PM

@The72nd - absolutely

YonnyLayna - 3/2/2021, 7:12 AM

tmp3 - 3/2/2021, 7:13 AM

@YonnyLayna - What a waste of Carrie Coon

regularmovieguy - 3/2/2021, 7:15 AM

@tmp3

She must've had 3 lines. What's the point haha

tmp3 - 3/2/2021, 7:15 AM

@regularmovieguy - You seen The Leftovers yet?

1 2 3 4

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10 Terrible CGI Characters In Marvel And DC Superhero Movies We Wish We Could Unsee

Visual effects have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but there have been some heroes and villains who have been brought to life with terrible CGI, and this feature looks at the worst of them...

10. The Hulk

9. Kilowog

8. Cyborg

7. The Thing

6. Doomsday

5. The Lizard

4. Incubus

3. Seven Deadly Sins

2. Steppenwolf

1. Henry Cavill's Superman Jaw

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