The Fantastic Four have long been one of the cornerstones of Marvel Comics. Known as Marvel’s First Family they sit alongside The Amazing Spider-Man as the company’s most famous characters and longest running titles. Like many characters created by Marvel, the movie rights were sold off many years ago in order to keep the company afloat during a rocky financial period. This means that a Fantastic Four movie at present cannot be a produced by Marvel Studios. There has been some rumours the movie rights will be returning to Marvel, but Fox who currently own them have discredited this story. However, lets take a look a why the Fantastic Four need to return home to the house of ideas and join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Three failed attempts
While out of the control of Marvel Studios, there have been 3 very bad attempts at adapting the Fantastic Four comic book series; the infamous, unreleased B-movie produced by Roger Corman in 1994, two movies released in 2005 and 2007 boasted an all-star cast but failed to win over audiences with either attempt, and the 2015 reboot that tried a darker and different take on the classic characters, this also failed and the movie was a critical and commercial failure. The Fantastic Four really deserve a better movie adaptation after many years of popular comics. A few failed attempts have enabled other characters to return to Marvel in one way or another, such as; Daredevil, Ghost Rider, The Punisher and most recently Spider-Man.
Hulk vs The Thing
One of the best rivalries in Marvel Comics for decades has been the Hulk and The Fantastic Four’s Ever Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing. As The Thing can regularly go two-to-two with Hulk it would be great to see them duke it out on the big screen.
Marvel Cosmic
The Fantastic Four have always been strongly connected to the cosmic side of Marvel from the origins of their powers to their many run-ins with the likes of the Skrulls and the Kree. The MCU has neatly set up the cosmic side to the universe in Thor, The Avengers and most recently Guardians of the Galaxy.
Galactus and the Silver Surfer
One of the most important stories in Marvel history: the Galactus Trilogy, a three issue story arc that saw the Fantastic Four meet the devourer of worlds, Galactus, a being of impossible power that they could only defeat with the aide of his herald and slave, the Silver Surfer. Galactus and the Silver Surfer are huge fan favourites from the comics and if Galactus did return to Marvel he could be a villain even beyond what we’ve seen from Thanos.
Doctor Doom
Not only has Doctor Doom long been the arch-nemesis of the Fantastic Four but he is arguably the best super-villain in Marvel Comics history. He is effectively an evil amalgamation of Iron Man, Black Panther and Doctor Strange and has faced off against nearly every major hero in Marvel Comics including the Avengers. If Marvel can somehow regain the movie rights to Fantastic Four, having Doctor Doom to play with in the MCU would surely be the most exciting outcome.
Would you like to see the Fantastic Four join the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
