This list is no longer valid. Think of it as a snapshot from the past. It's a page out of history, back to the days of yesterday, before Batman: Arkham Asylum came out and shoved everything on the list down a notch.

After the jump, reminisce with me about what superhero games were like on August 24, 2009.

Yes, Kratos is a superhero. He certainly broods like one. Just because there's some silly Greek mythology riffs in here doesn't mean he wouldn't be wearing tights if they'd been invented.

Speaking of tights, no game better captures the dress-up aspect of the superhero creator in these games. Except maybe the micropayment + subscription fee + paid retail copy game, Champions Online, which comes out next month and was made by the same developer.

After the East Coast is devastated by a toxic apocalypse, a band of superheroes save it in this comedic adventure game from 1994. It was the first time Steve Meretzky plied his trade entirely in graphics.

I'm talking, of course, about the 1979 Atari 2600 Superman, an open-ended extravaganza that included X-ray vision, Metropolis, kryptonite, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and alter ego Clark Kent.

This Diablo-alike captured wonderfully the X-Men conceit of a bunch of dudes with disparate powers working together. Yeah, it was hack-and-slash. But it was X-Men-themed hack-and-slash.

You've probably never heard of this game because it was cancelled before it was made. It was supposed to be like X-Com, but with superheroes. It would have been created by SimTex, the folks who made Master of Orion and Master of Magic. If it had actually been completed and released, it would probably be even higher on the list.

What makes Batman Arkham Asylum so great is how well it captures what's unique about Batman. That's what also makes Spider-Man 2 so great. Web swinging through an open city full of missions was almost as dizzying and exciting as, well, web swinging through an open city.

Ditto what I just said about Spider-Man 2, but this time with the uniquely smash-inducing powers of The Hulk.

The best superheroes also get the best stories. Irrational Games was in fine form in this game, more comfortable than ever spinning a narrative around their characters while a nifty action/strategy game played out around them all.

The sequel might have been more refined in terms of gameplay, but the original is still the original. If there's one thing better than a great story, it's a great origins story. And if there's one thing better than a great origins story, it's about a dozen great origins stories.