2017 is the single greatest year in superhero movie history.
At least if you put stock in the statistics over at Rotten Tomatoes, which has just updated its rankings of the best in cinematic spandex, on the heels of “Thor: Ragnarok’s” release last week.
According to this super-Tomatometer, four of the five greatest superhero movies ever were released this year. “Ragnarok” is No. 5 (with 103.97 percent), while also in the top 5 are this year’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (No. 4, with 105.98 percent) and “Logan” (No. 2, with 107.98 percent).
And the best superhero film ever? It’s Patty Jenkins’s smash “Wonder Woman” (108.57 percent).
That aggregate title might even help “Wonder Woman” make its case for Oscars and other awards.
The only non-2017 film to crack Rotten Tomatoes’s Top 5 is 2008’s “The Dark Knight” (106.23 percent). The WB/DC movie is in the No. 3 slot despite often being considered the best superhero film ever.
The standard metric at Rotten Tomatoes, of course, is the “Tomatometer” score, the percentage of reviews by critics that are positive. Its Best Superhero Movies of All Time rankings — started earlier this year — provide weighted scores that adjust for the total number of reviews each film has received.
Under these rankings, Pixar’s 2004 smash “The Incredibles” — the top widely reviewed superhero film on the site based on its 97 percent Tomatometer score — drops to No. 9 on the best superhero movie of all time list, with an adjusted score of 103.39 percent. “Iron Man” is No. 7.
The previous contenders for “best year ever” would have been: 2008, with “The Dark Knight,” “Iron Man” and “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (No. 23); 2014, with “Guardians of the Galaxy” (No. 11), “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (No. 12), “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (No. 15) and “Big Hero 6” (No. 19); and 2016, with “Captain America: Civil War” (No. 8), “Doctor Strange” (No. 14) and “Deadpool” (No. 21).
