Broken Frontier

With the Fantastic Four movie garnering largely favorable early reviews, the time is ripe to look back at the quartet’s journey from their comic book pages to a big screen debut. Along the way, there have been four other media adaptations of Marvel’s first family – ranging in quality from fantastically fun to frightfully bad.

1961 – The Comic Book

Most comic book fans are familiar with the origins of the Fantastic Four, but for the benefit of those whose initial exposure to the group is the current campaign surrounding the movie, their story first appeared in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #1. After mysterious cosmic rays bombarded their rocket, four young intrepid astronauts crash-landed to Earth. Miraculously unharmed, the four soon discovered that they had gained fantastic abilities beyond that of mere humans. Scientist Reed Richards, who was forever attempting to stretch his knowledge of the world, found that he had complete control over his body’s molecules, enabling him to stretch and mold his body at will. Susan Storm, who despite her role as mother/protector of the group felt her talents were overlooked, gained the ability to turn invisible and cast transparent force fields. Her young brother, hotheaded Johnny Storm, gained complete control over fire, as well as the ability to spontaneously combust and fly. Gruff outsider, Ben Grimm, suffered the most radical transformation, as his skin turned into a stony hide and he gained incredible super strength.

Deciding to band together to fight injustice, the four explorers – now known as Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Girl, The Human Torch and The Thing – became the first family of Marvel superheroes, the Fantastic Four.

1967 – The Animated Series

The first cross-media interpretation of the Fantastic Four was the 1967 Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It debuted on September 9th of that year, the same day the much beloved Spider-Man animated series first hit the airwaves. The Fantastic Four may not have had the longevity that Spider-Man did, but it is remembered fondly for the fact that it remained very faithful to the original comics. Of the 19 episodes produced, 18 of them were based directly on Stan Lee’s comic scripts (the remaining episode was a highlights/clips show) including the popular “Galactus” trilogy from Fantastic Four #48-50. Another story that was adapted in the animated series was “Danger in the Depths,” based on Fantastic Four #33, which featured “Prince Triton of Pacifica” (a stand in for Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner of Atlantis, who’s likeness had been licensed a year earlier to GrantRay Lawrence Animation as part of “The Marvel Super Heroes” cartoon).  

The Hanna-Barbera team worked hard to capture the family feel of the four principle characters, including the bickering and familial disputes that were so important to the success of the comic. Paul Fees (The Thing), Jack Flounders (The Human Torch), Jo Ann Pflung (The Invisible Girl) and Gerald Mohr (whose voice work as Mr. Fantastic followed his time doing vocals for Hal “Green Lantern” Jordan on the Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure) all contributed greatly to interpreting Stan Lee’s founding family of superheroes onto the small screen. The legendary Alex Toth, character designer for the series, also tried to keep elements of Jack Kirby’s art in the animation, creating an interesting fusion of styles. In addition to the characters already mentioned, this series brought such legendary Fantastic Four villains as Dr. Doom, Molecule Man, The Red Ghost, Blastarr and Rama-Tut to animated life.

1978 – The New Animated Series

Eleven years later, the Fantastic Four returned to Saturday mornings, this time in the De-Patie-Freleng Enterprises produced “The New Fantastic Four.” Despite the involvement of Jack Kirby on storyboards and Stan Lee and Roy Thomas on the writing staff, “The New Fantastic Four” performed poorly, lasting only 13 episodes before cancellation. The series did base a few episodes on the early Lee/Kirby comics, but unfortunately tended to fall back on uninspired, unmotivated and watered down interpretations of the Fantastic Four’s world (Magneto, arguably one of Marvel’s most complex villains, appears simply as a revenge motivated criminal).  The limited quality of animation also made the series appear technologically inferior to the Hanna-Barbera series from over a decade earlier. 

The final element that may have doomed the series (and one most reviled by fans), was the replacement of The Human Torch on the team with H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Electronic Robot B-Style), a cute robotic sidekick. A popular rumor suggested that the reason for the switch was to make the series “safer” for kids (fearing that small tykes might try to light themselves on fire emulating Johnny Storm’s powers), but in actuality the reason was far more mundane. Just as Namor had been replaced in the earlier series, The Human Torch had been optioned as part of deal between Marvel, Universal Studios and CBS for a (never-produced) live-action series. Providing a small bit of continuity between the two animated series, Ginny Tyler (The Invisible Girl) and Frank Weller (H.E.R.B.I.E.) were joined by two FF veterans – Ted “The Thing” Cassidy (who had voiced Galactus in the first series) and Mike “Mr. Fantastic” Road (Rama-Tut from the 1967 series). 

1994 – The Marvel Action Hour

On the heels of the successful 1990s “X-Men” cartoon, Fox Kids debuted “The Marvel Action Hour” in the fall of 1994. Each episode featured two thirty minute cartoons – Iron Man and The Fantastic Four. The 13 episodes comprising Fantastic Four season one were once again based loosely on the source comics, but the series failed to capture the fan attention that X-Men had. A major complaint, which stood out in sharp contrast to the handling of the X-Men series, was that many of the villains lacked the depth of the Lee/Kirby originals (a perfect example being Dr. Doom. By leaving out the occult aspects of his origin and his quest to save his mother, the villain lost the sympathetic element that made Doom more complex than a purely revenge motivated foe). Despite this, Beau “Mr. Fantastic” Weaver (who had voiced Superman in the 1988 animate series), Lori “Invisible Woman” Alan and Chuck “The Thing” McCann all returned for a second season (with Quinton Flynn replacing Brian Austin Green as the Human Torch). 

The production of the cartoon also switched to a new animation house for season two, resulting in a more polished look to the show. The second season also featured many other treats for fans, including appearances by other Marvel characters (Daredevil, the Black Panther, the Impossible Man and the Silver Surfer) and several guest voices (Ron Perlman as The Wizard and The Hulk, Michael Dorn as Gorgon, Kathy Ireland as Crystal, Mark Hamill as Maximus, John Rhys-Davies as Thor and Richard Grieco as Ghost Rider). Ultimately, these efforts failed to save the series and it was cancelled due to low ratings after 26 episodes (although the entire series has recently been collected on DVD).

1994 – The Motion Picture

The Fantastic Four made their first live-action appearance in the 1994 film directed by low budget horror movie maker, Roger Corman. Despite rumors to the contrary, a recent interview with Stan Lee revealed that the film was never intended to be released commercially, but rather was made purely as a method to prevent the license from lapsing. The result was a motion picture shot over mere weeks with a tiny budget of $1.5 million. Starring Alex Hyde-White (Mr. Fantastic), Jay Underwood (Human Torch), Rebecca Staab (Invisible Girl), Michael Bailey Smith (The Thing) and Joseph Culp (Dr. Doom), bootleg copies of the film have become a much sought after property on file sharing networks and on the convention circuit. Despite the weak plot (involving Dr. Doom trying to take over the world with a laser), low budget special effects (Mr. Fantastic’s most fantastic move is to stretch his leg to trip people), stock footage and cheesy dialogue (including a bizarre segment showing the four tormenting a “government” scientist), the film does have a certain charm. Considering the budget, the costumes for The Thing and Dr. Doom are actually quite close to their comic book counterparts. It’s also quite amusing to watch the efforts that Corman and director Oley Sassone go to ensure that The Human Torch never uses his powers for anything other then lighting small fire (thereby keeping the special effects budget down). The final payoff comes in the closing minutes of the film when The Torch finally “Flames On” – and Jay Underwood is quickly replaced with a poorly animated stand-in.

Each of these efforts to translate the Fantastic Four from the printed page have had good and bad elements. As the new movie opens today, fans will find out if the new Fantastic Four movie will join these other efforts, or if there will finally be an adaptation that can be truly called “fantastic.”