Ru1977
The Irishman
I've noticed that, yes.
Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies and Streaming Series Discussion
- Thread starter Ru1977
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I turned off my computer when you called Thing a discount Hulk.
Felonious Monk
Ponderous
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It's funny that even though I read lots of "Doom" stories, I feel like I don't know him at all because the vast majority of those turned out to be Doombots. That shit was so overused when I read comics I counted on it not being him at all and was usually correct. Having said that, I still feel Doom is as much the main villain of Marvel as Joker is for DC as far as the entirety of comics history.
joshsquash729
Born on the cob
Oh yeah, there's definitely a reason why Doom has kinda outgrown the F4 in a way in terms of usage and popularity, but to be fair, the same can kinda be said about a lot of villains. While certainly popular overall, I do think the likes of Thanos and Loki have overtaken him lately, but I'm interested to see if/how that changes after Doomsday. I think the thing that separates him from, say Joker or even Lex is that there doesn't quiiiiite seem to be a super unified vision for him or how they want to use him yet- like Felonius said, it often results in a retcon or nerf-ing that feels like a letdown. But I suppose that's another thing that separates him from the likes of Joker or Lex- unlike them, who are ground-level threats that could be killed in an instant by their respective heroes, Doom is, at best, a fair fight, if not stronger than the heroes he fights.
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Yeah, Thanos and Loki have only overtaken Doom because of pop culture recognition. It'll almost certainly change if Doom becomes a regular for a few movies. After all, if you had asked me who the biggest villain in the MU was before the MCU existed, it wouldn't have been either Thanos OR Loki, yet here we are.
But again, it depends on how they use Doom. If he's a one-and-done villain like the MCU insists on having all the goddamn time, then he might be about as relevant as Ultron.
But again, it depends on how they use Doom. If he's a one-and-done villain like the MCU insists on having all the goddamn time, then he might be about as relevant as Ultron.
docsilence
Dungeon Daddy
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Wasn’t sure the best thread to post this in but since it detailed my day I don’t want to be alone
I had to read it like six times, but I finally got it.
Ru1977
The Irishman
Heh, same. I finally read it fast enough to get it.
So, what's the big deal about the Fantastic Four? Why are they Marvel's flagship title? Why would a guy like Victor Von Doom care about the likes of a rubber band, a matchstick, a pile of rocks and a chick you can't even see? Let me see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense. Keep in mind they were created over 60 years ago and the world was a different place back then. In some ways better, in some ways worse, but definitely different.
In the late 50's Marvel, who called themselves Timely or Atlas back then, published about 8 to 10 titles a month. It was mainly sci-fi/horror books about giant monsters from outer space. Sales wise they were doing okay. Not great, but okay. Their rival DC Comics was having great success revitalizing super-heroes. One book in particular was selling very well, Justice League of America. Publisher Martin Goodman asked editor in chief Stan Lee to create a team of superheroes.
Now what you have to keep in mind here is that comic book publishers at the time thought of their audience as mainly children. During World War Two a lot of service members read comics because they were cheap and easy to read. But after the war ended, the companies looked at their readership as mainly being between the ages of about 6 to 13 or 14 years old. Once you got to be 15 or 16 and discovered the opposite sex, comics went into the garbage can. That's how the publishers saw it and that's how they wrote their stories. As an example, the Justice League had a villain called the Key. He dressed like a Key and tried to take over the world. Nobody ever explained why he dressed like a Key and used weapons that were shaped like a Key. He just did and that was that. As a reader you just kind of went along with it.
And so, after Martin asked Stan to create a superhero book, and after Stan had a heart to heart with his wife Joan, he and the great Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four. And the world of comics would never be the same again. That is not an overstatement. That is a matter of undeniable fact. The Fantastic Four changed everything.
The DC superheroes were like Gods. They rarely made mistakes. They were capable of miracles. They never argued with each other. They were always sure of themselves and never had doubts. I loved them with all my heart, but admittedly they were hard to relate to on a personal level.
The Marvel characters? They argued. They bickered. They squabbled like children. They were jealous. Sensitive. They made mistakes. They had self doubts. In other words, they weren't Gods. They were human. And people could relate to that.
Boom. Sales went through the roof. Teenagers and young adults on High School and College campuses all over the country and the western world went nuts. Fan clubs were started. I myself was a charter member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Newspapers and Radio stations wanted interviews with the Marvel bullpen. Marvel started getting fan mail and lots of it. In short order came the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. In June of 1963, Avengers #1 and X-Men #1 premiered. Yes, in the same month and same year.
With the fourth issue of FF, Stan had the words "World's Greatest Comic Magazine" lettered above the logo. That was a ballsy thing to do, but he was right. It WAS the world's greatest comic magazine. Those first 100 issues of Fantastic Four by Stan and Jack was probably the greatest run on any superhero title ever. They introduced the Skrulls, the Kree, Doctor Doom, the Inhumans, the Watcher, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, Adam Warlock and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. They discovered the Blue Area of the Moon, Attilian, Atlantis, the Negative Zone, the Savage Land, Wakanda and Monster Island.
Yep. World's Greatest Comic Magazine. It certainly was.
Why does Victor Von Doom hate Reed Richards so much? Simply put, Reed is not just Doom's intellectual equal, Reed is smarter. And Doom knows this and it drives him crazy. He can't stand being inferior to anyone. I would say Reed Richards is the most intelligent person in the Marvel Universe. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, they all come close but Reed is the smartest. Doom's immense pride and ego are core to his character. He sees Reed as a rival who constantly challenges his superiority, and that just fuels his hatred.
During their college years, Reed questioned the safety of a dimensional portal Doom was developing, which ultimately exploded and scarred his face. Doom blames Reed for this accident, despite Reed's warnings. And they've been at each other's throats ever since.
In the late 50's Marvel, who called themselves Timely or Atlas back then, published about 8 to 10 titles a month. It was mainly sci-fi/horror books about giant monsters from outer space. Sales wise they were doing okay. Not great, but okay. Their rival DC Comics was having great success revitalizing super-heroes. One book in particular was selling very well, Justice League of America. Publisher Martin Goodman asked editor in chief Stan Lee to create a team of superheroes.
Now what you have to keep in mind here is that comic book publishers at the time thought of their audience as mainly children. During World War Two a lot of service members read comics because they were cheap and easy to read. But after the war ended, the companies looked at their readership as mainly being between the ages of about 6 to 13 or 14 years old. Once you got to be 15 or 16 and discovered the opposite sex, comics went into the garbage can. That's how the publishers saw it and that's how they wrote their stories. As an example, the Justice League had a villain called the Key. He dressed like a Key and tried to take over the world. Nobody ever explained why he dressed like a Key and used weapons that were shaped like a Key. He just did and that was that. As a reader you just kind of went along with it.
And so, after Martin asked Stan to create a superhero book, and after Stan had a heart to heart with his wife Joan, he and the great Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four. And the world of comics would never be the same again. That is not an overstatement. That is a matter of undeniable fact. The Fantastic Four changed everything.
The DC superheroes were like Gods. They rarely made mistakes. They were capable of miracles. They never argued with each other. They were always sure of themselves and never had doubts. I loved them with all my heart, but admittedly they were hard to relate to on a personal level.
The Marvel characters? They argued. They bickered. They squabbled like children. They were jealous. Sensitive. They made mistakes. They had self doubts. In other words, they weren't Gods. They were human. And people could relate to that.
Boom. Sales went through the roof. Teenagers and young adults on High School and College campuses all over the country and the western world went nuts. Fan clubs were started. I myself was a charter member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Newspapers and Radio stations wanted interviews with the Marvel bullpen. Marvel started getting fan mail and lots of it. In short order came the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. In June of 1963, Avengers #1 and X-Men #1 premiered. Yes, in the same month and same year.
With the fourth issue of FF, Stan had the words "World's Greatest Comic Magazine" lettered above the logo. That was a ballsy thing to do, but he was right. It WAS the world's greatest comic magazine. Those first 100 issues of Fantastic Four by Stan and Jack was probably the greatest run on any superhero title ever. They introduced the Skrulls, the Kree, Doctor Doom, the Inhumans, the Watcher, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, Adam Warlock and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. They discovered the Blue Area of the Moon, Attilian, Atlantis, the Negative Zone, the Savage Land, Wakanda and Monster Island.
Yep. World's Greatest Comic Magazine. It certainly was.
Why does Victor Von Doom hate Reed Richards so much? Simply put, Reed is not just Doom's intellectual equal, Reed is smarter. And Doom knows this and it drives him crazy. He can't stand being inferior to anyone. I would say Reed Richards is the most intelligent person in the Marvel Universe. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, they all come close but Reed is the smartest. Doom's immense pride and ego are core to his character. He sees Reed as a rival who constantly challenges his superiority, and that just fuels his hatred.
During their college years, Reed questioned the safety of a dimensional portal Doom was developing, which ultimately exploded and scarred his face. Doom blames Reed for this accident, despite Reed's warnings. And they've been at each other's throats ever since.
docsilence
Dungeon Daddy
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I was actually on a panel at a writers conference this weekend about writing for superheroes and the F4 came up because an audience member said 'they're not superheroes, they're astronauts, they're explorers.' We talked a lot more than I thought we would about how comics always and forever pull from genres of the past to make something new, and I brought up how for a long while we had the scientist hero, who was really a throwback to Doc Savage and the like, the polymath genius who was also out there reaching for the next limit and unraveling the next mystery. We had a TON of those early on. So many test tubes in comics in the 50s and 60s, yeah?
I think we've gotten really far afield from that, and we could use a little bit of intrepid explorer/seeker of discovery type hero in our superhero soup these days. I'm hoping Pedro-Reed can give a bit of that back with this retro vibe. I always saw Reed less as a rubber band and more of a symbol of always stretching beyond the limits placed upon you. So both the silliest superpower but also wildly symbolic. I get why he's evolved into being a cold, distant jerk in a lot of stories, but man, in an era when we need some fucken hope, a smart man choosing to reach for the stars and wrap his arms around the world to protect it sure feels better than the "geniuses" we've got in our world.
I kinda put them in the same category as Superman when people say the F4 "hard to write." Nah, not true, you just gotta rethink where you angle the proverbial camera a bit.
And by contrast, I think Doom really is the perfect villain for them, because he is lonely where they have each other, he delves into himself where they reach for the world and the stars, and he is the hero of his own story where they are the heroes of each others' stories. Man, a lot of F4 villains are lonely old monsters, aren't they? Mole Man, Doom, Galactus, Annihilus, Kang, Molecule Man, Psycho-Man, Terrax, Ego, even Namor. Men and monsters fueled by stupendous power but often with no one to give their heart something to care about other than conquest or destruction. (Also why their villains can often carry a story on their own, because that loneliness is a hell of a story by itself.)
I think we've gotten really far afield from that, and we could use a little bit of intrepid explorer/seeker of discovery type hero in our superhero soup these days. I'm hoping Pedro-Reed can give a bit of that back with this retro vibe. I always saw Reed less as a rubber band and more of a symbol of always stretching beyond the limits placed upon you. So both the silliest superpower but also wildly symbolic. I get why he's evolved into being a cold, distant jerk in a lot of stories, but man, in an era when we need some fucken hope, a smart man choosing to reach for the stars and wrap his arms around the world to protect it sure feels better than the "geniuses" we've got in our world.
I kinda put them in the same category as Superman when people say the F4 "hard to write." Nah, not true, you just gotta rethink where you angle the proverbial camera a bit.
And by contrast, I think Doom really is the perfect villain for them, because he is lonely where they have each other, he delves into himself where they reach for the world and the stars, and he is the hero of his own story where they are the heroes of each others' stories. Man, a lot of F4 villains are lonely old monsters, aren't they? Mole Man, Doom, Galactus, Annihilus, Kang, Molecule Man, Psycho-Man, Terrax, Ego, even Namor. Men and monsters fueled by stupendous power but often with no one to give their heart something to care about other than conquest or destruction. (Also why their villains can often carry a story on their own, because that loneliness is a hell of a story by itself.)
So this Fantastic Four movie that comes out in less than two weeks is pretty important for a few reasons, not the least of which is Marvel Studios needs a hit. I'm not sure why more people didn't go see Thunderbolts but they didn't and that's that. The MCU needs a win and I believe this movie will be it.
The reason I believe this is pretty simple. This Fantastic Four movie looks like it's going to be actually based on the FREAKING SOURCE MATERIAL. Which NO FANTASTIC FOUR MOVIE HAS EVER DONE BEFORE. The two Fox movies were cute, but the Fantastic Four is not a damn situation comedy. They missed the mark. We won't discuss the Josh Trank thing. That was wrong on so many levels it made me and baby Jesus cry bitter, bitter tears. The Roger Corman fiasco was never released. If you've ever seen a bootleg copy on VHS, you'll see why.
So this is it. Now or never. Do or die. If this movie fails to break even, I doubt if we see another Fantastic Four movie again. And if we do, it won't be for decades.
It looks good. I have my hopes up. This looks like the Fantastic Four movie I've waited all my life for. We'll soon find out.
The reason I believe this is pretty simple. This Fantastic Four movie looks like it's going to be actually based on the FREAKING SOURCE MATERIAL. Which NO FANTASTIC FOUR MOVIE HAS EVER DONE BEFORE. The two Fox movies were cute, but the Fantastic Four is not a damn situation comedy. They missed the mark. We won't discuss the Josh Trank thing. That was wrong on so many levels it made me and baby Jesus cry bitter, bitter tears. The Roger Corman fiasco was never released. If you've ever seen a bootleg copy on VHS, you'll see why.
So this is it. Now or never. Do or die. If this movie fails to break even, I doubt if we see another Fantastic Four movie again. And if we do, it won't be for decades.
It looks good. I have my hopes up. This looks like the Fantastic Four movie I've waited all my life for. We'll soon find out.
@docsilence, you get it. You really, really get it. Great post!
The Fantastic Four are not superheroes per se. I mean, yes, if they're cruising around mid-town in their Fantasti-Car and they see a bank robbery in progress or something, they'll stop it. But that's not what gets them out of bed in the morning. That's not their M.O.
They are scientists. Explorers. Seekers of knowledge. Challengers of the Unknown (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) That's what they do.
Let's see if Marvel Studios gets it.
The Fantastic Four are not superheroes per se. I mean, yes, if they're cruising around mid-town in their Fantasti-Car and they see a bank robbery in progress or something, they'll stop it. But that's not what gets them out of bed in the morning. That's not their M.O.
They are scientists. Explorers. Seekers of knowledge. Challengers of the Unknown (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) That's what they do.
Let's see if Marvel Studios gets it.
docsilence
Dungeon Daddy
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After my first couple of books came out I wrote a string of silly promotional posts about "why they'd never let me write" specific characters and I had a whole pitch for a F4 movie that really leaned in on all these themes. I have spent an inappropriate and unnecessary amount of time thinking about how to honor the past and make something new with them. I have such a soft spot for these fantastic nerds. (This was back before I realized you're better off writing your own superheroes than pitching to Marvel or DC because they're going to hire you based on past work, not a pitch.)
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This I actually disagree with.
I think Doom is WAY smarter and absolutely more of a polymath, which makes his insane adversarial envy even more operatically bonkers. I think the whole conceit revolves around the fact that Doom could do basically *anything* if he just stopped being a weird baby about Reed Richards.