In this blog for the Herald, I discuss the history of irreverent superheroes on the big screen, which in many ways is longer than the history of “normal” superheroes.

When the delightfully subversive Deadpool become an unexpectedly huge success earlier this year, Hollywood prognosticators were quick to declare the various ways the film’s insane bounty would affect the already-booming superhero movie trend.

The first impact of Deadpool’s success was that it suddenly rendered Suicide Squad (in theaters next week) a much hotter prospect than it previously had been.

The DC Comics adaptation concerns a bunch of supervillains who are forced by the government to undertake special-ops missions. So basically it’s The Super Dirty Dozen.