Elementary, my dear Ritchie

Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the world's first superhero with those deductive powers of logic, has been re-imagined as Batman by Guy Ritchie and his producers. Dr Watson is his Robin.

As this seems to have been a successful ploy at the box office, the sequel to the movie can't be far off. But which other ancient sleuths might be dusted down for the teenies, the new decade? Lord Peter Wimsey as Spiderman? Miss Marple as the Silver Surfer? Philip Marlowe as Captain America?

A new sub-genre has been unleashed.