Fantastic Four
Several comics about the Fantastic Four have been published almost continuously since 1961, and the group has also been featured in other media.
Publication History
Legend has it that in 1961, Timely publisher Martin Goodman was playing a round of golf with rival publisher Jack Liebowitz of DC Comics. Liebowitz told Goodman about the success that DC had recently been having with Justice League of America, a new title that featured a team comprised of several of DC's superhero characters. Based upon this conversation, Goodman decided that his company should begin publishing its own series about a team of super-heroes. He gave the order to writer Stan Lee who was recently finding the medium of comic books restrictive. Intending to leave the medium, Lee and artist Jack Kirby produced a ground-breaking book featuring a family of super-heroes who were far more fallible and human than anything seen in the medium to date. To forestall possibly upsetting DC, (which, in addition to being a competing publisher, also owned Marvel's distributor) Lee and Kirby deliberately avoided making the new book look like a competing superhero comic book; the new characters appeared on the cover without costumes and had no secret identities. Lee's intended swan song was phenomenally successful, and Lee and Kirby stayed together on the book and began launching other titles together from which the Marvel Universe grew.
Character history
The Fantastic Four acquired their superhuman abilities after an experimental rocket designed by the scientist Reed Richards passed through a storm of cosmic rays on its test flight. Upon crash landing back on Earth, the four occupants of the craft found themselves transformed and possessed of bizarre new abilities.
Richards, who took the name Mister Fantastic, was now able to stretch his body into nearly any shape he could imagine. His fiancee, Susan Storm, gained the abilty to become invisible at will and to project force fields and named herself the Invisible Girl (later the Invisible Woman). Her younger brother, Johnny Storm, was posessed with the incendiary powers of the Human Torch, enabling him to control fire, project burning bolts of flame from his body, and fly. Finally, pilot Ben Grimm was transformed into an orange-skinned craggy monster with incredible strength and a nearly invulnerable hide. Filled with self-pity he dubbed himself the Thing.
The four characters were all modelled after the four classical Greek elements--earth (The Thing), fire (The Human Torch), wind (The Invisible Girl) and water (the pliable and ductile Mr. Fantastic). These same four elements also inspired Jack Kirby's earlier creations, the Challengers of the Unknown.
The team of adventurers have used their fantastic abilities to protect humanity, the earth and the universe from a number of threats. Propelled, for the main part, by Richards' innate scientific curiosity the team have explored space, the Negative Zone, the Microverse, other dimensions and nearly every hidden valley, nation, and lost civilization on the planet. They have had a number of headquarters, most notably the Baxter Building in New York city. Pier 4, a warehouse on the New York waterfront, served as a temporary headquarters for the group after the first Baxter Building was destroyed. Later, Four Freedoms Plaza was built on the site of the second Baxter Building when the latter was shuttled into space by a villain. Most recently, an orbiting satellite version of the Baxter Building has been used.
Other media
Over the years, there have been three short-lived TV animated series and one feature-length film adaptation of the Fantastic Four comic book series. The first series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in the late 1960s. It lasted for 15 episodes, and it is favorably remembered as one of the better cartoon adaptations of a Marvel comic book series. (This Fantastic Four series was rerun as part of the continuing series Hanna-Barbera's World of Super Adventure.) The second series was produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in the mid-1970s. It is infamous for starting a long-running urban legend that persists in comic book and animation fandom to the present day. The 1970s Fantastic Four series replaced the character of the Human Torch with a "cute" robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. A long-lasting rumor persisted that this change was made by the TV network (NBC) because they supposedly did not want young viewers to imitate the Human Torch by setting themselves on fire. However, this rumor was false; the true reason for the change was because of merchandising concerns. (A movie featuring the Human Torch was in the early stages of production at the time, though the film was never completed.)
In the mid 1990s, the WB network aired a new Fantastic Four animated series, on Sunday mornings as part of the "Marvel Action Hour". The first half of the hour was an episode of Iron Man; the second half an episode of Fantastic Four. Both shows lasted for two or three seasons before being cancelled. The "Marvel Action Hour" usually featured Stan Lee speaking about certain characters in each episode before it aired and what had inspired him to create many of the characters.
A movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four was completed in 1997 by famed b-movie director/producer Roger Corman. While this movie was never officially released to theaters or video, it is available from various bootleg video distributors.
An "official" feature film adaptation of The Fantastic Four is currently scheduled for release in 2005. There is also a new animated series being planned for future release.
Related articles
External links
- Big Comic Book DataBase: Fantastic Four (http://www.comics-db.com/Marvel_Comics/F/The_Fantastic_Four/index.html)
- A review of the 1997 FF Film (http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/1999-11-19/screens_video.html)
- The IMDb entry on the 2005 feature (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120667/)
- A detailed site concerning the comic book and its featured characters (http://www.ffplaza.com/)
de:Die Fantastischen Vier (Comic)