The Fantastic Four Cinematic Experience has been rebooted more times that my crappy Commodore 64 computer was rebooted back in the 80s; the era of floppy discs and Q Bert. I don’t why it’s so hard to make a great FF Movie, seems like all the elements are there for a homerun flick. Perhaps it’s because every time we’ve seen The Thing in a FF movie we kind of snort laugh. They’ve never gotten The Thing right, it always makes me think ‘Oh that’s some sort of wacky polyurethane suit with glued on tchotchkes with an actor in it’. The scripts have also always been downright bleccch.
So it was with bated excitement that I was watching this new FF team of actors come together. So far it looked like they had knocked each one out of the park. I mean, the dude from ‘The Bear’ the greatest TV Show of 2023 (Ebon Moss-Burt-Bacharach) was an interesting choice. Is the Thing just going to be saying Cousin all of the time? Despite his lanky appearance I can totally see Ebon inhabiting the role of Ben Grimm so at this point it’s only a matter of them finally getting The Thing appearance right. And then, there’s Reed Richards…
Oy. He, for some reason, was the last missing piece and, well, I think they fucked it up. It is Marvisney, to be expected. Pedro Pascal is not Reed Richards. Period. I’ve not been enamored by Double P’s work. I thought he was straight up cheezy in the WW84 film and as far as Mando? He had a helmet on the entire time and pretty much delivered his lines monotone. But even if he was absolutely amazing in everything the dude is not Reed. Reed is an emotionally detached genius of logic and reasoning; a Spock-like character. Pedro is none of those things. I mean, I’m sure he can act the part, but his Reed will probably clasp Johnny on the shoulder after a mission, squeeze his trapezius and look him in his eyes and say ‘You did your best, hey, let’s grab a beer’. There is a warmth and congeniality of Pedro that I don’t think he can turn off. Perhaps I’ll be wrong. I hope he proves me wrong. But at first blush my thought is: Noooooooooooo!!!!
Let’s get into some books that I dove headfirst into.
Okay, after a mnyeh nothing special first issue this book officially jumped the fuck off and got wow. Damn, Bendis is a bad ass, what can I say. He just really knows how to rope you in and make you go ‘Wait, what the fuck is going to happen here?’ even if the premise isn’t amazing and even if you’re not invested in the lead. Halfway through the second issue I was pondering whether or not I should drop the book even though I love the masterful duo of Maleev and Bendis and before I knew I got hit with, ‘let’s put a fictional squad together based on some old squad dynamics’ and I got reeled in like a Marvel suit being offered a mound of coke in exchange for hiring a shitty editor.
Next, the final challenge is the Gen Z Dubz Doppelganger (I seriously could not tell who was who her) challenges Dubz, wait for it, to video games! Are you fucking kidding me??? So she’s challenges her to some Street Fighter game except it’s Batman vs Superman and Dubz takes Supes. Well of course, Supes wins but if I’m a Gen Z Gamer and I wanna beat Dubz at video why on earth would I challenge her to a fight game? Dude, challenge her to something like Madden! You telling me Dubz knows what a jet sweep is??? A flea flicker? Trips right? A fair catch? Look, I could beat Wonder Woman in Madden and I’m not even that good at it. Serious dropping of the ball here by King.