Why do we only have one Silver Surfer series?

Recently I got access to Disney+, and when opening the streaming service found a pleasant surprise. The Silver Surfer animated series, the short-lived gem that did everything right and I wish more than any other series got its second season. Many clamour for a 2nd season of Firefly still in hopes that it will happen and Disney announced that the X-men animated series that ran from 1992-1998 will get a continuation on Disney+ despite it getting an actual finale which the Silver Surfer did not. But who is the Silver Surfer and why has he only ever got the one show?

The Silver Surfer’s history isn’t as long as The Fantastic Four or Spider-man or The Hulk. In fact it’s relatively short with few publications for a character who has been around since the 1960’s. But the Silver Surfer is a well known character, you hear him referenced in things like the Big Bang Theory. He is popular, so his reason for a lack of publications is not a lack of popularity like Jack of Hearts. The reason for his lack of publications was Stan Lee. The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four 48 and he’s even introduced as “a character that Jack calls the Silver Surfer” (Jack Kirby being the artist and principal writer of the F4. At this phase Stan only did the final script). Despite this somewhat dismissive introduction by Stan, he grew to love the character, so much so that nobody else was allowed to write him. The other theory is that he felt guilty because this was around the end of his working relationship with Kirby that he wanted to do right by his former friend. While Galactus and the Silver Surfer where among the last characters Lee and Kirby co-created he’s not the last. Black Panther was introduced 2 issues after the conclusion of the Galactus trilogy. 

The Silver Surfer made very few appearances after a stint as a supporting character in the Fantastic Four. The most notable part he played was having his powers stolen by Doctor Doom. Without Jack Kirby Stan Lee wrote a one shot with European comics legend Moebius, a one off Graphic novel and an ongoing series with John Buscema. Despite handpicking Buscema to be Kirby’s replacement, Stan hated the end results of the ongoing series. Stan later mellowed on the series with Buscema telling the artist that he really liked the Thor and Loki crossover issue. Buscema then pointed out “that’s not what you said when the book was first released”.

The Surfer also joined the Defenders (briefly) but was removed on the insistence of Stan Lee. Even though the series was written by Stan’s protege Roy Thomas. Silver Surfer got an ongoing series after Stan Lee retired from Marvel comics in the 90’s (Stan would still work as a producer on non-comics projects).

The Silver Surfer is an unusual character in the genre of Superhero comics. Similar to Superman he is extremely powerful but doesn’t use his powers for gain. But Superman is a more active character, Superman will actively seek to stop evil, while the Surfer is a true pacifist. Also while Superman is a Man (when written well) the Silver Surfer is a demigod. Superman is super-strong, fast, able to fly and shoots lasers from his eyes. The Silver Surfer has the power cosmic “a power too vast, too universal, if misused it could destroy a galaxy” or “the power of creation itself”. 

The ideas and philosophies of the character are too difficult for your conventional boys adventure story. The Silver Surfer is more like a space Ghandi than a warrior. The Silver Surfer avoids conflict at all costs and even lets himself being enslaved. A notable example would be Planet Hulk where Silver Surfer takes a beating from The Hulk rather than fight back, because he could take the abuse. But is it truly enslavement if you can escape at any time like the Surfer does and transmutes the other slaves’ chains to dust allowing them all to revolt against their captors.

The Silver Surfer is more like Stan Lee’s self-published character. It’s normal in mainstream comics for a character to be created and then completely destroyed by subsequent writers. But Stan tried to keep the character consistent and was very protective of this intellectual property. Which makes the decision to let the character leap to TV worse. While the Silver Surfer cartoon is amazing and 100% looks like a Jack Kirby comic now animated. The next featuring role of the Silver Surfer pains me. 

The decision to add the character to The Marvel Superhero Squad, a pre-school show featuring the Marvel heroes, is baffling. Well until you realise the Mayor of the town is played by Stan Lee. Did the Surfer retain his personality? nope. In fact the only one who did was Captain America. The Hulk became the Cookie Monster, Wolverine became an easy-going happy go-lucky character and the Silver Surfer became Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

So what does the future hold for Norrin Radd? well Terry Crewes is campaigning to play the character. I’ll be very impressed if he can play the role, as it seems so out of his comfort zone. But what I really want is either a continuation of the series from the 90’s or the next film to be animated. So they can fully explore the parts of cosmic Marvel that were too out there for the movie where a tree and a raccoon with a machine gun save the universe. Terry could even do the voice as long as it’s a more subdued performance than his Old Spice commercials.

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Comics from the 1960’s weren’t enlightened on their portrayal of women. It’s just a fact, no two ways about it. Sure it was a genre aimed at young boys written and drawn almost exclusively by men, but under a modern lens the early Marvel comics don’t hold up very well in this regard. To quote Professor Marsden when asked to weaken Wonder Woman (his creation) “How are young boys to grow up to respect women if we don’t show them examples of strong women”. Now the Stan Lee girl is a variant on how women (who weren’t Wonder Woman) where written in this era. The Stan Lee girl is young glamorous and has all the personality of day old dish water but is also very important to the male protagonist(s) of the Superhero book. Not all characters that fit this mould are Stan Lee creations, like Saturn Girl from the Legion of Superheroes or Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol, but Stan and his tendency to put his name on every book produced by Marvel (even if he had nothing to do with it) makes him synonymous with the trope.

Now that’s explained why not continue reading this as I explain how 4 of Stan’s creations became well actual characters not just “oh gosh isn’t she pretty”. I will not explore every female character that has a Stan Lee creator credit or I’d be writing a 200 part piece on the subject and Black Widow has been omitted because she wasn’t actually created by Stan and in no way fits the profile being first introduced as Iron Man’s Archenemy and not his love interest.

Sue Storm

The first woman of Marvel Comics (assuming the Fantastic Four haven’t lost their status as the First Family) and master of running away. Sue in the early comics is really good at getting kidnapped, especially by Doctor Doom or Namor. She brings antagonists to the Fantastic Four, while Doctor Doom uses her as bait for the other 3 members of the team out of convenience, Namor is to be the other rival to her husband Reed Richards. Prince Namor tries to lure her to be his queen, always unsuccessfully, because for her to be actually tempted to turn evil would imply some form of personality. Susan is actually so notoriously useless that in a weird Meta issue (Fantastic Four 11) the F4 read letters sent to them by “Fans” and Sue bursts into tears because all the letters get call her useless. This of course outrages Mr Fantastic who invokes the name of Abraham Lincoln to defend his future wife. 

Fantastic Four 22 is when the attempts to make Sue better started, before this issue Sue could only turn invisible and hide, this issue gave her the comics code classic Telekinesis. Telekinesis is one of the girliest superpowers in comics (not that it’s effeminate but it’s mostly held by female characters) because it can easily adhere to Comics Code Authority guidelines about violence between men and women. The female hero using Telekinesis can fight back without actually hitting the super villain or henchman and with this at least Sue could fight back and didn’t need her sign saying “kidnap me” as much anymore, although Dr Doom might still do that because “expediency often outweighs originality”. 

Sue’s next biggest developments were marriage and motherhood. Side note it’s officially canon that their son Franklin was conceived after the first time the F4 saved the earth from Galactus which makes me ask the question after the earth was safe did Mr Fantastic give The Thing and The Human Torch some of their pocket money to go the cinema. But the change from teams eye-candy and damsel in distress to motherhood really suited Sue as she pretty much filled that role in the team anyway. The Fantastic Four are a squabbling family who often fall out and Sue is the under appreciated peace-keeper and emotional support for the boys. With Franklin added well she just has another child to look after but this one shouldn’t know better than to be an immature show-boater, I’m looking at you Johnny Storm. 

Sue’s last real moment of characters development comes from Fantastic Four 280, where the villainous Psycho-man (kind of an obvious villain name), turns Sue into Malice; Mistress of Hate. Now with a name like that she’s obviously an enemy to the rest of the Fantastic Four who she proceeds to beat the snot out of (once and for all proving she is actually the strongest member) which to many fanboys is the most important thing. But this has to end abruptly by Mr Fantastic realising its Sue and declaring “Susan stop acting hystericaly” which somehow (plot contrivance) snaps her back into her old self.

The Wasp (Janet Van Dine)

Unlike most female characters from silver-age Marvel, Jan started with some semblance of a personality. She was the plucky rich girl who was Hank Pym’s fan-girl and really wanted to join him on his scientific adventures. Jan seemingly relegated to the sidekick role by the virtue of being a female character even if Ant-man was dependent on her because she paid for all of his scientific equipment. But I’m ignoring the elephant in the room, their relationship is just the fucking worst. Panel to panel all these 2 do as a couple is squabble, Stan Lee once while tried to decipher why Ant-man was never a colossal hit like The Hulk or Spider-man. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say young boys reading their superhero comics for a little escapism from their parents arguing don’t want to read about the male hero in the comic declare “Get in the kitchen” and his girlfriend/sidekick say “no I bought the kitchen you go in it”.

The lack of popularity lead to the cancellation of all Ant-man books and the duo became stalwarts of The Avengers where they kept trying to rebrand Ant-man because “he has a silly name” so he took on names like Black Goliath (despite being neither African American or wearing Black) Giant-man and finally after a mental breakdown Yellowjacket. Dr Pym became the joke of the team and his team mates often made fun of his mental instability and the fact that Jan was better at superheroing than him. In a last ditch effort to stay on the worst Superhero team of all time (1970’s Avengers are just terrible) Dr Pym created a fake Ultron attack that would prove his worth. This is when the infamous slap panel comes from (the slap is actually an artistic flub and was intended that he pushed her out of the way). After this incident Hank and Jan divorced (despite the fact they never should’ve gotten married in the first place), and also Jan became the leader of the Avengers and while she occasionally stumbled with her confidence she lead the team admirably even if she did keep changing costume every other issue because she was a “fashionista”.  

Scarlet Witch

First appearing in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wanda was manipulated by Magneto’s magnetic personality (not a joke actual reason), into joining his terrorist organisation. This is a strange trend that still exists with female villains, Marvel did it with Medusa when she had amnesia and joined the Frightful Four and DC currently have the Cheetah (Wonder Woman’s Archenemy) being manipulated into crimes by Lex Luthor. Comic writers have this strange idea that women can’t be mastermind villains, they have to be arm candy to the big bad, female villains are still rare even when they’re not arm candy, Batman’s Poison Ivy is often portrayed as more of an Anti-hero than a true terrorist or Catwoman as a criminal with a heart of gold. 

Scarlet Witch and her brother Pietro (aka Quicksilver) where rescued from their life of crime by Captain America who had them enter his new team (the second ever line up of Avengers) nicknamed Cap’s Crazy Quartet with the fourth member being former Iron Man villain Hawkeye. As time went on Wanda stopped spending so much time telling her brother “the whole world doesn’t hate you” despite the fact he is a complete and total jerk. Avengers and the few X-men comics she appeared in focused more on her bizarre back story and this is truly a sign of gender equality because most of the male Superhero characters don’t have much in the way of personality traits but they have extensive adventures.

Wanda’s history includes being raised by a mutated Cow named Bova (with her brother), previously mentioned manipulations by Magneto, training under Agatha Harkness in witchcraft, marrying a robot, being unable to have children with a robot, magicking up her own babies (that turned out to be demons), blowing up Avenger’s mansion, rewriting all of reality, travelling back in time and being persecuted for witchcraft, getting engaged to Doctor Doom and a search to find out who her father is. With all that, it’s not surprising that she hasn’t developed a personality, with that much back story you try having some hobbies.

Gwen Stacy

How did modern Marvel fix Gwen Stacy? They created a whole new character of course. Gwen’s initial storyline was a love triangle with Peter Parker (secretly Spider-man) and Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the more fun of the two girls, she was a party girl, she was the hip cool one who talked in Jazz lingo while being completely oblivious to the fact her name was a slang term for Cannabis (but what do you expect this was a funhouse mirror look at youth culture written by a middle-aged man to an audience of 13 year olds). Gwen was a more quiet studious girl whose ideal evening was curled up on the sofa with a good book and drinking hot coco. Marvel’s writers wanted to end the love triangle but they couldn’t have the notoriously indecisive Peter pick between one of them, so the next logical choice was made to have her be dropped off a bridge by the Green Goblin.

Gwen was now treated as a what if to Marvel writers, whenever Peter was too down on his luck or fighting with Mary Jane something might happen to bring Gwen back. Most notably her Biology teacher cloning her in an attempt to get revenge on Spider-man (yes it is as confusing as it sounds).

In the 21st Gwen was made cool, the drummer in an all girl punk rock band, with a cool new costume. The Spider-Gwen comics actually make you realise something about Spider-man comics which is we only care about Peter Parker because he is Spider-man.

Disney/Marvel's Children of the Atom

Ok after the Atomic Box Office Bomb that was Dark Phoenix, Marvel has stated they’re in “no rush to reboot the X-men”, but that doesn’t mean I can’t post my notes and ideas for the reboot online, it also means it has longer to reach Kevin Fiege who MUST implement them all. So here we go my list of ideas of what the new X-men must do different to the original film series owned by Fox.

New Creative team.

This may seem obvious (thats because it is) but don’t hire, Bryan Singer or Simon Kinberg to oversee the whole new Disney Marvel X-men. They’ve had their turn and they fucked it up. Now I’m not saying I’m the man to do it, I have literary zero film industry experience (despite the sheer arrogance to post about films almost as much as comics on this blog) unless we’re accepting a writing a couple of skits for youtube as film experience. I could get behind James Mangold (Logan’s Director) or Noah Hawley (Legion and rumoured to be working on a project involving Dr Doom) it should be somebody fresh.

Don’t make Wolverine the main character.

Yes we all love Wolverine, and casting rumours are flying everywhere suggesting Keaunu Reeves, Jason Mamoa or Taron Eggerton being in the role. But Wolverine was the main character of the last incarnation, and yes he is the most popular X-man ever. 

But that in itself is problematic, Wolverine is a mysterious angry loner, that was how he was introduced as the scary guy in the corner (well he was actually introduced getting his ass-kicked by the Incredible Hulk). That’s his appeal, more screen time and the more we peal back and often you don’t want to actually know the real answer, that’s part of why X-men Origin’s didn’t work, the origins Mini-Series in the comics isn’t universally accepted (I only begrudgingly accept as works by Jason Aaron mention his brother Dog Logan). I would also be remised to not mention I know exactly who should play Wolverine, Henry Rollins. Rollins has everything you need to be Wolverine he’s short and angry, and don’t forget Wolverine was never a teen character, even when X-men Evolution put all the X-men in High School, Wolverine was still a middle-aged man who had to take orders from Cyclops.

So if not Wolverine who do you make the main character, well X-men is littered with point of view characters; Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Barnell Bohusk the list goes on… almost anyone who was a later recruit was the audience point of view as they had to have everything about the Xavier institute explained to them. The first X-men movie almost did this with Rogue, but seemed to after act one get cold feet or Bryan Singer wanted to focus more on Wolverine and Cyclops being petty little children arguing over Jean.

Have Jean be already dead.

Yes longtime readers will be familiar with my feelings towards Jean Grey, but if you’re not here the cliff notes. The most interesting thing Jean Grey ever did was die and the worst thing she did was come back. 

But with Jean’s death came character development, theres tension in the air for our new recruit, something is bumming out the team and nobody will say what it is, why do Scott and Logan hate each other. The X-men are in splinters racked with guilt and need to learn to trust each other again and that’s your character arc for the team, how do you move on from loss and thats very MCU.

Use more than one villain.

The best way to open this movie is with action, yep I said it, it worked for Indiana Jones it’ll work here. It also worked in the MCU for Winter Soldier.

The only problem is who do you use to open the movie? Well I have a couple of thoughts, first Arcade, a lesser known X-men villain who is basically Jigsaw from the Saw Franchise minus the Edge-lord philosophy bullshit and just murders people with Killer clowns because he can. Arcade lacks depths but his visual style is far removed from the “Realistic look” of the previous X-men movies and more in line with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Second thought is Krakoa, a mutated land mass that is responsible for the formation of the second X-men line up, and this would be a good in joke and would also show a major change from the previous as mutated land masses were too out there for Singer (who didn’t even like characters flying). 

As for your main Villain… I actually have no idea somebody whose a threat to the X-men (so not Apocalypse as he’s just full of hot air)

Embrace the weird.

Seriously the X-men where originally labelled as The Strangest Heroes, don’t take that away from them now the Guardians of the Galaxy are mainstream with their talking cyborg Racoon. 

The Mutant Bomb

The (Fox) X-men franchise has just sung it’s end song, and it was a major Box office bomb. A bigger one than expected, and a pricey bomb at that with extensive reshoots to make the film “Watchable”, but in the words of Adam West “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb”. Of course it can’t be as simple as bad film equals bad reviews which means poor Box Office turnout, no. One Fox executive believes the X-men films where failing because “the team name isn’t progressive enough”. While. Pro Life lobbyist are claiming this is their first boycott to actual make an effect on the Box Office (similar Right Wing Boycotts where in place for Star Wars Rogue One, Last Jedi and Captain Marvel, all of which made around 1 Billion Dollars at the Box Office), due to Sophie Turners comments on Georgia’s abortion law and Disney (who recently purchased Fox, all hail the overlord mouse) refusing to work with Georgia which used to have the biggest Sound editing studio, a movie they can make owning exclusively the second (being Skywalker Sound).

So why have the X-men movies gone from beloved by Comic book fans to so unloved that the latest instalment made less than a 10th of it’s budget back in it’s opening weekend. Well the simple fact is they never got any better (the ones directed by Bryan Singer), the first one to be beloved by Comic fans only had to be better than Steel which to be liked had to be better than Batman and Robin which is often seen on worst ever lists (and Steel in my opinion is far worse because at Batman and Robin is entertaining). With a bar that low almost anything could jump over it and the X-men movies did despite their directors feelings toward the series varying from contempt to hatred, going so far as banning the comics from the set of the movie because “he didn’t want his actors drawing inspiration from them”. Singer's goals with X-men where singular, as a soapbox for him to talk about the persecution of Homosexuality, a stance that got Ian McKellan interested in playing series Antagonist Magneto, completely ignoring the idea that the X-men are all different and represent all diversity and persecution (this is why they have different powers). 

The first X-men ushered in the era of Superhero movies that where sometimes watchable, the other notable superhero film franchise of this time was Sam Raimi's Spider-man and these 2 franchises directors couldn’t be more different. Raimi is a massive fanboy of Spider-man and was a maker of cult hits like Darkman and the Evil Dead Trilogy, while Singer had before the X-men had only one hit film The Usual Suspects. 

After the first X-men movie came X-men 2 (logically) but while this film is more beloved than the first, it would cement how Singer viewed used the source material far more. X-men 2 is based on the storyline “God Loves, Man Kills” (the best single story in X-men history) but very loosely. Everything that made the original story interesting or worth telling, gone was the discussion of religious zealotry, instead the stories villain the Reverend William Striker who believed all mutants where an abomination and the devils work was made into a military colonel who hated mutants because. The movie was not devoid of christianity because added for this movie was Nightcrawler, but a one dimensional version of the character who is just Catholic guilt, not the fun loving prankster. Nightcrawler lost his “Mutie and Proud” identity, whilst the comics version declined a Holographic projector to hide his unusual appearance movie Nightcrawler actually asks Mystique “Why doesn’t she look like a normal human all the time” which is completely different to Nightcrawler’s belief that “God made me like this for a reason, who am I to question why” also gone was the most powerful moment of the story where Nightcrawler confront the religious zealot Striker and explains that “Mutants can’t be godless because he feels Gods love” and exposing Striker as a Bigot using religion as a platform for his hatred. The film also failed to show that Magneto and Striker are more a like, instead Magneto is less of an Antagonist but feels more like a victim fighting back. 

X-men 2 ended with a teasing of an Adaptation of the Phoenix saga, but Bryan Singer left the franchise to go and make a Superman movie where instead of saving people he stalks his Ex-wife. Why did Singer choose Superman over another X-men? Halle Berry asked for a bigger part in the movie. Halle Berry of course played Storm who happens to be Chris Claremont’s (writer of X-men comics for over 20 years) favourite character and his favourite in a comics franchise known for strong women. Singer wanted to focus on the men, as far as he’s concerned if you’re not Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto or Cyclops why are you there? Jean Grey was allowed screen time because she was a vehicle to get James Marsden and Hugh Jackman to take off their shirts and he has a warped view of the Phoenix saga. For those who don’t know, the Phoenix saga is a storyline which starts in Uncanny X-men 102 when Jean Grey to save the other X-men becomes host to a malevolent alien entity and tries to maintain her own personality (or lack there of). The Hellfire club seeing how powerful Jean is try and make her their puppet to control by psychically raping her and destroying everything she is from within. They succeed in this and Jean becomes a warped Dominatrix version of herself before eventually the malevolent psychic alien entity eats a sun and the X-men are put on trial for Galactic crimes, with Jean coming to her senses and using the phoenix force to destroy her body and the entity itself. Somehow Singer and others have viewed this story of rape and casual genocide as a “Coming out” story, and in Singer’s case he has a reason and it’s disturbing. Bryan Singer likes to molest 14 year old boys, this isn’t slander even if he has been acquitted of these crimes, he’s had multiple accusers and his acquittal has been based purely on “lack of evidence” like most rape cases. Bryan Singer believes the Hellfire Club are the Heroes like he is, because through rape, he has unlocked their potential or shown them who they really are.  

With Singer gone we got 2 terrible X-men movies, and despite adding fan favourites Beast and Kitty Pryde (my favourite X-man), they still failed to capture the spirit of the X-men comics that is until X-men First Class. X-men First Class is a prequel to the first X-men movie directed by Matthew Vaughn, and in it Magneto is on a killing spree to kill all the Nazi’s who mistreated him in a concentration camp while Professor X tries to convince him to let go of his hatred and to use his mutant gifts to help all of Humanity. Xavier is unsuccessful at convincing him this long term but he does convince him intervene in the Cuban missile crisis. This being a core ideal of the X-men that being yourself and working to help people is better than succumbing to hatred be you, Black, Gay, Autistic or Blue Gorilla man (not limited to those 4 groups), or to quote the Tick “Choose Love not Hate”. 

After this came The Wolverine a movie that film critics deemed boring, but they couldn’t be more wrong. This movie is introspective, it’s about dealing and learning to live with consequences, (something that X-men comics did when they where at their but post Claremont forgot about) and then Wolverine fights a man in a giant robot suit wielding a Katana. 

Of course the good times couldn’t continue, Bryan Singer returned to the franchise and decided to remove all the interesting part of one more Claremont Era storyline Days of Future Past. Singer of course changed the main character of the story from Kitty Pryde to Wolverine, thus making another character nothing more than a helper to Wolverine. But again the Antagonist has been made into a simplified caricature of his comic counterpart (odd because a comic book has less time to expand on a one shot villain than a film), instead of being a parody of Walt Disney wanting to maintain family values by creating giant robots to kill all misfits (Mutants) because a misfit is obviously a delinquent, the movie version is a short man suffering from “Napoleon complex”. The jab at Disney (then rival company they where in a blood feud with) is lost because of Singer’s lack of care, not to mention the film ends with lazily retconning everything to the second scene of X-men 3 before Jean murdered everyone, no consequences for anything Wolverine.

The films after that weren’t all losers in fact the ones not directing by Bryan Singer are good, Deadpool although detached from main continuity is a fourth wall break of bad-taste jokes. Not to mention the never afraid to be weird TV show produced by Fox Legion, which acts as the anti-thesis to Bryan Singer’s play it safe and make it bland ideas of super heroics, even introducing concepts from the comics like Astral duelling which are visual stunning and weird. But the real nail in Singer’s X-Coffin is Logan, a movie so good in a genre hated by the academy it got an adapted screenplay Oscar nomination (normally superhero movies only get nominations for technical awards). But Logan gives a finality to the 2 out of 3 characters who audiences actually liked from the early films in the franchise, which causes the feeling of why bother following that, and the answer really is there isn’t nothing can. Wolverine finally found closure and nobody really liked X-men Apocalypse so why follow it up other than so Singer can cut anyones part if they beat him in X-men trivia (see Olivia Munn explaining why Psylocke’s costume is purple).  

Those Un-Fantastic Movies

The Fantastic Four haven’t had the most well-regarded of film adaptations, have they? 3 different directors have had a go at making a film version of Marvel’s First Family (Roger Corman, Tim Story and Josh Trank respectively). So this obviously means the adventures of Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing are ‘uncinematic’ or ‘unadaptable’, right? Well, if you keep making the same obvious mistakes over and over again, then yes. I mean sure, the individual films have their own unique problems, like Roger Corman’s incredible shrinking budget and Josh Trank’s refusal to show up to work. But the same 4 (an oddly appropriate number) problems keep on happening.

The FF are Explorers, not Crimefighters

This one’s a real problem. What’s even more strange is that they acknowledge this in their origin “Exploring Space”. But then it’s dropped once they get superpowers. It’s almost as if they went just to pick them up, like a suit from the dry cleaners before a job interview. Most F4 comic book story lines revolve around them exploring somewhere new and making enemies with a tyrant or befriending a friendly king. The number of places in the Marvel Universe that was first explored or discovered by this family from New York include Attilan, Atlantis, the Blue Area of the Moon, Wakanda, Latveria, the Negative Zone, the Skrull Home World. And those are just the greatest hits. 

Removing them as space adventurers robs them of what makes them so special. If theres a mugger in New York, there are at least half a dozen heroes all tripping over each over to stop them (Spider-man, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Cat, Venom, Jessica Jones, The Prowler and Kirby knows how many more). But the Marvel Universe has only one team of super-powered explorers. 

I think this change is made because movies don’t like what is known as a Flat-Arc (wherein the hero isn’t changed by the story). But this is ridiculous because they can still evolve on an alien planet. 

The Character’s are Wrong

It’s fair to say that the Fantastic Four are a product of their time. While Sue is best defined as the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” even before having kids (I’m sorry but it’s kinda true), the other three have different personalities to their movie counterparts (even with that said Sue isn’t very Sue). 

Reed Richards is the embodiment of 1950’s Rugged Manhood. He’s not just the smartest man in the world but square-jawed and emotionally distant as well. Reed in the movies is a wimpy nerd who has to bring extra lunch money so he can still get a cookie after the less nerdy nerds beat it out him. These two things are not the same at all and it’s really stereotypical. 

Johnny Storm is, frankly, an immature kid in high school who likes to show off. Sue has spent half her life looking after him after their parents were killed in a car crash when Johnny was 7, partially why Sue is the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” before she even had her own kids. Johnny in the movies has his “Rebel Without a Cause” side cranked up to 11. But all this does this is create a really shallow version of Johnny Storm, especially as all of the Fantastic Four have above average intelligence (the other three are just dwarfed by Reed Richards). Johnny is more Marty McFly (complete with short temper) than a 2nd rate James Dean. 

The worst offender for the movies getting wrong is most probably Ben Grimm, the heart and soul of Marvel Comics. In the movie adaptations, he spends his time moping about lamenting that he used to be a handsome man but now he’s a giant toenail (fun fact: Ben Grimm’s rock skin is actually more similar to toenails than rock. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get athlete’s foot). While this is true of the comic counterpart to a degree, he actually gets over it pretty quickly. He’s a changed man as soon as he meet Alicia Masters. Ben Grimm is a fun-loving party animal. He loves to drink, gamble and fight. He always has a joke ready for when he punches a bad guy and he’s the Idol of Millions. He’s basically like the Marvel Universe’s Mr. T.

You’re Wrong about Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom first appeared in Fantastic Four number 5 and he was a fully formed character. He had an army of robots, a suit that made him look like the grim reaper’s stunt double, a magic castle, his own made-up kingdom of Latveria and a time machine. He forced three of the members of the F4 to get him some magic pirate treasure. And thats a million times better than what we got in any of the movies. Sure, Doom has a personal vendetta against Reed Richards but it predates him becoming Mr Fantastic. It’s not that Doom is an entitled shmuck who wanted to marry Sue. No. Doom’s hatred of Richards is much more intense and much more personal, Richards destroyed his experiment, his one chance to talk to his deceased mother, and it scarred his beautiful perfect face. 

Doom is no tag-along, Doom’s power is all self made. He didn’t hitch a ride with the other four, he studied the Occult and raised his own army. And all to fulfil his destiny to complete his goals of getting revenge on Reed Richards for disfiguring him, redemption for his mothers soul (she sold it to Mephisto to protect their village from the Nazi’s) and total conquest of the world. Not to destroy it though, rather so he can rid the world of disease and poverty as everybody will be too busy worshipping his magnificence. 

Doctor Doom is almost always the aggressor in his stories with the Fantastic Four, as their insistence on still existing always circumvents his plans to bring much needed order to a world gone mad. But due to his popularity (he was even Stan Lee’s favourite villain), he’s appeared as an adversary for almost every Marvel hero. He’s gone to war with Wakanda and even tried to seduce Spider-man to the ways of villainy. Doom is a complex character as well as being an over-the-top characteur of a fascist. 

There are More Villains than Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is possibly the greatest villain in all of Superhero comics. However, his back stories and motivations are more complicated than the average disposable movie villain. The method of adding him into the origin of the F4 just plain doesn’t work. It belittles him. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four have many villains. Assuming this is to fit into the MCU, Ronan the Accuser and the Skrull Empire have already been used, but they still have many more that haven’t yet been used. They include evil magician’s like Diablo and Nicolas Scratch, the communist villain the Red Ghost (who gained super powers for him and his apes by copying the F4) and Dragon-Man (often partnered with Diablo) who’s whole shtick is a bizarre lie as he is an Android and neither a Dragon or a Man. The Puppet Master, Alicia Masters step-Father, controls people with puppets he makes. The Moleman is the ruler of an underground world with loyal subjects called the Moloids. The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, The Frightful Four (a rival group of Scientists who make themselves an evil copy of the heroes). Annihulus and Blastaar (rival rulers of the Negative Zone who the F4 keep getting in the way of). Heck, even their original villain Namor the Submariner. With him, you can keep the whole “I love Sue, you don’t deserve her” shpeil as that’s actually his motivations.

So is it that the Fantastic Four are uncinematic? god no. The Movie versions have been plagued with problems, Roger Corman was hired to make the first one because of his extremely fast turnover in productions and Constantine films didn’t want to lose the rights to the series so they made a movie of them. Tim Story’s Fantastic Four was made for similar reasons, coupled with the popularity of the Spider-man and X-men movies they thought it could make a profit and it did and it spawned a sequel that some how managed to be worse. Tim Story also only had 1 previous directing credit for a box office flop starring Queen Latifah. Josh Trank’s Fant4stic was also made under the pressure of not wanting to lose the rights to the series. While his vision of a darker version of the F4 seemed strange it had some merits to it, like how Stan Lee’s original pitch for the series had protagonists all slowly dying from their super powers.

The most compelling argument for the Fantastic Four not fitting into a film structure is that the comics often revolve around on going plots from issue to issue. However that idea is flawed by the fact that all Marvel comics have that and well Spider-man has done pretty well on the big screen.