Why are the Fantastic Four called "dated"?

[CaptCleghorn]

There was that semi-famous issue from the first run of What If by Byrne where the FF don't get powers yet still re-inact the first issue of the Fantastic Four. It stands out cuz the team still saves the day and cuz it's one of the few issues from that run that doesn't dead with either the world blowing up or someone dying.

I still think an extended origin story where the four steal the rocket would be interesting. Coming up with a 21st century reason for the flight would be necessary as would actually finding a reason for all four members to be there. Neither tweak is an overwhelming challenge for a writer. This idea turns the FF into a team that got super powers, not people who got super powers and became a team.

[Techno_Knight]

Context: If you notice the date, this goes way back to 2001 one and he's referring the panel that JRjr drew showing some villains at Ground Zero at the WTC. I doubt that in the comics Doom would need Al Queda. He's go after Reed on his own

Full quote:

“Doctor Doom was exactly the sort of bastard who would have armed al-Qaeda with death rays and killer robots if he thought for one second it would piss off the hated Reed Richards and the rest of his mortal enemies in the Fantastic Four, but here he was sobbing with the best of them, as representative not of evil, but of Marvel Comics' collective shock, struck dumb and moved to hand-drawn tears by the thought that anyone could hate America and its people enough to do this.”


― Grant Morrison, Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
Read more quotes from Grant Morrison

JMS and JRjr had done this story right after 9/11. As a New Yorker, it was very personal for JRjr and he takes full responsibility for the panel. JMS just wanted to show that even villains wouldn't have gone that far and he picked the villains in the panel.

Yeah, I noticed (it's why I posted the link instead of just the expert), but the quote still stands. In Morrison's eyes, Doom is not the noble anti-hero who always keeps his word. The context doesn't really undermine his thoughts on him. At least that's the way I read it. You could take it as "he's a bastard, but look, he's still human", but I took it more as him taking a jab at the absurdity of that tie-in. Still, I doubt Morrison would portray Doom as amisunderstood hero. He'd have him be closer to Waid's version, I think. His 1234 Doom wasn't that good of a guy.

I wonder, is there less acceptance of the idea of Doom as an antihero in the post 911 world? The guys who created Doom grew up with stories of guys like Captain Nemo, a guy who straddled the line between villain and antihero. Fu Manchu, especially after the first few years, gradually became a borderline antihero. The idea of a sympathetic terrorist was more acceptable back then, because the main enemy was a big communist empire, and most readers didn't worry about terrorists so much. The line between terrorist and noble rebel was blurrier back then. A terrorist might be our enemy back then, but he might just as easily be the anti-communist guerilla we felt sympathy for. Nowadays we truly hate terrorists. We don't wanna hear about how any of them might have a point; we just want them annihilated. Captain Nemo wouldn't be even a borderline antihero in a modern story. #@&%% Captain Nemo. We want Captain Nemo smashed under foot like a bug. So an expy of Captain Nemo/Fu Manchu types like Doom isn't sympathetic in the eyes of most writers anymore. As we can see from Morrison's quote, he immediately and instinctively associates Doom with Al-Qaeda.

The problem with Doom is that every writer has a different take on him, so he ends up becoming a very inconsistent character. Some have him as a tragic figure, others have him as a complete villain. Some have his policies be all "open borders, welcome friends" and others have him "here's the guilotine". You need to find a balance between the two. He shouldn't be a complete monster, but neither should him be a good guy. Not to mention that he still needs to be portrayed as a Dictator. A well-meaning one, sure, but still. All that's for Classic Doom mind you, not for the current one (who'll be going back to villainy as per the rumors anyway).

[Carabas]

OK, so first part of this sentence says they're a caricature of a nuclear family. In what way are they a caricature? What was happening was that instead of another story with Lois imaging she was married to Superman, Stan and Jack actually pulled the trigger and had Reed and Sue get married. Their story is that they are attempting to be a normal family yet meanwhile that portal to the Negative Zone was breached. Or the Impossible Man drops in for a visit. I don't know too many "nuclear families" in that kind of situation.

The sci-fi backdrop is just that, backdrop for the family-based comedy. They fill the same role as whatever shenanigans are the A-plot of your basic sitcom episode.

The FF might look like the ideal 50's/60's Nuclear Family but the irony of them is they've never been one yes they love each other and have each others backs they're family. But they also get into fights and can be dysfunctional at times which was deliberate on Stan and Jack's parts and which was never part of the sanitised public idea of 50's/60's nuclear family which was for the most part the real fairy tale over anything in comics.

They haven't been one, but they have been portayed as one, and not as a dysfunctional.

Reed is the dad, Sue is the mom, Ben is the bratty older son, Johnny is the more bratty younger son.
They're in the car going to Disneyw- ehr, The Blue Side Of The Moon, and Johnny and Ben are in the back of the car going "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching Aaah, mom, Ben clobbered me!"

[Darrin Kelley]

Sorry. No. I would not read Fantastic Four under Morrison. I would avoid it like the plague.

Morrison would do some kind of "meta" trash. Instead of actually writing about the Fantastic Four themselves.

So saying I am not a fan of Morrison is putting it lightly.

[jackolover]

Has any team ever had the same uniforms, like the FF with blue and a "4" on the chest being common to all members? I'd say it's a unique characteristic to the FF. The only reason is because the members didn't change over long periods and then only for vacation reasons did they have substitutes. But why the necessity of uniformity? I'd say it was because of the similar experience of their change. Like commandoes who have been to similar campaigns are brothers because of shared experience, the FF have the unique experience of a change from the same incident, that no one else can relate too, but these Four.

Is this a dated phenomena? Same experience, same uniform?

[JKtheMac]

I think this may be a good place to reflect of what Hickman had to say in his closing piece in his F4 run:

One final thought before we say goodnight.

I was giving an interview about the book somewhere after we'd gone from critical darling to critical success and I was asked, "What did we do to make Fantastic Four relevant again?" I remember consciously lying and giving a generic answer about effort and storytelling meeting hard work and dedication or some other garbage because I had promised myself that never during the run would I talk about, or reveal, any of my 'rules' for the book (and I still won't), but I do now want to at least answer the question honestly. So here goes...

The world sucks. I'm not saying this as an anachronist or idealist, but one of the reasons for this condition is the expectation of family as a thing of permanence is dying. Which is actually what makes the Fantastic Four so interesting, they exist in opposition to that -- they are a perfect family in an imperfect world...and they represent the hope of what COULD BE*. The franchise became relevant again because we tapped into this in a way that resonated, and, even more importantly, the driving force behind it was something we could all understand. Wasn't it?

After all, what was it that made Reed choose his family when he should have chosen utopia? What made Johnny sacrifice himself and what brought him back? What broke an unbreakable Ben Grimm and then found a way to make him whole again? What made Susan strong enough to stand when the others fell? What made Nathaniel always come home, and what was it that made Val and Franklin sacrifice everything to save their father?

It was Love. Boundless, unconditional, to the end of time and back, lift you up from death itself, LOVE.

And what's not fantastic about that?

I think this says it all. We can point at how family stories are no longer relevant and that nuclear families are outdated, but at the foundation of these ideas is a universal ideal that is hard to deny, and that will forever be relevant in storytelling.

[ed2962]

Has any team ever had the same uniforms, like the FF with blue and a "4" on the chest being common to all members? I'd say it's a unique characteristic to the FF. The only reason is because the members didn't change over long periods and then only for vacation reasons did they have substitutes. But why the necessity of uniformity? I'd say it was because of the similar experience of their change. Like commandoes who have been to similar campaigns are brothers because of shared experience, the FF have the unique experience of a change from the same incident, that no one else can relate too, but these Four.

Is this a dated phenomena? Same experience, same uniform?

The first that comes to mind is The Challengers of the Unknown. Although I'm sure there must of been others.

[Graphic Autist]

Is this a dated phenomena? Same experience, same uniform?

The original X-Men? Their power-gaining experiences were different, but same uniform.

[Iron Maiden]

The sci-fi backdrop is just that, backdrop for the family-based comedy. They fill the same role as whatever shenanigans are the A-plot of your basic sitcom episode.




They haven't been one, but they have been portayed as one, and not as a dysfunctional.

Reed is the dad, Sue is the mom, Ben is the bratty older son, Johnny is the more bratty younger son.
They're in the car going to Disneyw- ehr, The Blue Side Of The Moon, and Johnny and Ben are in the back of the car going "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching Aaah, mom, Ben clobbered me!"

Why do I get the feeling from this is that you're getting your view of the FF from Fox's first two movies? I'm curious as to which runs or how much of the Fantastic Four you've read? Other than that, the only other point I could make is in the quoted interview from Hickman. Thanks for that, JKtheMac

[Sutekh]

Has any team ever had the same uniforms, like the FF with blue and a "4" on the chest being common to all members? I'd say it's a unique characteristic to the FF. The only reason is because the members didn't change over long periods and then only for vacation reasons did they have substitutes. But why the necessity of uniformity? I'd say it was because of the similar experience of their change. Like commandoes who have been to similar campaigns are brothers because of shared experience, the FF have the unique experience of a change from the same incident, that no one else can relate too, but these Four.

Is this a dated phenomena? Same experience, same uniform?

Definitely a feature of the past, as with those original X-Men.

Now that there have been so many different types (all blue, all white, all red) it could be interesting to see the Four wearing their different colors. (Reed in blue, Johnny in Red, Sue in white, Ben in, uh, some fourth color-scheme we haven't seen yet, maybe black?).

[JKtheMac]

Why do I get the feeling from this is that you're getting your view of the FF from Fox's first two movies? I'm curious as to which runs or how much of the Fantastic Four you've read? Other than that, the only other point I could make is in the quoted interview from Hickman. Thanks for that, JKtheMac

Entirely Hickman we should thank. Interestingly I was in the process of replying to the same post and realised Hickman said it better than I could. As with most things there are positives and negatives in any property. The trick is not to get overwhelmed by the negative.

I was listening to an interview where Hickman said it took him a while to latch onto the central concepts of the F4 and that Breevort was the one that helped him find them. Which is the main reason I take claims that people like him and Alonso are somehow out to suppress the F4 with a large pinch of salt. I also take their words with that same attitude. They need to respond to the questions that they get in the most honest way that they are allowed to. They can't tell us everything. Unfortunately that leaves room for conspiracy and misunderstanding.

The Fantastic Four are coming back soon. I can taste it in the air. Their success or failure will be down to the writers, but it will be the editors that know and love these properties that will help guide them along.

[ed2962]

The original X-Men? Their power-gaining experiences were different, but same uniform.

The FF came first though? But if we're counting contemporaries I guess we can count the original Doom Patrol as well.

[Iron Maiden]

Yeah, I noticed (it's why I posted the link instead of just the expert), but the quote still stands. In Morrison's eyes, Doom is not the noble anti-hero who always keeps his word. The context doesn't really undermine his thoughts on him. At least that's the way I read it. You could take it as "he's a bastard, but look, he's still human", but I took it more as him taking a jab at the absurdity of that tie-in. Still, I doubt Morrison would portray Doom as amisunderstood hero. He'd have him be closer to Waid's version, I think. His 1234 Doom wasn't that good of a guy.



The problem with Doom is that every writer has a different take on him, so he ends up becoming a very inconsistent character. Some have him as a tragic figure, others have him as a complete villain. Some have his policies be all "open borders, welcome friends" and others have him "here's the guilotine". You need to find a balance between the two. He shouldn't be a complete monster, but neither should him be a good guy. Not to mention that he still needs to be portrayed as a Dictator. A well-meaning one, sure, but still. All that's for Classic Doom mind you, not for the current one (who'll be going back to villainy as per the rumors anyway).

No doubt there is inconsistency in the history of the character. But Morrison's quote is what, 16 years ago? Waid's Unthinkable/Authoritative Action was about 14 years ago. Waid's last two "chapters" of the trajectory of Doom history left Doom at a point similar Fantastic Four #200. He is removed from play for a while but JMS quickly restores the status quo with Doom when he gets his shot at the Fantastic Four. . More so than heroes, the villains in comics rarely get an in depth look or chance to evolve. But IMO Doom was one of the first exceptions to that, then probably Magneto. Stan and Jack's last FF story left him at a spot of uncertainty where he simply stops the conflict with the FF and let's them leave Latveria. Shortly after that we get the first Doom solo in MSH #20 and then Conway gives us the story in Astonishing Tales #8 that was the inspiration for Triumph and Torment. Doom becomes instrumental in helping to defeat the Overmind in FF #116. Not to get too much deeper in this here but note that Stan Lee was still writing or editing the line back then (not referring to the Stern GN) so there was a process of redefining Doom at play there. It would come and go over the years. But these days Waid's and Morrison's view are antiquated and out of date IMO. For years now Stan Lee maintains that Doom is not a villain so his word is good enough for me One of the last things Stan wrote for Marvel was in those " Stan Lee meets " one shots where Stan choose to revisit some of his characters. He picked one of those to be with Doom, who has him called on the carpet in front of his throne for sullying his reputation.

[Iron Maiden]

Entirely Hickman we should thank. Interestingly I was in the process of replying to the same post and realised Hickman said it better than I could. As with most things there are positives and negatives in any property. The trick is not to get overwhelmed by the negative.

I was listening to an interview where Hickman said it took him a while to latch onto the central concepts of the F4 and that Breevort was the one that helped him find them. Which is the main reason I take claims that people like him and Alonso are somehow out to suppress the F4 with a large pinch of salt. I also take their words with that same attitude. They need to respond to the questions that they get in the most honest way that they are allowed to. They can't tell us everything. Unfortunately that leaves room for conspiracy and misunderstanding.

The Fantastic Four are coming back soon. I can taste it in the air. Their success or failure will be down to the writers, but it will be the editors that know and love these properties that will help guide them along.

I think they will be back in the future. Ike Perlmutter isn't immortal . And at least I can thank you for finding that Hickman interview. I don't have it bookmarked but I recall parts of it. IIRC HIckman has frequently said that he was more into the X Men when he was younger and had to cram to get up to speed on the Fantastic Four by reading thought one of those DVD's that Marvel licensed some years back that had over 500 issues of the Fantastic Four. IMO you can tell which runs he liked or considering significant by the characters he used in his Fantastic Four and how he used them.

[JKtheMac]

I think they will be back in the future. Ike Perlmutter isn't immortal . And at least I can thank you for finding that Hickman interview. I don't have it bookmarked but I recall parts of it. IIRC HIckman has frequently said that he was more into the X Men when he was younger and had to cram to get up to speed on the Fantastic Four by reading thought one of those DVD's that Marvel licensed some years back that had over 500 issues of the Fantastic Four. IMO you can tell which runs he liked or considering significant by the characters he used in his Fantastic Four and how he used them.

The quote was in the comic. The interview that I am thinking of, about his experience was from another source, probably when he was on the 11 O'clock Comics podcast, which was a great chat, very candid. He did a few interviews around that time to help push his Avengers work. Unfortunately he is not famous for interviews because he is usually quite illuminating. But as he mentioned in that comic book editorial, he doesn't like discussing his actual methods. That is not surprising, as comic book fans are not known for their understanding attitude towards writers that discuss writing honestly.