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Ssssmokin'! Stanley Ipkiss puts on a cursed green mask and becomes a zoot-suited cartoon come to life — eyes bugging out, heart pounding through his chest. The Mask turned Jim Carrey into a literal living Tex Avery gag and gave the world Cameron Diaz.
A purple-clad hero who is a homeless man in the real world and the Leopard Queen's protector in another, with much of the animation drawn straight from Sam Kieth's comic panels. MTV aired it in 1995 under its Oddities label, in 13 short episodes.
The summer 2000 movie that made superheroes respectable — black leather instead of spandex, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen lending Shakespearean gravity, and an unknown Australian named Hugh Jackman popping the claws. The modern comic-book boom starts here.