Is the Frightful Four a lame supervillain team?

[The Overlord]

Is the Frightful Four a lame supervillain team?

They are supposed to be the counterpart to the Fantastic Four, but the Fantastic Four outgrew them a long time ago.

The leader of the Fantastic Four is Mr. Fantastic, the supposed smartest man in the world, and the leader of the Fright Four is the Wizard, who is not even close to being that intelligent. Wizard is a decent inventor, but he has never been in the same league as Reed when it comes to science.

Wizard is also a horrible leader and terrible strategist, he doesn't go for a numbers advantage like Dr. Octopus does with the Sinister Six, and he doesn't have the leadership skills that Baron Zemo has. The Wizard fills one of the slots available with the Trapster, who is not a Fantastic Four-level villain, no matter how times the writers try to pit him against the FF. After defeating the Galactus and Dr. Doom, I am supposed to believe a guy with a glue gun is going to kill the Fantastic Four?

The Frightful Four are also just boring, they do not have as much villain bickering as the Sinister Six or the Masters of Evil do, and no one actually challenges the Wizard in the group, despite him being a terrible leader.

The characters are mostly dull too, Wizard and Trapster are bland, one-dimensional villains, too evil to be sympathetic, not evil enough to be menacing. Wizard's motives make him seem like a fourth-rate Dr. Doom and Trapster's motives are non-existent, why is he a supervillain again? Surely he could have made more money legally with his pastes and adhesives than he would as a criminal.

Really Wizard should give up on trying to kill the Fantastic Four and move on to something else and Trapster should either focus on traps and become a Daredevil villain or give up and retire.



Really, either let Dr. Doom lead the next Frightful Four and let him pick some heavy hitters or the writers should give up the Frightful Four.

[Riv86672]

I personally like the Frightful Four w. The Wizard as leader.
He’s a sad sack villain but god bless him he keeps trying!

[The Overlord]

I personally like the Frightful Four w. The Wizard as leader.
He’s a sad sack villain but god bless him he keeps trying!

If he is half as smart as he claims to be, he would have stopped picking fights with the Fantastic Four years ago.

It's really hard to care about a villain who is no threat to his chosen heroes, has few actual redeeming qualities, a bland personality, and refuses to actually learn from his mistakes unless you make him into a full comic relief villain.

[Darkshadow]

I'm glad someone brought this up. When a Frightful Four story was next on my collection list, I dreaded reading it. It was a drudgery to pay for just to keep moving forward on the completionist front.

Even in alternate universe, or side series books, the Frightful Four still seemed lame, and a filler villian set.

Glad I'm not the only one.

[Riv86672]

Whelp, guess I’m done in this thread.

[Vegeta]

I like the idea of the Frightful Four, just not the execution. They should find characters that can all match up with or counter the members of the Fantastic Four. (Someone with the physical strength to match the Thing, etc.) Failing that, kick the Wizard out along with all the previous members and just fill the four slots with some of the FF's straight up most dangerous enemies (Doom, Super Skrull, Blastaar, etc.)

It always amused me that to fill the roster Wizard usually had to resort to hiring a Spider-Man villain like Sandman or Hydroman.

[The Overlord]

I like the idea of the Frightful Four, just not the execution. They should find characters that can all match up with or counter the members of the Fantastic Four. (Someone with the physical strength to match the Thing, etc.) Failing that, kick the Wizard out along with all the previous members and just fill the four slots with some of the FF's straight up most dangerous enemies (Doom, Super Skrull, Blastaar, etc.)

It always amused me that to fill the roster Wizard usually had to resort to hiring a Spider-Man villain like Sandman or Hydroman.

Well Dr. Doom wanted to show up Mr. Fantastic Four as a time leader and gathered together some heavy hitters, that would be better than Wizard and his latest team of goobers.

Really the Wizard would be more dangerous if he focused on more general criminality rather than a petty grudge the Fantastic Four, he would be a far greater threat to the public than he could ever be to the Fantastic Four.

As for Traspter, if he focused more traps and less on glue and wore something more stylish he could be an decent Daredevil or Moon Knight villain or he give up and try to reform. There was a good non canon short story from the 90s where Trapster tries to reform.

[williamtheday]

They did pretty well in their earlest appearences, but after they were conclusively beaten in FF #43 and Medusa recovered from her amnesia and left, that should have been the end.

[Frontier]

A character is only as lame as the execution.

[gurkle]

Has anyone ever tried to do for the Frightful Four what the "Avengers Under Siege" story did for the Masters of Evil, which was to take a silly 1960s "evil equivalent" team and try to make them into a genuine threat?

I imagine there hasn't been a successful attempt, or at least so successful that it would be as famous as the Masters of Evil story, but someone might have tried.

[Gaastra]

The 80s team with wizard, hydro man, titana and klaw was pretty good. They added the evil watcher who of course betrayed them and dragon man to that team also.

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[Darkshadow]

And let's be honest, in Stan's bombastic naming style:
Frightful means full of fright. AKA, they scared.

They should have been Fearsome Four.

Edit: I guess I take Latin to English too seriously. As I looked up intent of the word Frightful, it's actually quite intimidating. Credits to Stan.

[The Overlord]

They did pretty well in their earlest appearences, but after they were conclusively beaten in FF #43 and Medusa recovered from her amnesia and left, that should have been the end.

That's why I say the Fantastic Four outgrew them, maybe when the Fantastic Four are starting out, they may have posed a threat, but now the Fantastic Four have grown in power, experience, and teamwork skills, while the Frightful Four never upped their game since the late Silver Age.

The 80s team with wizard, hydro man, titana and klaw was pretty good. They added the evil watcher who of course betrayed them and dragon man to that team also.

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Just showing some covers from that era doesn't explain why the Frightful Four is compelling in that era. Wizard is still the leader, how was he an interesting villain in those comics? I actually think Wizard is the weak link in that group because he is a bad leader and generally an uninteresting villain, he is a lamer of version of Dr. Doom in terms of motives and his personality is very one note. Wizard is the leader of the group and if he is not interesting, it makes the group less interesting if their leader is boring.

Also, why is Klaw taking orders from a dork like the Wizard, he has a better power set than the Wizard, he has led his own groups in the past, and he is smart and ambitious, what does Wizard have to offer him? Hydro-Man and to a lesser extent Titania are goon villains, so them taking orders from the Wizard makes sense, but when an actual smart and ambitious villain defers to the Wizard, you lose me, he really comes off as a bad leader.

A character is only as lame as the execution.

Sure, but then the writers have to actually invest in the character and try something different with them, rather than recycle the same old story from 1966.

A student who is lazy doesn't get an A because they have the potential to do better, they have to actually apply themselves.

Has anyone ever tried to do for the Frightful Four what the "Avengers Under Siege" story did for the Masters of Evil, which was to take a silly 1960s "evil equivalent" team and try to make them into a genuine threat?

I imagine there hasn't been a successful attempt, or at least so successful that it would be as famous as the Masters of Evil story, but someone might have tried.

The problem is Baron Zemo is a better leader than the Wizard, he actually knows how to manage people and Zemo went for the numbers advantage. Wizard would have ditch the Frightful Four for an Evil Eight or Frightful Fourteen to get the numbers advantage.

The reason why the Sinister Six works is that Dr. Octopus goes for the numbers advantage. Wizard never does that. Spidey has to fight 6 guys, while Wizard hires 3 other goons to take on a team that fights gods.

[Tofali]

I guess I can see how the name is lame for a supervillain team but then again they mirror how ridiculous and pretentious The Fantastic Four sound as a superhero team

[Iron Maiden]

When they made their debut under Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they were more formidable. No one has really done a good job with them in all the years since. I can't remember the last time Bentley Whitman aka the Wizard even appeared anywhere. I think if they are brought back they should get a fresh start with 4 entirely new characters.