For my first article I figured I’d tackle, the Fantastic Four.
In case you haven’t read the comic or seen the movie let me bring you up to speed:
Reed Richards, his girlfriend Sue Storm, her brother Johnny, and Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm are the Fantastic Four.
You see, Reed discovered some cosmic storm in space, so he wanted to study it before the Russians had the chance to. With that in mind, he came up with a scheme to steal a spaceship, and with the aid of Sue managed to con his best friend into piloting the thing into the cosmic storm, and just for the hell of it they brought along her kid brother.
Once they stole the ship and reached the cosmic storm, they were bombarded by cosmic rays, once that happened Ben lost control of the ship and just as it was about to crash on some mysterious island, the autopilot kicked in.
They stumbled out of the ship, feeling shaken by the crash, but it was then that Sue started to fade in and out of sight, Ben’s skin turned to a stone like substance, Reed was able to stretch, and Johnny could ignite in flames, with out feeling any pain.
Since these are comic book characters, I’m guessing they don’t stay in that state of shock for very long, because out of nowhere they got the bright idea to use their powers to help mankind. They gave themselves new names, Johnny called himself The Human Torch, after the WWII hero from Invaders. Sue chose the name, The Invisible Girl, which she would later change to The Invisible Woman. Ben, who totally got the short end of the stick in this deal, is unable to change back to his human form, and ends up with the name, The Thing, because that’s what Sue called him when she first saw him in his new form.
Lastly, Reed Richards, the man who stole a rocket ship, took his girlfriend, his best friend, and a minor on a dangerous mission into space, which turned them into freaks of nature, chose to call himself Mister Fantastic. Now this guy, he’s suppose to be the smartest man in the world. Not only did he ruin the lives of those closest to him, but he then he elects himself leader of the group, and then drags them on a series of other crazy missions, and randomly experiments on Ben (sometimes against his will) in an effort to change him back to normal so he doesn’t have to look at that ugly mug anymore.
All sarcasm aside, over the year the story and characters evolved, as did their relationships with one another. They made plenty of enemies. Members have quit, been replaced, or been presumed dead, but the roster always goes back to the original four. Reed married Sue, and had two children. Ben turned to and from his human form several times. Johnny married an alien who was posing as Ben’s ex-girlfriend. They all died, and came back to life, and saved the world several times over (and you thought soap operas had drama?)
However, one thing remained true: They were not superheroes.
Unlike the other super groups out there, they didn’t have secret identities, they were celebrities. They were a family first, and adventurers second. They were not out there tracking down rapists and solving crimes. That’s what Spider-Man and Daredevil were there for. The Fantastic Four were there to investigate bizarre events, go out to foreign lands and dimensions. If aliens were invading, you didn’t call the X-Men, they were more worried about mutants. If giant monsters were tearing up Manhattan you wouldn’t call Alpha Flight, they were based out of Canada and had problems of their own. If it was just a group of guys in spandex who wanted to take over the world, you’d call the Avengers. If it was something big and strange, you’d call the Fantastic Four to solve the problem. That was their thing, and a nice alternative to comics with bank robbers and murderers and the such.
Well, I believe I mentioned something about the Avengers in that last paragraph, I’ll cover them next time.
