As Dave Bell previously pointed out, superhero movies suffer greatly from the fact that no one believes for a second that any major franchise character can die. Oh, there have been attempts to shock us -- I'm looking at you, Age Of Ultron-edition Quicksilver -- but they're mostly pretty predictable and, if the character is popular (lucrative) enough, ultimately reversible.
But what if we had a superhero that not only can die but is largely defined by the fact that, eventually, he will. I'm talking about The Phantom, Lee Falk's legendary 21st-generation crime-fighter whose great-great-great-ancestor got pissed off at pirates who attacked his ship off the coast of a fictional African country and inexplicably swore an oath that every eldest son in his family would spend his life fighting evil in a purple unitard.
Paramount Pictures
In the interest of fairness, it's important to point out that this has already been a movie, but the 1996 The Phantom, starring Billy Zane (pictured above), isn't exactly the most sincere representation of the character. Or a movie. Or a story in general. In fact, let's just say that the only superhero movie from 1996 that matters is Matilda, because Mara Wilson will always be awesome, and we desperately want her to star in a modern, gritty sequel where she magics bad guys' heads clean off.