Fantastic-Four

Our Monday feature continues as we move from Spider-Man’s debut to the debut of his own comic. We take a look at how things have changed, what tropes were started in this first issue, and ask who in the world is Peter Palmer? https://youtu.be/hXS6GcO2eCk Images used in the video: ASM 1 - Aunt May ASM 1 - Breaking the Fourth Wall ASM 1 - Chameleon ASM 1 Cover ASM 1 - Featured Image ASM 1 - Lampshade Hanging FF and Antman ASM 1 - Paid by Check ASM 1 - Peter Palmer ASM 1 - Spider-Menace ASM 1 - Spider-Physics Amazing Spider-Man #1 written by Stan Lee with art by Steve Ditko and lettering by Johnny Dee ...

This week instead of an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ABC aired a special about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe was basically a documentary discussing the process that Marvel Studios went through to create their series of interconnected movies and at the end gave a few teases for upcoming projects. My friends and I, and according to the website Television by the Numbers more than four million other people all tuned in to watch. Four million viewers isn’t going to win any time slots but it was still good enough to give ABC third place for the hour and drew significantly more viewers than the rerun of S.H.I.E.L.D. they aired on February 20th. More interesting to me was the fact that ABC was willing to air it at all. They have enough faith in the popularity of comic book entertainment that they were willing to air a documentary primarily about movies that people have already seen during primetime. If that isn’t a sign that we are living in a new golden age for comic fans I don’t know what is. However, unlike the Golden Age of Comic Books this new golden age is on the big and small screen. In honor of this new era of superhero entertainment I thought I’d take a look at the current and upcoming live action superhero movies and tv shows from both Marvel and DC.

As you’ve no doubt already heard, the new Fantastic Four movie has cast its Human Torch. Meet Michael B. Jordan, the new Johnny Storm: Even though this is a topic that Eric has already covered, I’d like to offer my thoughts on why casting an actor of color for Johnny Storm isn’t just a good idea, but a really important move. It’s no secret that representation in media is a big deal. There has been a push in the past ten years for the superhero genre to expand past the cookie cutter of “white heterosexual man,” and while the comics have been slowly expanding their repertoire, the movies… have not. The Avengers movie universe has War Machine, Black Widow, and Falcon, who have all been relegated to sidekick status; the X-Men movie franchise has revolved around the trio of Wolverine, Professor X, and Magneto, even when the stories they’re trying to tell really revolve around other characters. DC’s movie division has made movie after movie featuring Batman and Superman while outright refusing to focus a movie on Wonder Woman; their Green Lantern movie focused on Hal Jordan, the most stereotypical white guy in all the Lantern Corps.

The internet is abuzz about the recent news by 20th Century Fox to have Johnny Storm played by an African American actor in the next Fantastic Four movie. The featured image of this article should be a reminder that this isn’t the first time we’ve had this happen. Of course, that flip’s nowhere near as famous as the Nick Fury race flip.

Last week I took a look at four superhero characters – Batman, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and Starfire – and what made them decide to put on their costumes and fight the good fight. If you haven’t read that one yet, I’d suggest checking it out before you read this week’s installment. It will give you some context for where I’m starting with this article. My last article noted that a lot of popular superhero characters, including all four that we took an in-depth look at, had incredibly traumatic experiences that directly lead to them becoming heroes. According to the World English Dictionary, a superhero is “any of various comic-strip characters with superhuman abilities or magical powers, wearing a distinctive costume, and fighting against evil.” We can break it down even more: a superhero is someone who has skills that Joe Smith on the street doesn’t have, and who disguises his or her identity in order to fight crime with the help of those skills. Nowhere in that definition does it say that a superhero has to have a tragic back-story, but it happens more often than not. Given a little thought, the reason becomes clear. ...

[caption id=“attachment_553” align=“alignleft” width=“195” caption=“The Manhattan Projects #2”] [/caption] Eric’s Book Eric: Thanks to Dan, I’ve become a huge Jonathan Hickman fan. It started with you, Dan, lending me the Fantastic Four trades that lead into FF. This made me appreciate the current Fantastic Four/Future Foudnation storylines in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise. In fact, I might even had dropped FF without that context. Then you selected SHIELD Vol 2 #4 for the Week 7 POW and I got a sense of Hickman’s main themes. Other than father figures, he has a huge interest in timelines, alternate dimensions, and other hard science fiction . While F4 has always been Marvel’s sci-fi book, Hickman has really made the focus sci-fi instead of the usual comic book fare. ...

[caption id=“attachment_463” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Fantastic Four #602”] [/caption] Eric’s Book Eric: I don’t think there’s any way I can lose because this week I have chose “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”, according to the cover. And we all know that covers don’t lie. Dan: Well, hmm…That’s a wrap then, folks! Eric: Alright, another notch in the win column for me! Well, just to go through the motions - this is the latest of the parallel story arcs that Hickman set into motion when Reed tried to Solve Everything. (The other half being told in FF) Because we’ve covered FF and F4 before - the quickest recap is that Johnny Storm is back and he’s now the leader of the Negative Zone baddies. He and the rest of the Future Foundation adults are in space, fighting the Kree Invasion which has beef with Earth because that’s where the Inhumans come from. Black Bolt’s crew is also in the battle, but don’t seem to be contributing to the win much. Back on Earth, bits of debris from the fight are demolishing NYC for like the 8th time in the past twelve months. ...

(The following contains lots of spoilers! So you may want to read Fantastic Four #600 first if you haven’t yet) Predicting the fallout from any given issue is a difficult thing to do within this storytelling medium. Authors are fond of misdirection. Small, seemingly unimportant events within any issue may later become extremely important via a planned storyline by the same writer or by a future writer who, like Grant Morrison, takes something that was never meant to have meaning and grants it utmost importance. Given that, let’s take a look at the possible important changes to the Marvel Universe post-F4-600. We’ll start with the obvious one - Johnny Storm’s return. ...