Nerd Pride Radio

So, as of today I've read the first 18 issues of Fantastic Four, and their first annual. (The original run from 1961.) Aside from the expected sexism, I was struck by one major question: How the hell are they even functioning as a group? Human Torch and Thing are consistently at each other's throats. It starts as simple pranks, sure, but they out and out try to kill each other in just about every issue. Thing has sever anger management issues, mostly tied into his appearance - but wait! He had anger management issues before his transformation, back when he and Reed were college roommates!

Reed and Sue have huge romantic issues with each other. Every time they fight Sub-Mariner, Sue has a deep longing feeling for Namor, so she's not 100% faithful. (She even crushes hard on Ant-Man. ANT-MAN. WOMAN ABUSING HENRY PYM ANT-MAN.) And even weirder, Reed's ok with it! He's not going to try and win her love back, or even talk to her. It's just kind of like, meh, maybe it'll happen. Even though THEY'RE ENGAGED.

So why is this group of four even together? Why do they hang out so much? Reed and Ben live together in the Baxter Building; they're college roommates who still hang out together. Sue and Johnny live together in the suburbs; they're siblings after all. So the Storms drive into NYC every day, to hang out in an apartment with the fiance who seems blase about their relationship and an anger-riddled guy who you hate. Is it just because they have super powers, that they feel obligated to stay together? I may rethink my whole idea about which comic I'd want to rewrite.

And people are always so surprised when the movie adaptations of FF suck...

That's what I was thinking. These are bad characters with a horrible origin story. It was only through years of development that they became workable in the comics. But in rewriting that origin for the movies, you still always have that same problem: brilliant scientist somehow gets his girlfriend, her brother, and a hot-headed friend caught in an experiment-gone-wrong in which they get super powers. Now they fight crime together. GO!

It can be made to work, but modern screenwriters still have no version of this in which it actually DID work and made sense on which to model their own version.

My only theory is that Reed feels responsible for making things even worse, in some respects, or more difficult. Except, does he? No, not really. And of course she has nothing better to do. Maybe they're both the idle rich and would be hanging out in the city anyway. I dunno, I got nothing.

That's my problem with Reed, is I've never felt he has much of a moral compass. He does the right thing, because that's what you're supposed to do.

Personally, I like the idea that the movies are trying to bring in Sue as a brilliant scientist in her own right. Not the freaky genius that Reed is, but amazing enough in her field that her and Reed have a lot in common... that's how they met... that's why they work together. I actually think the whole dynamic might work better if Sue was just the straight up leader of the team. Reed's a super-genius and all, but doesn't have the temperament for organizing and maintaining a cohesive team... whether it be a team of researchers or a team of superheroes.

But no matter what, none of Reed's qualities really speak to the idea of being a good leader. He's not leadership material... he's absent-minded professor. The idea that he IS the leader of the team by virtue of being the husband/father figure of the team is outdated and silly.

Did they do an Ultimate Fantastic Four? It would be interesting to see how they updated the team. I liked the FF when Byrne was doing it in the early 80s, but that's the only time I read the comic.

In the Ultimates universe, Reed became a villain, if I remember correctly.

The best Fantastic Four is in Planetary by Warren Ellis. Once you see where things are going, you'll agree with me.

It's a Mary Sue type thing. The son of the First Family of supers turns out to be the most powerful super ever. What tween hasn't come up with a story like that?

Good point... I particularly enjoyed one of Marvel's many alternate futures, I think it was from after the Days Of Future Present storyline, the mid-90s maybe... Darcs can correct me if I'm off too badly, as he's likely seen it more recently than I have.

Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers, two of the children of my two least favorite Marvel characters ever, have a kid, and he's so unbelievably strong that he basically lays waste to his entire reality, and it pushes over into nearby realities. I think his name was Hyperstorm.

It almost seemed like... "Okay, we've written ourselves into a bit of a corner, having Sue and Reed AND Scott and Jean having incredibly powerful children... What if they had a kid! Right?"