Now, I’m going to admit upfront that I love superhero movies. But that love is being tested. Hollywood is producing more superhero films than a nymphomaniac Catholic mother produces children, and just like children in a big household, some — if not most — are going to turn out bad. Not all children can be honor roll college graduates with Ph.D’s, a few of them have to be car-jacking, meth-smoking moochers who impregnate 16-year-olds. These next films are the meth-addled failures of the superhero movie genre:

“Ghost Rider”: After watching this film, I wish I were literally in hell — it would be much more pleasant. This film is about a stunt rider named Johnny Blaze — probably the most gimmicky name I’ve ever heard — played by an old-looking Nicolas Cage who makes a pact with the devil that backfires (surprise, surprise). Blaze becomes a bounty-hunter with a skull face and flaming head, sent by Satan to stop demons from walking the Earth. Sounds awesome right? Wrong. The film is riddled with computer-generated imagery that looks worse than cut-scenes from the Atari 2600, action scenes that are so short they would be G-rated if they were sex scenes, and a script so haphazard and sloppy it makes the reconstruction in Iraq look like a utopia of efficiency. The worst part though? Cage’s hairpiece, which cost upwards of $100,000, but looked like it cost the price of a spatula and a trip to the highway.

“Superman IV: Quest for Peace”: This movie has to be seen to be believed. It is so bad I think it gave my eyes HIV. It makes you miss the technical expertise and powerful scripting of “The Room.” If it weren’t for the fact that Gene Hackman was in the cast, I would have sworn they hadn’t spent more than five bucks on the entire production. The plot is laughable, including Superman trying to stop war on earth by throwing all the nuclear missiles into the sun. Surprisingly, this doesn’t work. Lex Luthor creates a super-powered being known as Nuclear Man to fight and kill Superman. Nuclear Man is defeated, however, when there’s no sunlight around him. So if he’s in the shade, he’s fucked. Yeah, it’s no wonder this was Christopher Reeve’s last Superman movie.

“Batman & Robin”: How can I complete this list without mentioning this “movie”? This … thing … is the apotheosis of the over-indulgent, overblown and underwhelming superhero blockbuster. In this film, the toys were clearly designed before the script was written, the actors were hired for marquee value, not necessarily value and the only lines of dialogue available were puns. It’s almost as if the writer was trying to do the shittiest job possible on a dare. “Let’s kick some ice” is a real line of dialogue, in a real Hollywood production. Someone got paid to write that. Let that sink in. The film is what would happen if Andy Warhol decided to direct a big-budget version of the Adam West series and blew the entire budget on neon signs, homoerotic statues and acid. It’s so bad the director apologized for it on the DVD commentary. Holy disasters, Batman!

So, there you have it, the worst of the worst. Who knew making movies about grown men in spandex jumping around would be so hard to take seriously?