Is the Frightful Four a lame supervillain team?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Sure, but a D-student doesn't get an A just because they can potentially get an A.

The problem with Wizard is nothing sticks with him besides being a cliched villain, even that whole mental breakdown and obsession with God he had just went away, blamed on a tumor in his brain rather than used to explore his personality.




Sure, but if you want an FF version of Seige, Wizard needs to become a better leader and tactician and use a Frightful Fourteen next time.




If Wizard is the leader of the group and he is not taking orders from someone else, he would be the main villain. He would be the one driving the plot and the MCU really doesn't need another lame, throw away villain after the villain from the Marvels was a total snooze.

Either Wizard should just work for a better villain or you would expand the character a lot to make him worthy to be the Big Bad of a film. Why not use Mad Thinker instead of the Wizard, at least he has a better gimmick.

Fair enough. I'm just into the idea of using the Frightful Four as a supervillian team. I'm fine with building up the Wizard more or replacing him with the Mad Thinker.

[Sutekh]

Fair enough. I'm just into the idea of using the Frightful Four as a supervillian team. I'm fine with building up the Wizard more or replacing him with the Mad Thinker.

Mad Thinker is definitely another interesting smart-villain. The insinuation post-Civil War, during all the furious retconning to make the pro-Reg dudes seem less like cackling super-villains, that Mad had basically tricked Reed Richards into supporting the pro-Reg side with some psycho-babble about 'future history being inevitable' or whatever was interesting. I like the idea that different smart-peeps have different focuses. Reed and Tony are hot stuff at manipulating technology. Mad (and Moonstone) are hot stuff at manipulating *people.*

[The Overlord]

Mad Thinker is definitely another interesting smart-villain. The insinuation post-Civil War, during all the furious retconning to make the pro-Reg dudes seem less like cackling super-villains, that Mad had basically tricked Reed Richards into supporting the pro-Reg side with some psycho-babble about 'future history being inevitable' or whatever was interesting. I like the idea that different smart-peeps have different focuses. Reed and Tony are hot stuff at manipulating technology. Mad (and Moonstone) are hot stuff at manipulating *people.*

Mad Thinker is a more believable intellectual threat to Reed than the Wizard is.


Wizard seems like an idiot savant, who is good at building technical devices and useless at everything else. It's why he is not in Reed's league.

Mad Thinker's lack of creativity, but ability to improve on previous information he finds and his ability to predict anything aside from human behavior makes him significant intellectual threat different from Doom, while Wizard just seems like a Doom knock off. I don't agree with some of the creative changes done with Mad Thinker recently, but he is a better character than Wizard is.

[MichaelC]

I think Wizard could have been interesting if they had run with the idea that he is more jack-of-all-trades than Reed. Establish him as better at public relations, better at business, better at everything under the sun other than science. Then have him use those skills to destroy Reed in the public arena, portraying Reed as a reckless mad scientist who causes more harm than good. Establish himself as the safer alternative. Someone maybe not quite as able to create miracles, but infinitely less likely to blow up the world.

They should try to course-correct to establish him as this. Use some kind of retcon to clean up his reputation. Maybe he was brain-damaged for most of his career, and he's only recently been cured of whatever did this. Bonus points if the blame for his brain-damage can be placed on Reed. Do whatever you have to, but the end result should be a Wizard who is plausibly overall more intelligent than Reed, just in a jack of all trades way, the way a decathlete can be a better athlete than a sprinter.

[The Overlord]

I think Wizard could have been interesting if they had run with the idea that he is more jack-of-all-trades than Reed. Establish him as better at public relations, better at business, better at everything under the sun other than science. Then have him use those skills to destroy Reed in the public arena, portraying Reed as a reckless mad scientist who causes more harm than good. Establish himself as the safer alternative. Someone maybe not quite as able to create miracles, but infinitely less likely to blow up the world.

They should try to course-correct to establish him as this. Use some kind of retcon to clean up his reputation. Maybe he was brain-damaged for most of his career, and he's only recently been cured of whatever did this. Bonus points if the blame for his brain-damage can be placed on Reed. Do whatever you have to, but the end result should be a Wizard who is plausibly overall more intelligent than Reed, just in a jack of all trades way, the way a decathlete can be a better athlete than a sprinter.

That is not a bad Idea.

I think establishing Wizard as a legitimate business tycoon would take a Herculian effort, but it might be for the best. Wizard has been a failure as a public supervillain.

A few suggestions:

1. Give Wizard some sort of backstory to establish why he is a supervillain, don't just say he is jealous of Reed Richards and leave it at that.

2. Give Wizard goals beyond humiliating or killing Reed Richards, I think he would more dangerous if he got over his obsession with the FF.

3. Give Wizard a little bit of emotional intelligence, he can still be arrogant, but don't make him such an egomaniac that he can't learn from his mistakes and not make adjustments.

I still think Trapster should either focus on traps and become a Daredevil villain or just quit being a supervillain.

[protege]

If the wizard ever did decide to strike out on his own, who would his main enemy be?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

If the wizard ever did decide to strike out on his own, who would his main enemy be?

Hawkeye or Ant-man(either Scott or Hank) feel like interesting matchups.

[Gaastra]

Didn't the wizard fight spider-man in untold tales of spider-man? He also was a bad guy in an episode of the 80s solo spider-man cartoon.

[Crimz]

Wizard's (and by extension the Frightful Four) problem is that hus focus is on Reed. No matter what you do to try and make him more interesting, as long as his motivation is getting the best of Reed, he will always be a boring and lesser version of Doom. So to start, the Frightful Four's goal should not be to defeat Reed via defeating the Fantastic Four.

It I were to do anything with them, I'd have them be a dark mirror to the Fantastic Four. A team of explorers that goes around pillaging and taking advantage of anything they come across. Truly in it only to profit as much as they can. They come against the Fantastic Four only when they come across each other, not go out of their way to target them for petty reasons.

Also, the roster needs to be a stable staple of intersting characters with motives beyond just following Wizard for no real reason. Maybe a group of characters with a dynamic that's a twitsed reflection of the Fantastic Family.

There are a few ways to go about it but right now Wizard and the Frightful Four are boring and pointless.

[marhawkman]

This came out around the time I started reading comics so this is my favorite team. Whatever happened with Huntara? Being the sister of Mr. Fantastic, I thought they were going to make her into a major character.

She's a weird alternate future character. In 616 she doesn't even exist.

[Hypestyle]

a writer needs to make them a more formidable unit in combat. use their powers/tools in new ways and not just the same old version.

[Sutekh]

a writer needs to make them a more formidable unit in combat. use their powers/tools in new ways and not just the same old version.

Yeah, I was just thinking of one trick Graviton did to change things up, imparting gravitational flight on a bunch of henchmen and allowing them to function as his 'sky raiders,' swooping down and stealing stuff and then flying up to his flying base. The Wizard would do this with tech, like the Vulture with his Vulturions, only a dozen henchmen would be outfitted with anti-grav stuff allowing them to fly, repel bullets (making them basically cop proof) and fling stuff around by making it super-light and easily hefted and thrown (cheap 'super-strength'). Since Wizard would control all of this tech, and be able to shut it down or override it remotely, he's also got a built-in means of keeping the heroes busy, by remote-piloting expendable henchmen (or even just their gravity packs) into buildings, crowds, etc. to threaten innocents, or even just toss the henches themselves high into the air and then cause their tech to short out, leaving them all falling to their deaths. Real heroes, not like Punisher, but pretty much anyone else, will stop and try to save these guys, who might be thieves working for a super-villain, but that probably doesn't warrant death-as-blotchy-street-art-appearing-ali-over-the-city. (Best of all, he can broadcast to his henches as he shorts out their gear that the heroes must be jamming his tech, and it's all their fault! No need to trash his reputation and make it hard to hire new henches!)

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Mad Thinker is definitely another interesting smart-villain. The insinuation post-Civil War, during all the furious retconning to make the pro-Reg dudes seem less like cackling super-villains, that Mad had basically tricked Reed Richards into supporting the pro-Reg side with some psycho-babble about 'future history being inevitable' or whatever was interesting. I like the idea that different smart-peeps have different focuses. Reed and Tony are hot stuff at manipulating technology. Mad (and Moonstone) are hot stuff at manipulating *people.*

That's a good pitch.

[Oberon]

That is not a bad Idea.

I think establishing Wizard as a legitimate business tycoon would take a Herculian effort, but it might be for the best. Wizard has been a failure as a public supervillain.

A few suggestions:

1. Give Wizard some sort of backstory to establish why he is a supervillain, don't just say he is jealous of Reed Richards and leave it at that.

2. Give Wizard goals beyond humiliating or killing Reed Richards, I think he would more dangerous if he got over his obsession with the FF.

3. Give Wizard a little bit of emotional intelligence, he can still be arrogant, but don't make him such an egomaniac that he can't learn from his mistakes and not make adjustments.

I still think Trapster should either focus on traps and become a Daredevil villain or just quit being a supervillain.

The Wizard was originally the Torch's foe, waaaay back in Strange Tales, early '60s.
And he was, frankly, weird and ugly looking. Kind of scary to me as a kid (8 or 9). I remember the one where Torch got Sue to invisibly mess with the Wizard, some of her tricks.

Anyway, how did Wizard stop being so homely?

[LordMikel]

You know, did they miss the opportunity to do something new with The Maker? The evil Reed from the Ultimate Universe. Forming a new Frightful Four.