[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Sumac

My knowledge of FF4 comes mainly from cartoon and movies, so maybe in the comic books they are more nuanced.

My impressions was that they are pretty boring and their powers are kind of generic.

I think it's kinda like Superman. That character came and popularised almost everything about the superhero genre but it was expanded on by literally every other superhero. Decades on Supes looks plain and generic by comparison.

Fantastic Four is basically the same deal. The solified a lot of the formula which made Marvel's characters so successful. The lead characters arrogance causing something bad to happen and they feel a sense of responsibility, a gruff but noble monster, teenage angst and real world issues as a backdrop. It was all very fresh and new but then came the Hulk and Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men and s on who did a lot of these things too arguably better.

Still FF operate on a grander scale than most of those characters hence why their villains and mythos gets absorbed into the wider Marvel Universe. Heck a lot of their characters have had a huge presence in the MCU even without the FF themselves. Watchers, Skrulls, Ronan the Accuser

Originally Posted by sdp

The comics have always loved the Fantastic 4, they somehow write them in such ways that despite not looking as interesting at first sight they had the most awesome stories. I don't know if the general audience can change their minds and if not left with great writers F4 might just seem like a generic super hero team but they're more than that, they're the explorers of the Marvel Universe.
Counting they're being introduced late into the game I think they'll have things difficult for them, I also don't think Antman will ever be as big as if he had been in phase 1, I mean Hawkguy is getting more love than Antman and that's sad.

Do them 'right' and I don't think it doesn't matters when they debut.

I think they are uncomfortably caught in between what their big fans want. A lot of of them thing they should be very old school super heroics to the point they want Brad Bird to make an animated movie but the moment that happens they complain it's too camp and cheesy and not respecting the characters enough.

Personally I think the '05 movie got the characters right enough but I'd prefer they had a bit more edge to them this time around. Reed should feel slightly more guilt and sense of responsibility for ruining his friends lives and Ben should be a bit resentful that he's become a monster. I doubt that's the route they'll go, their characterisation will probably be more inline with the previous movies but I don't think they'll shy away from the big scale action the series requires...like Doom wont be an evil business man or Galactus or cloud out of fear the audience wont get it.

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

I need to see if there's been any updates to the "Fantastic Four: Great American Novel" website. That guy's fountain of knowledge and trying to weave a whole tapestry of Marvel history around how much the FF's story meant to it was insane.

I actually just checked that site again since this news. He makes a few interesting points but he's absolutely insane with ideas like Reed being a skrull or Skrull milk being the source of most Marvel super heroes powers Sue being Johnny's mother etc is some perfect madness.