Kang the Conqueror is the one with the flying time-traveling Sphynx.
That said:
Does Doom actually want to kill the FF? Because, with his technology, it should be a breeze.
No. He needs the FF. For important missions like this…
He’s basically what Doctor Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb would be if he was a lot smarter and had an entire country at his disposal (rather than focusing on the Tri-State Area). And if Doofenshmirtz had access to sorcery.
“Dr. Doom Evil Incorporated!”
But Doom doesn’t put a self-destruct button on all his machines.
“What can I say? They were on sale.”
Since this is now the Doom-ridiculing thread, I’ll remind everyone about the time he was defeated by Squirrel Girl.
That barely counts. Everybody has been defeated by Squirrel Girl.
♫ ♬ Doom’s his own grandpa…♫ ♬
But then his hook isn’t really, “Villain who is a mad inventor,” it’s “Villain who gives other villains super powers.” Every story with him becomes a punch up where they have to beat his mooks-of-the-week, then find the mastermind who created them. Having him be a guy who can pull a bunch of different inventions out of his back pocket lets you put him in a bunch of different, high-concept stories. You want to do a story with pirates. How do the FF get to pirate times? Dr. Doom built a time machine. You get an idea about a skyscraper being in space. How does the Baxter Building get into space? Doom launched it there. You don’t have to create a new villain for each of these stories - you can plug a familiar face in as the heavy, and you don’t have to justify why Doom’s able to do this new thing the story requires from him: he just built a new invention, and is using it to torment Reed again.
That’s just an established part of the Marvel universe - there’s tons of small time, punch-clock villains who’ve got a minor super ability, but aren’t really much more dangerous than a guy with a gun when you get down to it.
New trailer. It’s been a long time since I have been this excited about an MCU release.
The shadow of Galactus on Manhattan Island kicks butt.
We finally saw a bit of stretchy, and it didn’t look too bad. Hopefully, it’s minimized. Reed Richards’ real super-power is his brain.
The more trailers I see the more I am convinced Pedro Pascal is miscast as Reed Richards. He’s a good actor but I don’t get the “smartest guy in the room who’s thinking about 17 different projects he’s working on while you are talking to him” vibe that Reed has. He seems too warm in what little we have seen but it’s just trailers so who knows?
Who says “genius” has to equal “cold dick”?
Yeah, “cold dick” Reed isn’t part of the Silver Age playbook this film is drawing on. Now, “sexist sick”, on the other hand…
I am the target audience, having been a F4 fan since the very early 1970’s.
I didn’t find the teaser particularly impressive, either.
I did think Ioan Gruffudd was good casting for the Reed Richards role, and he did what he could with what he had. Jessica Alba, I thought, was miscast as Sue Storm/Richards, and also I thought the “escape the crowd by undressing seen” was creepy as hell, like it was written by little boys sniggering "oooo - she’s running around naked!" While the fan-nerd in my liked the two movies with that cast there were major flaws with the movies as a whole.
I’m hoping that works better than a straight, linear narrative has in the past.
Reminds me of when Hugh Jackman was cast as Wolverine: he was too tall and his hair didn’t look like the comics. But, you know, the movie version of Wolverine was every bit as successful as the comic version.
Or Tom Cruise as the vampire Lestat, which was also considered wrong by many but it worked out OK in the film.
I’ll reserve judgement on casting choices until I see how they work out in the actual movie.
I’m very familiar with the Fantastic Four from the comics (I even read my dad’s old 60s comic collection when I was a kid) and I think I’d be okay if they took him in a different direction. Reed didn’t really have much of a personality. He was like those emotionless “scientist hero” types you’d see in old scifi B movies. (Which I’m guessing inspired the character.)
The Pedro Pascal version might be an improvement. I think it’s very possible.
You know who could probably play a spot-on Reed Richards? Liam Neeson, if he just played him the same way he played Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace. That would be perfect. But that character sucked on screen.
Benedict Cumberbatch?
Playing as he did Sherlock Holmes but with an American accent, maybe.