A New Generation Suits Up!

While Hollywood is hammering out a new Man of Steel, the next two years will see a crush of movie superheroes, both familiar characters and newcomers to the multiplex. Jon Favreau, who made two blockbusters out of the second-string hero Iron Man, understands the challenges. ''People were saying, 'Nobody knows who Iron Man is.' They were saying, 'The genre had been played out. Now they're trotting out the B-level titles. Is anybody going to care?''' recalls the director, who is following last year's Iron Man 2 with this July's superhero-free adventure Cowboys & Aliens. Favreau left the neighborhood of comic-book adaptations just as it was getting especially crowded. ''People have now rushed to monetize every character, digging up characters from all of the publishers,'' he says. ''Some will succeed and some won't.'' Here's a look at the coming wave of hero mania.

GREEN LANTERN
June 17 2011
A magical alien ring, the power to create glowing ethereal objects out of nothingness, and a skintight power suit that allows flight through outer space: Green Lantern's traits are difficult enough to pull off in ink-and-paint comic panels, but try doing it in a live-action movie tethered to some semblance of reality. Ryan Reynolds stars as jet test-pilot Hal Jordan, who's recruited into an intergalactic police force with Earth as his beat. The draw for the audience may be that, like filmgoers, Jordan doesn't entirely comprehend his mission. The 34-year-old star says it helps that DC's Green Lantern isn't as widely known outside Comic-Con circles. ''I liked that it wasn't in my vocabulary. It meant there was a process of discovery,'' says Reynolds. ''He's not in the mainstream the way Superman or Spider-Man is.'' The movie also tackles its otherworldly extravagance with a sense of humor. Reynolds, a veteran of comedies like Van Wilder and The Proposal, says he used to think of himself as a strictly comic actor, not a hero: ''I looked like Dick Van Dyke, so I thought I was going that route.''

THOR
May 6, 2011
Thor is a mythic golden Norse god, and he knows it. Cast out of the heavenly realm for his belligerent arrogance, the hammer wielder (played by Chris Hemsworth) is disgusted to find himself banished to Earth, a name he pronounces the way a picky little kid would say ''brussels sprouts.'' How relatable is this guy? Thor scoffs at the assumption that we might even try to relate to him. At least, that's how he starts off in the movie. Natalie Portman, as an astro-physicist, gradually helps warm him to the human race.

Director Kenneth Branagh may not have much geek cred, but Thor shares some traits with the title character in Shakespeare's Henry V (Branagh's 1989 film adaptation earned him Oscar nods for acting and directing). Says Branagh, ''People are fascinated by a young man, entitled, an elder son, firstborn, who has a great job but isn't necessarily cut out for it, where the pressure to be the best and live up to something is so extraordinary.'' Playing noble should be no problem for Hemsworth, 27. Though he's a relative newcomer in Hollywood, the Aussie actor made a memorable impression as James T. Kirk's self-sacrificing father in the prologue to J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek reboot.

X-Men First Class
June 3, 2011
After three movies and a Wolverine spin-off, 20th Century Fox chose to step backward in time for the new X-Men movie, tracing the early friendship of Professor X and Magneto, now played by James McAvoy (Wanted) and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds). The plot, set during 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis, focuses on how these onetime allies formed two warring factions while helping stave off nuclear war. The retro setting is a homecoming of sorts for the characters, explains Emma Watts, Fox's president of production: ''That's when the X-Men were created.''