oh. okay, Marvel. We're trying again.
There are so many factors that have played into Marvel's post-Endgame slump. Too much content that felt rushed out was certainly part of it. Not following up on concepts we did like (Shang-Chi, cough cough), and not taking care with the concepts we were iffier about (Eternals, cough cough).
But the key issue for me was that the spirit of some well-loved characters just wasn't there on screen. DC's biggest struggle from the comics - and I love DC - is that they lack consistent vision and character from creative team to creative team unless you're talking about maybe seven or eight characters.* But Marvel has this down in comics - in part because Stan, Jack and the original bullpen laid down who these characters were with such a strong hand way back in the 1960's.
Yes, you get a James Gunn to come along and say "nobody knows who Rocket Raccoon is, so I'm just gonna James Gunn this @#$%", and that's great. But Tony Stark is Tony. Steve Rogers is Steve. Natasha is Natasha. And, frankly - and why I'll pay to see the movie - Sam Wilson is Sam (love me some Sam Wilson). But since? I think our best take on that was The Marvels - and as much as I liked it, the last few minutes made me wish they'd pushed a bit harder. Ant-Man and other movies just kinda slopped along. Who are all these characters and why do I care?
Due to licensing issues going back to the 1990's, Fox owned the Fantastic Four's film rights, and made 3 very bad Fantastic Four movies. We talked about them at the PodCast a while back. Part 1. Part 2. But Disney now owns Fox's movie wing, and therefore, has back X-Men and the FF.
I have some firm FF ideas in my head, and they're a mix of the very few comics runs I've read and a handful of cartoons. But I know the Fantastic Four when I see it, and... y'all... this sure finally looks like the Fantastic Four to me. There's no embarrassment at the idea, making it into whatever hokey mess the first movies were, or feeling like we needed to go grimdark, as the last movie did.
Yes, this is just a trailer, but we see that Reed is Reed, Ben is Ben, Sue is Sue, Johnny is Johnny and... holy cats... that there at the end is a big ol' gift to comics fans who have not understood why we couldn't see our pal, Galan, and his funny hat.
I dig the idea of making this a retro-future movie existing in the multiverse (and surely bumping up against the main MCU). The opportunity to put a real visual stamp on one of these movies for the first time in forever is deeply welcome.
We'll see how it goes! They kind of had me at comics-accurate HERBIE and Ben in the kitchen. They won me over with Sue being the backbone of the family.
Get back to what makes the characters work to begin with, Marvel. And I think this trailer, at least, feels like they have.
*I actually count Barry Allen among those, and never was comfortable with the Justice League movie version of Barry
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