Thrice Told Tales: The Origin of the Fantastic Four

I was in trouble, and I deserved it. While walking home from the school bus stop, I had been throwing rocks over cars as they came down the street. I have no idea what motivated these actions besides being a dumb fourth grader.

For a while, I didn’t know I was in trouble. I went to the store with my mom, and I bought a comic. When my dad got home, though, I was definitely in trouble. He heard somehow about the rock throwing, so I was sent to my room. No playing outside. No TV. But it was okay.

I had a new comic. It was an issue of The Fantastic Four, “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” It said so. Right on the cover. I spent hours studying that issue and came to agree with the assessment on the cover.

Superman (1978) came out years later, when I was in high school, and it was amazing. The Superman TV show I’d watched as a kid was also amazing, but the movie brought a comic book to the screen with excellence. I wanted that to happen with The Fantastic Four, too.

I didn’t read comics much in junior high, high school, or college, but in seminary comics served as a refuge from long hours studying hermeneutics, eschatology, soteriology, etc., etc. Guys from my dorm made frequent runs to the comic book store to stock up on Batman, the X-Men, Dreadstar, Excalibur. We discovered a new comic: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That copy of the 3rd edition of the first issue of TMNT would have been worth a pretty penny if it hadn’t been thrashed as it traveled throughout the dorm.

I was excited when Tim Burton’s Batman came to the screen, but it wasn’t until Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins that I felt the special wonder of a favorite character truly coming to life. I had those goosebumps again when I watched the first X-Men film, and Wolverine was asked if it hurt when his claws emerged from his hand. “Every time,” he said.

“Surely,” I thought, “someone is going to capture the magic of The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine and bring it to the big screen.”

Many have now tried, but I’m still waiting for a great Fantastic Four film. I’m doubting it will ever be. The original FF team consisted of Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic, the stretching man), Ben Grimm (aka The Thing), Sue Storm (aka The Invisible Girl), and Sue’s brother, Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch). This team has made appearances in a variety of media.

There have been several Fantastic Four animated TV shows. As "Addiction is Choice” recently noted, there was even a Fantastic Four radio show. The sitcom Arrested Development had a very funny subplot about a community theater production of "The Four." Five feature films have featured the Fantastic Four. Spoiler: none are very good.

Fortunately, for the purposes of Thrice Told Tales, I can narrow our focus to three of these films — the three that tell the super team's origin story. (This means we don’t need to talk about Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer from 2007 or Fantastic Four: First Steps from 2025.)

Let’s start with a film with a production history more interesting than the film itself.

The Fantastic Four (1994)

German Producer Bernd Eichinger had obtained the rights to the Fantastic Four for his company, Constantin Films, but it was a “use it or lose it” situation. He needed to get a film made quickly or he would lose the rights to the property.

He contacted someone who knew something about making films quick and cheap – Roger Corman.

Corman was famous for making profitable low-budget movies (he made Little Shop of Horrors in 1960 in two days for $30,000, and it would earn millions through the years). Corman was excited to be working on such a famous property and believed he could make something of it. Constantin Films put up $750,000, and Corman said he would provide services (studio, director, writer, etc) that would be “worth” $750,000.

Corman’s production company was excited because they had never worked with a million-dollar budget before.

You have to remember this was long before the multi(hundreds of)million-dollar Marvel Productions of our time. The most successful Marvel product until that time was the 1978 TV series, The Incredible Hulk — with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. There were no high expectations, elaborate special effects, or, for that matter, production values.

The film was cast with unknowns: Alex Hyde-White as Dr. Reed Richards, Rebecca Staab as Sue Storm, Jay Underwood as Johnny Storm, and Michael Bailey Smith as Ben Grimm. Everyone involved with the film believed it might be their big break. It was not.

But the casting director really did nail the look of the characters. Reed is thin and tweedy. Sue looked like a California beach blonde — as she did in the comics — and Johnny looked like a surfer. Stan Lee himself, co-creator of the Fantastic Four, told Michael Bailey Smith that he matched how Lee envisioned Ben Grimm. (The Thing costume is modeled after the artwork of Jack Kirby and captures it well.)

The film follows the comic’s origin of the Four. Reed builds a spaceship to examine a comet coming close to Earth, but the ship is sabotaged by a villain called “The Jeweler,” who stole diamonds that would have protected the crew from the comet’s radiation. The ship crashes back home, but Richards, Grimm, and the Storms seem unharmed. They soon discover they have extraordinary powers.

Reed’s body becomes elastic, Sue is able to turn invisible and emit force fields, and Johnny’s body can burst into flame with no harm to himself. They’re rather pleased with their new powers, but Ben’s body turns into what looks like rock. He has incredible strength, but is devastated by his hideous appearance.

Most of the rest of the film is about their battle against Dr. Victor von Doom.

I’ve always considered Doom one of the best villains in comics. His rivalry with the Fantastic Four is comparable to Lex Luthor vs Superman or Batman vs the Joker. This flick gets much of Doom’s story right. He was a colleague and rival of Reed’s in college, and he is the ruler of an Eastern European country called Latveria. The film portrays Doom’s scientific knowledge but doesn’t include his use of sorcery (as found in the comics).

The special effects are comical. Animation is used for Johnny’s fire, and it does look like a cartoon, but it’s better than the sad prop used as Reed’s arm when he stretches it out of a limo’s sunroof to wave.

Principal photography for the film was done in a little over three weeks. Post-production began. At their own expense, actors made appearances at fan events. A January 19, 1994, premiere was announced as a benefit for the Ronald McDonald House and the Children’s Miracle Network.

Then something odd began to unfold. Corman told his editors there was no more money for post-production. Some pick-up shots still needed to be filmed. Special effects were still needed. There were still sound effects to add. There was no musical score yet.

The team was puzzled about what had happened. The actors received a cease and desist order to halt promotion of the film. The premiere was canceled.

There is some controversy about what happened, but this seems a likely scenario: In 1993, Avi Arad, an executive with Marvel Comics, was put in charge of a studio, Marvel Entertainment. Understandably, Marvel sought relationships with the major studios with bigger production budgets. Marvel bought out the rights to the Fantastic Four, paying off Constantin Films and Roger Corman. Part of this agreement was that Fantastic Four would not be released. All copies of the film were to be destroyed.

The producers of the film were happy with this arrangement, but those who worked on the film and had hoped it might be their breakthrough project were not. Many on the production team didn’t quit working on it. They made the remaining pick-up shots guerrilla style. They even hired a small orchestra to record the soundtrack of the film that had already been composed. The film itself was supposed to be destroyed, but someone obtained a copy. Through the years, video cassettes of the film began popping up for sale at fan conventions. Sometimes the tapes were pretty good, but sometimes they were pretty ragged copies of copies.

Years later, actress Kat Green, who had only appeared in this one film, was approached by a man who said, “I know you, I’ve seen you in something.” She said he must be mistaken. A few minutes later, he returned and said, “You played Alicia Masters in The Fantastic Four!”

She responded, “How can you have seen that movie? I haven’t seen that movie!” She went home that night and found a copy of the film on eBay.

(The story of the film’s production, destruction, and resurrection is recorded in the 2015 documentary Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four. It’s available on Tubi. The original film, according to Google, is “not available on streaming platforms” – but it’s not difficult to find on YouTube or other sources.)

Fantastic Four (2005)

This one was made with the cooperation of Marvel Studios, and we even get the familiar corporate opening of flipping comic pages, along with a cast much more familiar to contemporary audiences than the previous film.

Ioan Gruffudd, who played Reed Richards, played the great abolitionist William Wilberforce in the next year’s Amazing Grace. Jessica Alba played Sue Storm and had already been nominated for a Golden Globe for her TV series Dark Angel. Chris Evans, who played Johnny Storm, would go on to greater Marvel big-screen fame as Steve Rogers, Captain America. And Michael Chiklis played Ben Grimm during a break from his groundbreaking FX series, The Shield.

As in the comics and the previous movie, the characters acquire their superpowers through exposure to radiation during a pioneering space flight. Here, they were not alone on the flight. Business tycoon Victor von Doom was also on the flight. Doom's skin mutates into metal, and he has incredible strength as well as electric powers. This origin story is almost entirely different from the comics – and not nearly as satisfying.

This film is only fifteen minutes longer than the Corman feature, but it feels so much longer. One of the big action sequences, set on the Brooklyn Bridge, has Ben trying to prevent a man from committing suicide, but causing a massive traffic pile-up in the process. The team uses their superpowers to contain the damage and save lives. The crowd eventually gives the team an ovation for their work.

BUT THE TEAM CAUSED ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST PLACE!

The sequence of the team isolating themselves in the Baxter Building to stay out of trouble is way too long. As many of us learned during COVID, being confined to a location with nothing of interest happening doesn’t make for an exciting montage segment.

There are zany comic segments with Sue having to strip off her clothes to be fully invisible, and Johnny’s clothes being burned up due to his fire powers. These scenes lead to innuendo that doesn’t stretch the PG-13, but does take away from the family-friendly nature of the film.

This film did well enough financially and led to a sequel.

But it’s not very good.

Fantastic Four (2015)

Before talking about this one, I need to rant a bit about “colorblind casting,” the idea that roles are cast based on talent and not ethnicity.

It’s certainly a good idea in many ways. If I were doing a production of King Lear and Denzel Washington was available, that would be amazing. Sure, Lear was a pre-Roman Britain and likely had paler skin than Washington, but there is so much more to the character than the specifics of time and place: pride, power, dignity, madness… A great actor is needed to bring the character to life.

There’s a big difference between Shakespeare’s characters and the characters created by Lee & Kirby. The physical appearance of the actor playing a Shakespearean role is important, but other qualities might be more important.

Frankly, no Marvel or DC character has much depth. The appearance of the character is paramount to portraying the role.

One of the reasons Christopher Reeve was such a great Superman is that he so looked like Superman. Sure, he gave a great performance, but if he were five feet tall with red hair, he wouldn’t have been Superman. People would rightly have been outraged by an Asian Black Panther.

This is why I want the Fantastic Four to look like the characters I loved in the comics, because their appearance is a large part of what I loved as a kid.

Josh Trank, the writer and director of this version of the FF, chose a different direction.

He cast Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm. I love Jordan as an actor. He was great in Creed, Black Panther, Just Mercy, and as twins in Sinners, but he doesn’t look like the Johnny Storm I grew up with. Stranger still, a white actress, Kate Mara, plays his (adopted) sister Sue.

Appearances matter in a comic book movie.

I was disappointed Jessica Alba was cast as Sue Storm in the 2005 Fantastic Four film – she’s a dyed blonde with brown eyes, just as Kate Mara is in this film.

I also have problems with Miles Teller as Reed Richards. Reed in the comics always looks prematurely aged with graying temples (possibly as a result of the radiation?). In this film, Reed is a literal boy genius who started work on a teleportation machine in elementary school and demonstrated it in his high school science fair. This leads him to be discovered by the boss of a shadowy government research organization, Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey). The Fantastic Four, especially Reed and Sue, were always the most "grown-up" characters in the Marvel Universe, so it is an odd choice to make them precocious kids.

But really, the casting problems pale (sorry about that) to the story problems in this version of the Fantastic Four.

Reed is recruited to work on his teleportation device with big government funds, as is Victor (Toby Kebbell), a brooding genius who’s ten years his senior and whose earlier teleportation project hadn’t quite worked. They are assisted by Dr. Storm’s daughter, Sue, another scientific prodigy (who seems older than Reed), and Johnny, a rebellious mechanical wunderkind.

The youngsters are given millions in government funds to build their teleportation machine, teleporting not to another place on earth, but to a different dimension. A chimpanzee is successfully transported and returned. A slimy government official congratulates the team and tells them that NASA will now be brought into the project.

Reed, Victor, and Johnny are so drunk on their success that they decide to get literally drunk. In the middle of the night, they decide to hijack their own machine and teleport themselves to the alien dimension rather than letting NASA get all the glory. Reed insists they bring his childhood friend, Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), along —somehow they have astronaut suits that fit all four of them. They find themselves in an alien world, and things don’t go well. Green lava and earthquakes greet them, and they try to escape. They leave Victor behind, believing him to be dead.

Reed can’t get his interdimensional ship back to the lab, but is able to contact Sue (who hadn’t been included in the little boys’ night out). She brings the ship back to our world, but is contaminated by soil from the other dimension. The team becomes ill from their encounter with the alien world, and each is put into isolation. Their superpowers soon appear. Reed stretches, Johnny blazes, Sue fades, and Ben turns to stone.

The nefarious U.S. military hears about their powers. Ben Grimm, the Thing, is turned into a super weapon, sent out to kill America’s worst enemies. Reed escapes from the facility. Johnny considers military service. Franklin and Sue look for a cure to return everyone to normal. (Sue says, “They’re not powers, they’re aggressively powerful genetic conditions”.) As it turns out, Victor isn’t dead. He returns from the other dimension to try to destroy our world. Reed must be found so that he, Ben, Sue, and Johnny can save the world.

Plainly, the story of this film is very different from the source material. Even worse, the mood is different from the comics. It’s all dark and glum, while the comic and the other films were bright and cheery. At the end, the team finally decides to call themselves “The Fantastic Four.” They are ready for adventures (that would never come). The film was a flop, losing 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, and Constantin an estimated $100 million.

I haven’t seen the latest Marvel incarnation of the Fantastic Four (Fantastic Four: First Steps), but I’ve seen the cast photos – and they don’t match the team I loved in the comics of my youth.

Oddly, the film never formally released may be the best of the lot.

(Thrice Told Tales in a continuing series about stories that have had at least three adaptations on the screen. For instance, last month we covered three incarnations of Donald Westlake's aka Richard Stark's The Hunter.)