From The Page To The Screen

I was sitting in The Comicdenn looking at the Fantastic Four story arc from issue #84 to 87.The issues featured a great Dr. Doom story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with great Joe Sinnott inks. What a great story to relaunch the Fantastic Four on the Big screen!

I was sitting in The Comicdenn looking at the Fantastic Four story arc from issue #84 to 87.The issues featured a great Dr. Doom story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with great Joe Sinnott inks. What a great story to relaunch the Fantastic Four on the Big screen! I myself am a little leary of reboots. I don’t like some of the changes that have been made to the characters that breaks from the “true” comic book origins. In the first 3 Spiderman movies I didn’t like the organic webbing. In the reboot with Emma Stone and what’s his name, I was glad to see the web shooters but not the changes in the origin with Spidey and the unimportant variety store thief. Seriously? Tampering like that is an insult to all us fans who have supported these characters for all these years. It weakened the origin story, it did not strengthen it.

Why have another full origin story for the FF? Have a recap of the origin, to introduce the new cast at the beginning of the movie and then jump right in. Every time someone takes over the role of 007 we don’t rehash what has gone before.

I know that 20th Century Fox owns the rights to the FF, X-men and Daredevil, but just think if the properties could cross into the same Marvel universe as The Avengers and Nick Fury.

If we used that template, FF#’s 84 -87 would be able to feature the FF returning from their adventure with the Inhumans who will probably be introduced into the Marvel Movie universe by then, Nick Fury and Shield could make an appearance and Dr Doom could be the menacing Ruler of Latveria and not the pansy Julian McMahon played him as in the previous FF movies. The FF loosing and regaining their powers would be a great way of endearing the new cast to playing the characters truer to form with a little less campiness and have enough pathos to grab a hold of the new viewers and put a little more meat on the bones of the FF.

Now there are a wealth of story lines that could be used as a template for the relaunch. Just think of the wealth of characters that will be available from the Fantastic Fours history: Black Panther, Blastaar and the Negative Zone, Annihilus, the Kree Sentry, and the Silver Surfer and Galactus done right this time. The first family of Marvel Comics have a strong back story, and should be explored and not tampered with. That in my opinion is the way it should be done. If you took from issue #44 to 93 you would be making movies with a few changes in the cast and crew for a couple of decades easy.

I hope however when they relaunch the FF they stay true to what happened in the books themselves ,and not make changes just for the sake of making changes. I really hope they get it right this time!

Dennis De Pues
Dennis De Pues

Dennis is an admitted "Son of the Silver Age", having grown up with the influences of Silver Age greats: Kirby, Colan, Romita and Buscema.Three decades later, he is the creator of Crash!! and Galloway Park. More is definitely on the way.

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Charlie
Charlie
10 years ago

I’ve got an affinity for the the FF so… I’m with you brother!

I think they should consider doing a CG Thing. It would be more believable than a CG Hulk considering that rocks would lend itself better to the effect. Putting an actor in rock suit doesn’t work for me… at least not the way they designed it.

Another character they need to work on is Reed. I realize it’s difficult to make a “stretchy” guy not seem campy but they need to figure it out. And butch him up a bit. He’s a scientist, a leader… give him some presence. They made him out to be such a weeny that I was rooting against him… hoping that Doom or the Surfer would plow into him.

If all else fails, I say bring in Zack Snyder… just to get Ed riled up… (with affection Ed).

Dennis De Pues
10 years ago

Reeds power to me was always first and foremost his intellect and leadership skills.The fact that he stretched was very seldom the reason he was so important to the team.He also was much more sober and mature than portrayed in the first 2 movies.
The Hulk in the Avengers movie was the first time a CG character actually worked for me , but in the FF the Thing will probably have more screen time so perhaps there is a combination of live action suit WITH CG effects layered over it that can be done.I don’t know if that is possible but it may work.
Again the FF is the reason all the others came into being.The first family of Marvel Comics started the whole Silver Age.They deserve to be treated with respect and integrity!

Charlie
Charlie
10 years ago
Reply to  Dennis De Pues

What ya think of Avatar? The CG characters in there were not perfect but pretty darn good… no? Especially the animals.

Dave
Dave
10 years ago

Nice FF talk guys ! Thanks !