Iron Man

In the summer of 2008, just when the world was bracing itself for the advent of the Dark Knight himself, along came this surprisingly exhilarating comic book adap. The light-hearted ying to Christopher Nolan’s heavyweight yang, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man was a character few were familiar with yet managed in the space of a few weeks to seal his position as the mainstream’s new favourite Marvel superhero, second only to Spiderman. This is entirely thanks to Robert Downey Jr, whose Tony Stark is a protagonist like no other: witty, sardonic, charming and who always does the right thing, just not the right way. A brilliant first instalment to a new superhero franchise.

4/5