There isn’t a damn thing wrong with the Fantastic Four.
Only with the story tellers.
KIRBY AND LEE were slinging ink and doing their best to tell an entertaining story and keep their jobs. The FF became powerhouses largely due to the fact that Kirby was at the absolute top of his game at the time, and because the concepts were sound:
A brilliant youngish scientist who needs a family to keep him grounded
A woman who keeps him grounded and is more socially skilled than he is
A teenager who suddenly becomes the center of his own power fantasy
A former pilot and soldier who must suddenly come to terms with his monstrous appearance
and
A raging angsty scientist whose ego has eaten his life, who sees our other scientist as the origin of all his troubles and wants to destroy him.
There’s no reason these characters couldn’t sustain a movie. There’s no reason they’re unrealistic. After all, if Tony Stark could do it in a CAVE with a BOX! OF! SCRAPS!..
The problem here lies in the willingness of the idea people to grab the concept and run with it. The “X-Men” movies suffered from this – we lose a lot of the cartoony and the family concept, because the creators were worried whether it would fly. No, Wolverine cannot haz yellow spandex. Black leather for you, because black leather is kool, even for guys who sprout meat cleavers out of their hands or shoot red zap beams from their heads. We gotta appeal to the grownups…
…while forgetting that THIS grownup grew up reading the stuff, and that my daughter’s prized possessions include my old longboxes. But it worked. They balanced out the action movie with the comic book. And they gave the next generation more confidence.
And this is why Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, and so on went on to mint money in large amounts for their respective stockholders. It’s OKAY to dress a man in a flag suit with a target for a weapon and have him jump around like a hyperactive flag rabbit while he kicks ass!
…as opposed to the 1990 film where he appears in costume all of … twice, I think. It’s a Steve Rogers movie. And it’s crap. Because it’s a comic book movie with almost no comic book in it. And there’s the rub.
X-Men almost fell into this trap… but we finally bring out the goods. Razor claws, lightning bolts, optic blasts, fists that can crush concrete. That’s what comic books are FOR, people.
Iron Man didn’t even pretend otherwise. With a BOX! OF! SCRAPS! And Avengers gave us just enough plot to carry the story before launching into the superhero shenanigans.
…and then FF shows up. And rather than giving us the superhero story we all paid to see… we get a sorta kinda action movie with a naked Thing and yet another reminder of why we’re supposed to be ashamed. The director did not want to make a superhero movie. He did not want to make an action movie. He did not want to give us a mad genius with a ruined face and an Iron Man Meets The Phantom Of The Opera suit and sense of drama.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I’ve spoke with them what has. And this is a movie that was made by people who were ashamed of it and didn’t really have a clear idea of this “comic book” thing and were working for a paycheck and taking suggestions from every suit in the studio. And none of them knew much about this “comic book” thing, either.
Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Only old farts like myself grew up with spin racks in every drugstore and grocery. How many of the people making these movies really understand the art form they’re emulating?
I’m guessing very few, judging from the number of expensive misfires I’m seeing. It seems to indicate that you need a Brad Bird or a Joss Whedon to make one of these things, and then you leave him alone and let him do his job.
Durn shame. I loved the FF, way back in the day.
