Ultimate Fantastic Four
December 11, 2005
I’ve never been a fan of the Fantastic Four. At all. They sort of go against everything I love about Marvel. They have life easy, their beloved by the community, and have unlimited funds. This is very different than Spider-Man who is trying to hold his life together while being hated for his altruism.
Anyway, I decided to get my hands on Ultimate Fantastic Four purely to find out if Brian Michael Bendis had put the same touch on this series as he had on The Avengers. Though I was skeptical, he did it here as well. I just finished reading Ultimate Fantastic Four 1-6 and these characters are interesting to me for the first time.
Sadly Bendis left writing Ultimate Fantastic Four after issue 6. Apparently that’s when he concentrated on reinventing the Avengers, which was certainly a success as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, my hopes are a bit lowered for the rest of the series. I intend on reading it regardless, check back on my impressions.
I may even need to see the movie now…
Tags: bendis, brian michael bendis, comic, comics, fantastic four, marvel, trade, ultimate, ultimate fantastic four, ultimates
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Did you see the Fantastic Four movie?
It has Christian from Nip/Tuck as the evil lord doctor man.
[...] The major difficulty here though is that Jenkins is no Bendis. The story was told in a way that is fragmented at best. This extremely hard to follow “origin” set Sentry up as a classic hero, older than the Fantastic Four, but forgotten by some trick. One major problem I have is that the trick doesn’t really match with the new continuity established in New Avengers. Without much surprise here, I like Bendis’ rendition better. Having heroes make heroes forget is a bad plan. Make a villain do it and I’m in. I also have some doubts about his lame sidekick and the secret serum that gives him his powers… [...]
[...] I didn’t used to be much of Fantastic Four fan. In fact, I watched the movie for the first time long after it had been out of theaters. However, my expectations were low and I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed this movie as a popcorn action, fun filled romp, with super heroes. [...]
[...] Spinning out of the pages of Ultimate Fantastic Four, Marvel launched a highly successful Marvel Zombies limited series written by Robert Kirkman. The popularity of that series has lead Marvel into many new horror genre comics. [...]
WILL HAVE SPOILERS!
I’m a recent F4 fan. I liked Ultimate F4, but was not really immensely impressed by it. Ironically, I kinda liked them better in their “guest appearance” in Ultimate Spiderman (where it showed how gross and socially inept Ultimate Reed is).
I disagree that the F4 had it easy, especially if you read the earlier F4 books. In fact, the Marvel Universe was shaped the way it is because of the foundations of F4.
While F4 has a “family” image, it doesn’t mean that the characters didn’t have their own demons. Sue and Reed’s marriage is miraculously intact after all the crap they went through. They actually almost divorced one time, when Reed decided to put his son into a comatose state when he couldn’t find a way to stop Franklin’s power from destroying the world… Sue was genuinely pissed off, mainly because Reed made this decision on his own and has been (to be quite honest) not treating her as an equal the entire marriage (YAY FEMINISM!).
There was that time when Sue transformed into this dominatrix-type crazy persona after she was mind-raped by Psycho-Man (when she was emotionally vulnerable after her miscarriage).
The family does not have unlimited funds. In fact, they went bankrupt twice. The first time was partially because Reed was a complete douche-bag and put his family in this social experiment of allowing their accountant (or something) to embezzle Fantastic Four Inc. cash so his family can have the opportunity to live a normal life. Reed took a job teaching in a University, Sue was a highschool teacher, Ben was in construction, and Johnny was with the Fire Department! Johnny didn’t have a very warm welcome from his co-workers, to say the least!
The second time they went bankrupt was the major storyline before Civil War. Again, Reed was acting like a complete douche-bag and made this elaborate plan to get rid of Dr. Doom once and for all which involved taking over Latveria. The United Nations saw this as hostile action, and the Fantastic Four was actually branded as traitors. Needless to say, they did not have a very good welcome when they returned to the US. Reed was forced to sign over all of his assets and patents to the government to settle their case.
Needless to say, Johnny (being forced by his sister to work in the family business as the finance chief officer) was instrumental in helping build back their financial status into stability.
When Civil War incurred, the Fantastic Four was still recovering from the aftermath of Reed’s actions.
Certainly these are still Marvel characters, so they are going to deal with real life issues. However, their trials don’t compare to Peter Parker’s or Matt Murdock’s.
On a day to day basis they aren’t perceived as bad or hated by the community they are in. Granted this is used as interesting plot from time to time, but it isn’t where they sit all the time.
For me, I’ll never own multiple floors of a sky scraper lab in the middle of Manhattan. This makes their life a bit harder to associate with than Peter Parker’s.