🎭 10 Characters Who Deserved Better Arcs and Less Spandex 👎✨
Welcome to the Slightly Disillusioned, Mildly Chafed Hall of Fame, where we gather to mourn the storytelling injustices and overzealous costume glue-gun use inflicted upon some of fiction’s finest (or at least most promising) characters. These are the heroes, villains, and occasionally-just-there sidekicks who deserved nuanced arcs, emotional depth, and at least one outfit that didn’t look like it was stolen from a Cirque du Sadface clearance sale.
So zip up your metaphorical jumpsuit and let's dive in!
1. Storm (X-Men Cinematic Universe) 🌩️🌀
Deserved: Goddess-level character development, majestic power arcs, actual leadership.
Got: Background lightning, three lines per movie, and a cape that screamed “discount Dracula.”
Justice for Ororo. She controls the weather but couldn’t control her screen time.
2. Robin (Batman & Robin, 1997) 🐤🦇
Deserved: Complex emotional exploration as Batman’s ward and emerging solo hero.
Got: Whiny jealousy, cringe dialogue, and a rubber suit so tight it could hear your thoughts.
Bonus trauma: the Bat-nipples. Never forget.
3. Mystique (X-Men prequels) 🧬👀
Deserved: Intriguing morally gray arc, identity struggles, antihero queen vibes.
Got: “Let’s make her Jennifer Lawrence so she can be blue as little as possible,” and a redemption arc flatter than her CGI scales.
Fun fact: In these films, “mutant pride” = wearing fewer clothes than a beach volleyball team.
4. The Wasp (Ant-Man & the Wasp) 🐝🔬
Deserved: Actual screen time and emotional impact as a titular character.
Got: More buzz than sting. She spends half the movie in “disappointed scientist wife” mode.
Also: her haircut deserved better, too. Fight me.
5. Silver Surfer (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) 🪙🌌
Deserved: Cosmic angst! Deep existential philosophy! Spaceboard wisdom!
Got: Shiny distraction with the depth of a reflective spoon. Also sounded like he was reading a bedtime story to himself.
Cool design, zero payoff.
6. The Rhino (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) 🦏🚫
Deserved: Gritty villain arc, deeper motivation, animalistic rage.
Got: A 30-second mech-suit cameo and Paul Giamatti yelling in an accent that could legally be classified as a war crime.
Spandex avoided. Dignity not so much.
7. Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad, 2016) 💋🔨
Deserved: Deep dive into trauma, healing, agency, and cracking skulls on her own terms.
Got: Fishnet fever dream, a toxic romance glamorized into Hot Topic marketing, and an arc so shallow it needed floaties.
At least she got a better shot in “Birds of Prey,” but we’re still counting this one.
8. Emma Frost (X-Men: First Class) 💎🧊
Deserved: Ice-cold scheming brilliance, psychic manipulation, diamond-hard sass.
Got: Eye candy in stripper heels and zero strategic contribution.
Also, she turns into literal diamond… yet somehow remains emotionally one-dimensional. Irony: achieved.
9. Green Lantern (Green Lantern, 2011) 💚🛸
Deserved: Space cop with a tortured past, wielding the most powerful weapon of imagination.
Got: Ryan Reynolds trapped in a glowing green onesie, trying to act serious while battling a sentient fart cloud named Parallax.
There were so many colors of lanterns. They picked this one. RIP.
10. Catwoman (Catwoman, 2004) 🐱💄
Deserved: Selina Kyle’s noir-inspired journey of empowerment and antiheroine flair.
Got: Halle Berry in leather, fighting evil face cream, with dialogue that meowed its way into Razzie history.
Honestly, the spandex was the arc.
👀 Honorable Mentions:
Hawkeye, the Avenger everyone forgot was there.
Jubilee, who existed to generate sparkles and then disappear.
The Invisible Woman’s dignity after that “strip down in the street” scene.
🧵Moral of the Story: Sometimes the real villain isn’t a cosmic overlord—it’s bad writing and unnecessary latex. Give these characters the emotional arcs they deserve, and let their inner lives breathe as much as their poor, constricted costumes cannot.
