Fantastic Four
Michael Wood
smart people, and it strick me thta the usual FF stereotypes are a bit off
key.
Reed as big brain academic and unemotional - but involved with the miltary,
stealing his spaceship, jumping headfirst into danger, standing up to Victor
for years
Johnny non-thinking hothead - but Johnny is an elite athlete, race care
driver, calculating multiple probabilities, fantastic reflexes, able to
assess complex situations extremely rapidly (like most athletes, he doesn't
consciously think about his decisions when making them on the field)
Ben big, strong, think - he's a fighter pilot! and a big one, when most
fighter pilots are small for a number of reasons, not least being G forces
Sue strong now, but previoulsy a self-doubting shrinking violet - daughter
of a really clever guy (so the genes are there), pursued the arguably
smartest guy in the world, danger etc etc - chased by no less than Namor
himself
Just my rambling, but I thought I should say something.
Michael Wood
grinningdemon
wrote:
>I was just re-watching the movies, and thinking about recent posts about
>smart people, and it strick me thta the usual FF stereotypes are a bit off
>key.
>
>Reed as big brain academic and unemotional - but involved with the miltary,
>stealing his spaceship, jumping headfirst into danger, standing up to Victor
>for years
It's often said that he's incredibly arrogant...which is why he jumps
headfirst into danger all the time...but one of my favorite scenes
from a modern FF comic was from Mark Waid's run, when he had Reed
putting Val to bed by telling her the story of the FF's origin and
describing it as an incredibly arrogant man doing something incredibly
stupid...he goes on to say that his family paid the price by being
turned into freaks so he invented the FF and made them all superheroes
to make their lives so fantastic that they wouldn't have to feel like
freaks anymore...it was the best explanation I've ever read for the
FF.
>Johnny non-thinking hothead - but Johnny is an elite athlete, race care
>driver, calculating multiple probabilities, fantastic reflexes, able to
>assess complex situations extremely rapidly (like most athletes, he doesn't
>consciously think about his decisions when making them on the field)
is he a race car driver in the comics? I don't remember that...and
how immature and hotheaded he is varies greatly from one writer to the
next...at times, he seems to have grown up...at other times (most
recently during Millar's run), he seems worse than ever (Sue actually
compared him to Paris Hilton).
>Ben big, strong, think - he's a fighter pilot! and a big one, when most
>fighter pilots are small for a number of reasons, not least being G forces
True...but, originally, he and Reed were WWII vets and fighter pilots
of that era didn't have to worry as much about G forces since the
planes were so much slower.
>Sue strong now, but previoulsy a self-doubting shrinking violet - daughter
>of a really clever guy (so the genes are there), pursued the arguably
>smartest guy in the world, danger etc etc - chased by no less than Namor
>himself
I agree with the rest but Namor chasing her isn't really saying
much...all he really does anymore is pop up in various Marvel books to
chase the resident blonde...it's hardly limited to Sue at this
point...both Emma Frost and Namora...it's probably only a matter of
time before he shows up in the Avengers books and goes after Ms.
Marvel, Mockingbird, and/or Moonstone.
>Just my rambling, but I thought I should say something.
Someone certainly should...it's been dead around here lately.
Wayne S Garmil
grinningdemon <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:27:35 GMT, "Michael Wood" <no-...@home.comj>
>wrote:
>
>>driver,
>
In the very early comics, Johnny was a hot rod street racer. So yes,
he was at the start of the series a race car driver, just not a
professional one.
Wayne
--
_ __ _ __ | I see the girls walk by dressed in
' ) / // / / ) / | their summer clothes; I have to turn
/ / / o // __/ / __. __ __/ | my head until my darkness goes...
(_(_/ <_</_(_/ (__/ (_/|_/ (_(_/_ | -Rolling Stones, "Paint It Black"
Magnus, Robot Fighter
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:27:35 GMT, "Michael Wood" <no-...@home.comj>
>wrote:
>
>>I was just re-watching the movies, and thinking about recent posts about
>>smart people, and it strick me thta the usual FF stereotypes are a bit off
>>key.
>>
>>Reed as big brain academic and unemotional - but involved with the miltary,
>>stealing his spaceship, jumping headfirst into danger, standing up to Victor
>>for years
>
>It's often said that he's incredibly arrogant...which is why he jumps
>headfirst into danger all the time...but one of my favorite scenes
>from a modern FF comic was from Mark Waid's run, when he had Reed
>putting Val to bed by telling her the story of the FF's origin and
>describing it as an incredibly arrogant man doing something incredibly
>stupid...he goes on to say that his family paid the price by being
>turned into freaks so he invented the FF and made them all superheroes
>to make their lives so fantastic that they wouldn't have to feel like
>freaks anymore...it was the best explanation I've ever read for the
>FF.
Now...why did he let his teenage girlfriend and her younger brother
go?
Kenneth M. Lin
"Magnus, Robot Fighter" <M...@Key.com> wrote in message
news:nesmc5d6dup1e81a7...@4ax.com...
He couldn't find a babysitter at the last minute? That crib robber, Reed.
grinningdemon
An incredibly arrogant man did something incredibly stupid...kind of
says it all...but I don't think they were teenagers, were they? I
know there's an age difference between Sue and Reed but it's not THAT
big a gap.
Kenneth M. Lin
"grinningdemon" <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:0h9nc5dfppt9ee2fj...@4ax.com...
According to OHMU, they are like twelve years apart. Reed was in college
when he met Sue at her aunt's boarding house and she was still in first
grade or something. So Reed was eighteen and Sue was six. (This actually
doesn't make any sense since Reed and Doom were college roommate so they
were living on campus.)
grinningdemon
I knew all that (though I'm surprised it hasn't been updated)...then
Reed and Sue didn't see each other again for years until the both met
as adults...so I assume Sue would have been in her 20s at that
point...I suppose Johnny might have still been a teenager but I don't
think Sue was...isn't there a age gap of 5 or 6 years between Sue and
Johnny?
William George Ferguson
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
Unless they've retconned it, Johnny was definitely a teenager at the
beginnning of the Fantastic Four. In his Strange Tales solo stories, he
was attending high school on Long Island, and keeping a secret identity (in
one of my favorite Marvel moments, in the final Torch story in Strange
Tales, the townspeople reveal that they'd always known he was the Human
Torch, since the FF was world famous and didn't use secret identities, but
politely played along because he so clearly wanted to be considered a
normal teenager). He finally graduated from high school and started
college in the 70s.
--
"Oh Buffy, you really do need to have
every square inch of your ass kicked."
- Willow Rosenberg
Garbin
"William George Ferguson" <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:rminc59fpbh1hph5k...@4ax.com...
Johnny went to college shortly after the Galactus Trilogy (FF#48 to FF#50)
where he met Wyatt Wingfoot. That was in the 1960s.
iarwain
If you go with Reed's self confessed arrogance, he probably had so
much confidence in the ship he constructed that he thought it would be
completely safe. And maybe he wanted to really impress his girlfriend
- taking her on an adventure into space would be a hard date to beat.
Scott Eiler
Approaching the problem from the other angle... Sue and/or Johnny
probably nagged and/or whined their way into it. Never underestimate
a whiny kid brother.
iarwain
Or a nagging girlfriend.
Billy Bissette
330557...@k4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
>> Never underestimate a whiny kid brother
>
> Or a nagging girlfriend.
Particularly in a mid-20th century comic book.
Raymond Speer
I have to prefer the revised origin of the FF, which differs from the
hoary old original set up in that:
(A.) It is not obvious that the secret launch is unauthorized by the
authorties. The four don't sneak past nonvigilant sentries and closed
gates on the way to the rocket.
(B.) Ben is not complaining incessantly that Reed skipped on the
insulation against cosmic rays. Ben has good reason to hate Reed from
version one of the origin: Reed's design defect is precisely the problem
that disfigured Ben. In the newer version, the inadequacy of the cosmic
ray shielding was not as obvious as a screen door on a submarine.
(C.) Sue and Johnny are in front of instrument panels of their own and
are obviously busy on those activitiies. The Storms are part of the
craft's minimum flight crew, not a couple gawkers who Reed and Ben
treated to a rocket ride for their entertainment.
(D.) The cosmic ray bombardment that altered the team is no longer
depicted as "usual," "expected" coditions. Instead, the burst of energy
is something way off the charts, a total surprise, about to happen
inside of a few seconds. Reed is no longer the dipshit who failed to
provide for routine conditions. He is the master scientist confronting
a great surprise.
iarwain
I agree with most of your points, it's a pretty good update to the
origin story. The only real problem I have with the film's version is
I don't like the idea of Doom gaining powers from cosmic rays. I know
this idea is taken from the Ultimate version of the FF, but that
origin story is even worse (negative zone).
I prefer the idea of Doom coming to prominence through a completely
different path from the FF. I also like to see him as being a sort of
villainous version of Iron Man, only smarter, where he has crafted his
own armor and weapons. In the movie, I swear he reminded me mostly of
the villain in the Howard the Duck movie, shooting electricity
around. Lame.
In fact, it's the villains in these movies that have hurt them mostly,
and kept them from being more than mediocre superhero treatments.
Look at The Dark Knight to see what an effective villain can do for a
film.
Lilith
Effective, yes. But consider that, just like with the FF movie, the
villain was a departure from the comic-based version. IOW, a
Hollywood version. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I think
the problem with the FF movie was that they needed to work in the
origin of Doom also. Doing this separately would have taken too much
time. It was also somewhat necessary to establish his rivalry with
Reed which, origin-wise, had to fit within the same time frame. Note
the first Batman movie in the new franchise didn't spend to much time
explaining the villains. The second movie seems to have had more time
to spend on the origin of the Joker since it didn't have to deal with
Batman's beginnings.
--
Lilith
Billy Bissette
news:1ad9e5th9e2qn4fup...@4ax.com:
I would say that the problem with the FF movie was that they
based him on the Ultimate Fantastic Four version rather than the
classic version. They made him grow metal and gave him electricity
powers, rather than just having him go with the classic armor and
technology-based powers.
They didn't have to tie his origin directly into the FF origin,
either. Hollywood and script writers think this is necessary, but
it isn't. (And Ultimate Fantastic Four itself.) I think one of the
weaker parts of the Burton Batman was that it needlessly made Jack
Napier the killer of Bruce's parents. While Batman Begins did the
same thing with a different character, it did so more indirectly.
Spider-Man didn't do it with the first movie, and only fell into
that trap with the all-around poorly conceived Spider-Man 3 (which
to create automatic conflict with Sandman claimed him to be the
real killer of Uncle Ben.)
It wouldn't have taken too much time to do the classic Doom
origin. A few minutes would give enough time for Reed and Victor
and the explosion. The movie could have had a short group of
brief "key moments" in the character's lives near the beginning,
and that could be slipped into the mix. Alternatively, Reed's
college period could be treated as *the* important period of
his early history, making it the spot that establishes his
relationship with the rest of the FF and with whatever space
experiment they decided to use. Either way, Victor disappears,
only to return for revenge at or after the FF-creating
experiment.