{"id":370460,"date":"2026-04-09T02:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T02:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:08:11","slug":"before-captain-america-chris-evans-starred-in-a-forgotten-dc-movie-with-three-other-comic-book-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370460\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Captain America, Chris Evans Starred in a Forgotten DC Movie With Three Other Comic Book Legends"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Captain America<\/a> is undoubtedly the most famous comic book role that Chris Evans<\/a> has taken on, an earlier underrated DC Comics<\/a> movie from the actor featured one of the genre\u2019s most impressive casts ever. Chris Evans\u2019 Captain America<\/a> is one of the faces of the MCU, and one of the most memorable onscreen incarnations of a superhero in cinema history. The actor\u2019s portrayal will go down alongside Robert Downey Jr\u2019s Iron Man, Christopher Reeve\u2019s Superman, and Michael Keaton\u2019s Batman as a pivotal part of comic book movie history, but it wasn\u2019t his first comic adaptation.<\/p>\n

2010\u2019s The Losers<\/a> was a violent action comedy based on the DC comic book series of the same name by 2000AD writer Andy Diggle and Scottish cartoonist Jock. Effectively a dark, subversive spin on The A-Team, The Losers follows the titular US Special Forces Unit after they are betrayed by their handler and left to die. When a mysterious woman offers them a chance to exact revenge, they jump on this mission. Although director Sylvain White\u2019s movie was a box office letdown and received mixed reviews, The Losers has one of the best comic book movie casts ever, with Evans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Salda\u00f1a, and Idris Elba playing its titular leads.<\/p>\n

2010\u2019s The Losers Has One of the Best Comic Book Movie Casts Ever<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

As well as Evans, The Losers featured leading roles for Morgan, Salda\u00f1a, and Elba. All three went on to become comic book adaptation legends in their own rights, with Morgan starring in Watchmen, The Walking Dead, and Batman Vs Superman, while Salda\u00f1a played Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy<\/a>, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Elba, meanwhile, played Heimdall in Thor only a year after The Losers was released, and reprised this role in 2013\u2019s Thor: The Dark World, 2015\u2019s Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2018\u2019s Avengers: Infinity War, and 2017\u2019s Thor: Ragnarok.<\/p>\n

Elba\u2019s comic book movie credits continued to stack up after that, with the actor also playing Moreau in 2011\u2019s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Bloodsport in 2021\u2019s The Suicide Squad. By the time The Losers arrived in 2010, Evans was already well known by fans of comic book movies thanks to his earlier roles in the Fantastic Four movies and 2007\u2019s TMNT, but it was his iconic role as Steve Rogers that went on to define his screen career.<\/p>\n

The Losers Deserved Better Than Its Lukewarm Reception<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Although all of the movie\u2019s main actors went on to more illustrious roles after its release, The Losers itself never received the critical reappraisal the movie deserved. Like 2006\u2019s equally underrated Smokin\u2019 Aces<\/a>, the blackly comedic action thriller received criticism for its chaotic violence and balletic brutality, even though these same qualities went on to make movies like Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train, Nobody, and the John Wick franchise critical successes in the years that followed.<\/p>\n

Tarantino was a fan of The Losers and, looking back on it, the underrated adaptation is arguably a better update of The A-Team formula than 2010\u2019s reboot of the classic \u201880s series. It is certainly stronger than White\u2019s other major movies, Stomp the Yard and Slender Man, and, if nothing else, the underrated DC Comics movie The Losers deserves credit for helping to establish its iconic cast as comic book movie legends well before their most iconic roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Captain America is undoubtedly the most famous comic book role that Chris Evans has taken on, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[87465,4219,156,409,111,139,69,11013,193792],"class_list":["post-370460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-captain-america","tag-dc-comics","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-regular-feature","tag-the-losers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}