Flash Gordon successfully captured the surreal swirl of the 1930s-era comic. Courtesy of Universal Studios Home Ent.

7. Spider-Man (The first entry in the franchise did a fantastic job capturing all that I loved about the original comics).

8. Ghost World (No vfx to speak of, but a great comicbook adaptation nonetheless).

9. American Splendor (Again, no vfx, but really shows that comics can be about other things than giant robots and hot women).

10. Akira (A film that reveals new layers each time you view it. Incredibly influential. Got to love that opening bike chase too!).

Ben Snow
"Comicbook movies were generally crap, probably until the Tim Burton Batmans, although the Supermans were good too. But then Raimi really did it with Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. The possibilities of taking comics beyond the mindset of what people think they are really came through there. In fact, they've always had quite a bit of subtext. That's why they work. And Spider-Man started tapping into that and changed the comicbook movie. I personally enjoyed the flights of fancy of Ang Lee's Hulk. It's funny because I was working on Star Wars: Episode II, and Dennis [Muren] wanted to go off and work on the Hulk, which gave me my big break as a visual effects supervisor. So I'm always grateful to the Hulk for that, too."

Spider-Man 2 took viewers to the subtext of the character. ™ & © 2004 Marvel Characters Inc. © 2004 Sony Pictures Digital. All rights reserved.

Scott Stokdyk

1. Akira (Opened up my mind to dramatic visual storytelling that is not constrained by what you can shoot... the style of everything in this movie still blows me away).

2. The Crow (A very dark movie, and I was amazed that they could combine such incredible images and action and still make you care about the characters).

3. Spider-Man 2 (Every visual in this movie is intertwined with so many fantastic memories for me... working with Sam Raimi and the crew, being in NYC on building rooftops, all the creative people at Marvel and Sony who I met during this period).

4. Iron Man (They took a superhero that I wasn't a huge fan of, and turned me into a fan. This movie hit it right on all levels. The combination of Downey's acting with the visual FX was perfect).

5. The Dark Knight (I can't just watch five minutes of this movie... every time I start to watch it, it sucks me in. The opening scene is up there with Luc Besson's The Professional in terms of some of my favorite movie action sequences).

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN and VFXWorld.