To most, the legacy forged by The Fantastic Four began with a schlocky Roger Corman production, bleeds into “the ones with Jessica Alba,” and is bookended by the most infamous big-budget flop of recent memory. I imagine it must be utterly bemusing to those unaware of the comic book side of things why such reverence is applied to Marvel’s first family.
Last year, Marvel comics made the unprecedented decision to shelve their last ongoing Fantastic Four book following the wrap up of Secret Wars and discontinue licensing for T-shirts, toys, calendars and all other merchandise featuring the team. What’s more, the popular multiplayer game, Marvel Heroes, is removing all characters and costumes related to the property as early as July 1. What tragic irony; the series that virtually wrote the superhero team playbook is ostracized during the genre’s current heyday.
Now rumors have been swirling regarding Fox’s new venture with the ill-fated franchise in the form of a kids movie that focuses on Sue and Reed’s children, a la Pixar’s The Incredibles. Honestly, transparent ploy to safeguard the rights aside, that seems like as good an idea as any at this point, even if it means we're that much farther away from seeing Ben Grimm hanging out with Hawkeye. As neat as it would be for Tom Holland to maybe one day don the future foundation threads, I’m totally okay with never seeing The Fantastic Four realized in the MCU or anywhere else for that matter.
The Fantastic Four is sort of the Lawrence of Arabia of the comic book industry. A lot of what made them great did so in a time when no one else did what they were doing. They were pioneers, no doubt – a superhero team that squabbled and valued celebrity and discovery over stopping some asshole from jumping off the Williamsburg Bridge. Sadly, even though, Reed Richards is one of my all-time-favorite comic book dweebs, a lot of superhero teams have taken The Fantastic Four’s lead and to much greater effect. In other words, I don’t think the MCU will be hard pressed to find a band of bickering, but ultimately devoted, cosmic pals with a knack for exploration to fill their fantastic void.
There are elements to the team and their dynamics with the other heroes that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe that will absolutely be missed by me and certainly many others, but none worth chancing another big screen despoliation of Lee and Kirby's trendsetting babies.
The sad thing is, it's not even that The Fantastic Four is some unadaptable property like I might argue is the case for Watchmen or Beta Rey Bill. The problem is FOX seems to be ashamed of most of the superheroes that they own the rights to. I mean, are the X-Men films X-Men films? Or are they softcore action flicks with occasional cursory nods to only the most iconic of X-Men imagery: “Give Wolverine the hair, give Professor X the chair, and oh look the Phoenix.”
What does it say about FOX’s treatment of The Fantastic Four when the adaptation that came closest to the mark was the cheaply slap together Corman film from 1994. The Tim Story films were at least attempting to be fun superhero flicks, except they forgot the superhero part. There is nothing I can say about Josh Tranks turn at the helm that hasn’t been said ad nauseam by every other dickhead with a blog, except to me, its failure triumphantly declared the properties death, at least for a long time. I’m talking about a gap longer than the Batman and Robin to Batman Begins, longer than Mister Fantastic’s body that time Gladiator stretched him so far so fast, it almost killed him.
The Fantastic Four has served admirably over the course of their five-decade history and I think they’ve earned a much-needed leave of absence... but we're keeping Doom. He fucking rules.
