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Mystery Men

But none was edgier or funnier or further out-there than Mystery Men, which mocked the whole superhero convention while giving it a fresh, end-of-the-millennium twist. Hatched in the brain of a Georgia antique-dealer and movie buff called Bob Burden, the Mystery Men originated in Burden’s ‘Flaming Carrot’ stories, which seemed to owe little to the sweeping heroism of his favourite movie, Seven Samurai. Except that, like Kurosawa’s masterpiece, there were seven of them and they found themselves fighting the good fight in a somewhat unlikely way.

William H Macy as The Shoveler

The Mystery Men were dreamed up by an inept mastermind with a flaming carrot for a head who hid out in his Uncle Billy’s attic reading comic books. Then, having done his research, he went into the superhero business himself.

Richardson takes up the story. “‘Flaming Carrot’ has his own version of the ‘Justice League of America’ or ‘The Avengers’ - a group of all the superheroes put together, called the Mystery Men,” he explains. “They are a group of blue-collar superheroes... but they don’t have the good superpowers.”

Whereas real, spandex-suited superheroes are unlike Joe Public in one direction - ie. they are bigger, stronger, handsomer, more generously endowed in every sense - the Mystery Men are unlike the average Joe in the other direction. They are, to put it mildly, a bunch of losers. Except that, in the comics - and in the movie which Richardson produced in conjunction with veteran Larry Gordon (48 HRS, Field of Dreams, Die Hard, Boogie Nights) and his former Largo associate Lloyd Levin - they win. Eventually.

Hank Azaria as The Blue Raja, whose weapon of choice is table forks.

What Ben Stiller, who plays junkyard worker Roy, aka Mr Furious, has to say about his character could go for all seven of the Men. “I liken Mr Furious to the guy in a band, the guy who started the band, but he’s the least talented member,” says Stiller. “He doesn’t play the bass well, but he’s the one who believes in the band the most. He’s the weak link, but he’s also the guy most behind the band.”

As his name implies, Mr Furious’ party-piece is getting very, very angry - nothing more. “That’s it,” says Stiller. “I get angry and I just scream. Then I meet this waitress [played by Claire Forlani from Meet Joe Black] and she helps me realise that I’m a guy who throws a tantrum and nothing happens. So she helps me get in touch with my true superpower.”

Paul Reubens as The Spleen, who is deadly when he releases his bodily gases.

If getting very cross may not seem the most obvious superpower, it is at least a little more ordinary in superhero terms - it was, after all, what turned mild-mannered Bill Bixby into a big green Hulk - than the skills of the other six Mystery Men (or Mystery Persons, since one of them is a woman).

She, of course, is Janeane Garofalo, who plays The Bowler, so-named not because of what she wears on her head (nothing), but because of what, at times of need, she holds in her right hand: a transparent bowling ball containing the skull of her late father, Carmine the Bowler. Seems Carmine was lethal with a bowling ball and that his power imbues his daughter’s arm every time she strikes.