Fantastic Four Reboot: Five Things We Want to See

With Fox's Fantastic Four reboot still a long way away, we figured we'd take a minute to talk about a few things we'd like to see in the movie. Why? Well, it's the end of the year, and it's time to take stock in stuff. There's a lot of comic book movies coming in 2014, and even more that will be in production for 2015 and 2016 releases. We'll think a bit over the long weekend here about what we'd like to see from a number of them, but guest columnist Michael Brown gave us a terrific look at Fox's Fantastic Four, one of the most beloved comics and least beloved film franchises in the industry's history. The film is set to begin shooting in Louisiana in April for a summer 2015 release. So read on to see what we hope to get out of a Fantastic Four film (this time around). [caption id="attachment_72955" align="aligncenter" width="510"]

Art by Caldwell Tanner of CollegeHumor[/caption] The Incredibles Stay with me here. When I saw The Incredibles for the first time, one of my first thoughts was that Pixar had pretty much made the perfect Fantastic Four movie. So many core elements of the Fantastic Four were captured here that I think anyone working on the reboot could take a few pointers from this film. Primarily, Fox needs to realize that the Fantastic Four is really about family, a family that just happens to have superpowers. This is something that The Incredibles depicted perfectly, creating a family dynamic, making the audience care about its individual members and the family as a whole, and making the film more about their relationships than about the action and visuals. The Fantastic Four may not be a traditional family unit, but the strength of the comic and what has made it special since its creation is the interactions of its members. Reading the original Lee/Kirby run, the comic comes off as just as much soap opera as it does superhero action. The team might get on each other's nerves, disagreements will be had, in-fighting may occur, but at the end of the day this is a family unit made up of complex and nuanced individuals willing to lay down their lives for each other.

Depth Another part of what made the Fantastic Four unique when it debuted was the depth of its characterization and plots. By contrast, the original two Fantastic Four films by Fox were long on action and effects and short on just about everything else. To illustrate the point, one of the core elements of early Fantastic Four is Ben Grimm and his coming to grips with his monstrous appearance. This was a revolutionary moment in comics as prior to the Fantastic Four superpowers rarely, if ever, came with this sort of a price. With Ben Grimm though, we had a character questioning his own humanity and acting like a miserable jerk a lot of the time as a result of his rocky hide. This element provided a rich vein from which Lee and Kirby mined a great deal of narrative gold. Readers were treated to the pathos of Ben's multiple temporary changes back to his human appearance only to ultimately succumb once again to the effects of the cosmic rays. On top of that, Ben's situation informed the actions and emotions of other characters, particularly Reed Richards who had to deal with the fact that he had turned his best friend into a monster and his multiple failed attempts to set things right. In the original Fox films, they brushed up against this sort of depth but never really committed to it. Ben's coming to terms with his appearance, something that took dozens of issues and scores of character moments to happen in the comics, happened by the end of the first film as the result of almost nothing depicted in the film itself and with an off-hand nod and a wink. It's probably worth pointing out that creating a device that did in fact cure Ben, as Fox did in the first Fantastic Four film, and could theoretically by recreated by Reed Richards at any in the future entirely shoots the core of Ben's character in the foot. Similarly, while the original "Coming of Galactus" storyline from Fantastic Four issues 48-50 was a fairly deep story with a number of Biblical allusions, one could never accuse Fox's original films of this kind of thoughtfulness. This is particularly apparent as Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was a ham-fisted attempt at more or less direct adaptation.

A Great Villain… That Isn't Doctor Doom The Fantastic Four has arguably the greatest rogues gallery of any team in comics. The sheer number of bad guys that have debuted in the pages of their comic or are most closely identified with the team is staggering. Doctor Doom, Annihilus, the Puppet Master, Psycho-Man, the Mad Thinker, the Molecule Man, the Super Skrull… I could go on all day. There is so much potential here that it is hard to believe that done right Fox could fail with an FF villain. The thing is they've already proven that they aren't above screwing up their villains royally. Doctor Doom was removed of his grandeur, dignity, gravity, sense of honor, and twisted ethics. Meanwhile, Galactus was turned into a space cloud. I doubt that Fox would attempt a Galactus story again and I hope that they stay away from Doc Doom at least in the initial outing of the reboot. Fox had two tries to get Doom right and neither one hit the nail on the head. If they really want to stick the landing on this reboot, they need to have a successful film under their belt before they try to fix the Lord and Master of Latveria.

A Sense of WonderAside from being a family, the FF are also explorers. I've said it before and I'll stand by it, the Fantastic Four are not about fighting crime. If they are attacked, if they spot injustice, if there's a global catastrophe, if they pass a robbery on the way to pick up coffee, then sure they'll step in. That isn't their modus operandi though. The Fantastic Four has always been about expanding the bound of human knowledge and experience though Reed's inventions and by being the first humans to step into unknown realms of space and time. The Negative Zone? Check. Subatomica? Check. Blue area of the moon? Check. Heaven itself? Check-a-roonie!!! Heck, one of the greatest runs on the Fantastic Four comic was basically about the team messing around on extended vacation in the Negative Zone (John Byrne, Fantastic Four issues 251-256). Why can't we get some breathtaking cinematic magic depicting that first time the team finds itself in that extra-dimensional space?

Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin, the FF's Mailman If you ask us, there's no better cameo by Stan Lee than his appearance in the first Fantastic Four movie. A bright spot in a flawed film, Lee's appearance here was perfect for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Willie Lumpkin is an actual character in the Marvel Universe created by Stan Lee and we get to see The Man himself bringing him to life. Almost as important, Lee actually fits the part. Thinking about it, in most films the creators probably have to think about ways to shoehorn in Lee's nods to the camera, but here the logic could be the other way round. In theory, this appearance could have started as a desire to pop in a cameo by Lumpkin and someone took the next logical step and brought in Lee for the part. [caption id="attachment_72960" align="aligncenter" width="550"]

Art by Evan "Doc" Shaner[/caption] THE Thing This extra one's just for fun, but yeah we definitely want to see some Ben Grimm clobberin' action!