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August 9, 2011 11:32 AM Subscribe
In honor of the Fantastic Four's upcoming 50-year anniversary, Bully presents an origin story retrospective.
Speaking of, "What if the Fantastic Four were Cosmonauts?"
Yes, please. (Even stranger than the multiple times DC and Marvel have gone to the "our hereoes, let's make them Soviet" well -- especially AFTER the Cold War, is my absolute love of the idea.)
So, um, fantastic to see them all back to back in order to see what elements are consistent. I guess that's the point, but still, very much appreciated.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:30 PM on August 9, 2011
Yes, please. (Even stranger than the multiple times DC and Marvel have gone to the "our hereoes, let's make them Soviet" well -- especially AFTER the Cold War, is my absolute love of the idea.)
So, um, fantastic to see them all back to back in order to see what elements are consistent. I guess that's the point, but still, very much appreciated.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:30 PM on August 9, 2011
Holy Crap. That is a lot of origins. John Byrne must dream in FF origin stories.
posted by yerfatma at 12:36 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by yerfatma at 12:36 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Jeez, they're not characters, they're just products, used to separate those looking for characters from their money.
Is this a stable of comics in other countries or manga, the redone orgins?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on August 9, 2011
Is this a stable of comics in other countries or manga, the redone orgins?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on August 9, 2011
American superhero comics are very much their own unique, crazy thing. I can't think of another media form that tries to keep the same characters and continuities running for five decades at a time with so many different writers and artists trading off the actual creative duties. Disney comics are kinda similar, but it seems like they're freer to tell one-off stories or switch things into a totally new paradigm, like the ones where Donald, Mickey et. al are masked heroes or whatnot.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:43 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:43 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
That compendium of origins is really kind of dazzling to go through, all of them riffing off the same original story, like listening to all the covers of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" one after another. (It's kind of funny to see the visual trope of portraying the cosmic rays as--well, let's be coy and call them lines of "cigar tubes.") The FF fascinated me from an early age because, when they're all powered up, none of them look like just a human in a leotard, the way that most of the JLA does; Reed is stretched, Sue invisible, Johnny on fire, and Ben like a walking sandstone bluff.
Fifty years. Too bad Johnny didn't make it all the way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Fifty years. Too bad Johnny didn't make it all the way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Heh. I love how "We have to do it before the commies" becomes "We have to do it before our funding is cut".
posted by Thorzdad at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
A little surprised that Planetary wasn't included in there.
Did they ever actually do a compact one? All I can remember is them getting in the rocket, the individual reveals, and then the big one at the end.
posted by griphus at 12:51 PM on August 9, 2011
Did they ever actually do a compact one? All I can remember is them getting in the rocket, the individual reveals, and then the big one at the end.
posted by griphus at 12:51 PM on August 9, 2011
A little surprised that Planetary wasn't included in there.
Expys don't count. (Otherwise, they could also have thrown in the U-Foes and Hank Henshaw's group from DC.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:51 PM on August 9, 2011
(They may also be considered Captains Ersatz; the distinction in TVTropes is probably one of individual judgment as to how close they are to the original.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:56 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:56 PM on August 9, 2011
My burning question is why they feel so compelled to re-tell the origin story so much. Is the origin of the FF so much more interesting then watching them bash Galactus again?
posted by GuyZero at 1:06 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by GuyZero at 1:06 PM on August 9, 2011
My burning question is why they feel so compelled to re-tell the origin story so much.
You have to retell origin stories every once in a while, because otherwise the characters and their motivations just don't make any -- or, well, considerably less, at any rate -- sense because they're dated by the zeitgeist in which they occurred.
There's a comment above about the original plot including beating the Communists to space. Well, how is that going to work in a story ca. 2011, clearly taking place in 2011? You can make vague allusions to things being different (a character will make a reference to the origin story and it will be different than the original) and so on, but once in a while, you just need to go whole-hog and redefine what the hell happened at the beginning. Same thing with Iron Man, for instance: his original can't take place during the Vietnam war anymore. Captain America couldn't have been unfrozen in the 1960s, &c.
Also, getting an issue of a comic from 1961 is (or was) no easy task, even if it was reprinted occasionally. There's word-of-mouth, but sometimes it is best to let the medium do the telling. Even with well-known heroes, it is difficult to pin down what happened at the beginning.
Of course, this turns into a problem. Hawkman is a DC character that is, by editorial policy, used very infrequently because his numerous origin stories are in complete conflict with one another. Is he an outer-space cop? A human with magic weapons? From ancient Egypt? Every time they try to re-do the origin, they add another one and, well, who knows what's going to happen to him.
posted by griphus at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
You have to retell origin stories every once in a while, because otherwise the characters and their motivations just don't make any -- or, well, considerably less, at any rate -- sense because they're dated by the zeitgeist in which they occurred.
There's a comment above about the original plot including beating the Communists to space. Well, how is that going to work in a story ca. 2011, clearly taking place in 2011? You can make vague allusions to things being different (a character will make a reference to the origin story and it will be different than the original) and so on, but once in a while, you just need to go whole-hog and redefine what the hell happened at the beginning. Same thing with Iron Man, for instance: his original can't take place during the Vietnam war anymore. Captain America couldn't have been unfrozen in the 1960s, &c.
Also, getting an issue of a comic from 1961 is (or was) no easy task, even if it was reprinted occasionally. There's word-of-mouth, but sometimes it is best to let the medium do the telling. Even with well-known heroes, it is difficult to pin down what happened at the beginning.
Of course, this turns into a problem. Hawkman is a DC character that is, by editorial policy, used very infrequently because his numerous origin stories are in complete conflict with one another. Is he an outer-space cop? A human with magic weapons? From ancient Egypt? Every time they try to re-do the origin, they add another one and, well, who knows what's going to happen to him.
posted by griphus at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
(Actually, now that I think about it, I have no idea what they're doing with Cap and Stark. I think Tony Stark body-merged with a younger alternate-universe version of himself a while ago or something.)
posted by griphus at 1:20 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by griphus at 1:20 PM on August 9, 2011
American superhero comics are very much their own unique, crazy thing. I can't think of another media form that tries to keep the same characters and continuities running for five decades at a time with so many different writers and artists trading off the actual creative duties.
For this reason I think the works of Marvel and DC represent the largest and longest human creative project in history. Hundreds (thousands?) of artists and writers and editors have worked on them, thousands of characters and stories, all connected in a single world with temporal continuity, a gigantic story that's been rolling for 70+ years.
Nothing else in the world really compares to what they've done. There are some very, very long-running manga but these are single stories much smaller in scope. There are all sorts of anthologies but these by nature don't try to create an ongoing, coherent work.
tl;dr - What Marvel and DC have done deserve respect just for the sheer scale of what they've put together, however terrible it can be at times...
posted by Sangermaine at 1:23 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
For this reason I think the works of Marvel and DC represent the largest and longest human creative project in history. Hundreds (thousands?) of artists and writers and editors have worked on them, thousands of characters and stories, all connected in a single world with temporal continuity, a gigantic story that's been rolling for 70+ years.
Nothing else in the world really compares to what they've done. There are some very, very long-running manga but these are single stories much smaller in scope. There are all sorts of anthologies but these by nature don't try to create an ongoing, coherent work.
tl;dr - What Marvel and DC have done deserve respect just for the sheer scale of what they've put together, however terrible it can be at times...
posted by Sangermaine at 1:23 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Know what's missing? The "What If ... " story where Sue was turned into Man-Thing. Reed, Johnny & Ben were so horrified by her they abandoned her in a swamp. That story still sticks with me today.
posted by KingEdRa at 1:24 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by KingEdRa at 1:24 PM on August 9, 2011
They forgot the Challengers of the Unknown one...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 1:59 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Ron Thanagar at 1:59 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
For this reason I think the works of Marvel and DC represent the largest and longest human creative project in history...Nothing else in the world really compares to what they've done.
The stuff between the covers of a King James Bible has fewer total words and fewer contributors, but spans a much longer period of time.
Collecting all the stories written about the Greek and Roman gods and heroes would also span a longer time period than DC/Marvel and might get closer to the same amount of material, although there's no definitive version like there is with the KJV or the Marvel/DC canon, so to be fair you'd probably have to compare Greek & Roman myth to all the similarly contradictory comic books, cartoons, movies, radio & TV shows based on DC/Marvel characters. But then Greek/Roman myth should be allowed to count stuff like Clash of the Titans, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and DC/Marvel comic books like Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hercules.
posted by straight at 2:01 PM on August 9, 2011
The stuff between the covers of a King James Bible has fewer total words and fewer contributors, but spans a much longer period of time.
Collecting all the stories written about the Greek and Roman gods and heroes would also span a longer time period than DC/Marvel and might get closer to the same amount of material, although there's no definitive version like there is with the KJV or the Marvel/DC canon, so to be fair you'd probably have to compare Greek & Roman myth to all the similarly contradictory comic books, cartoons, movies, radio & TV shows based on DC/Marvel characters. But then Greek/Roman myth should be allowed to count stuff like Clash of the Titans, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and DC/Marvel comic books like Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hercules.
posted by straight at 2:01 PM on August 9, 2011
Why is Reed Richards Mr Fantastic, and not Doctor Fantastic. Does he lose his Ph.Ds when it's stretchin' time?
posted by Sparx at 2:03 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by Sparx at 2:03 PM on August 9, 2011
Why is Reed Richards Mr Fantastic, and not Doctor Fantastic. Does he lose his Ph.Ds when it's stretchin' time?
He read the AskMe threads where people say only MDs are supposed to call themselves Doctor.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 2:09 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
He read the AskMe threads where people say only MDs are supposed to call themselves Doctor.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 2:09 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh man oh man.
I am AMAZED that no-one has linked to Too Busy Thinking About My Comics amazing analysis of how post-hoc revisionism makes the Fantastic Four story waaaay more interesting.
posted by 235w103 at 2:13 PM on August 9, 2011 [10 favorites]
I am AMAZED that no-one has linked to Too Busy Thinking About My Comics amazing analysis of how post-hoc revisionism makes the Fantastic Four story waaaay more interesting.
posted by 235w103 at 2:13 PM on August 9, 2011 [10 favorites]
straight
Maybe a better way would be to say largest purposeful creative work? The Greek/Roman myths evolved over time, but I don't think one could say that they were part of a purposeful, established, ongoing project to continue their story.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:16 PM on August 9, 2011
Maybe a better way would be to say largest purposeful creative work? The Greek/Roman myths evolved over time, but I don't think one could say that they were part of a purposeful, established, ongoing project to continue their story.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:16 PM on August 9, 2011
largest purposeful, established, ongoing project to continue their story
The Genesis-Kings arc of the Bible, God's origin story. Rather like Crisis on Infinite Earths, some person/persons circa ~600BC took snippets of mythology from two different kingdoms (the J and E traditions) and fused them together. The distant creator, the craftsman in the garden, the destroyer, the fertility goddess, the friend of the family, the volcano war god, the blood god of the temple, the kingmaker -- he/she/they took a whole system of polytheistic gods and turned those stories into the saga of one cosmic being. They did it so well that people have been adding to their continuity across dozens of cultures and thousands of years.
Think of Christianity, Islam, etc. as Ultimate Universes or What Ifs.
I'd give Virgil credit as a runner up for tying so much of the Greco-Roman tradition together as though the component parts made any sense together.
Marvel/DC? Well, let's see how much they matter to people's lives in 500 years.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:58 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
The Genesis-Kings arc of the Bible, God's origin story. Rather like Crisis on Infinite Earths, some person/persons circa ~600BC took snippets of mythology from two different kingdoms (the J and E traditions) and fused them together. The distant creator, the craftsman in the garden, the destroyer, the fertility goddess, the friend of the family, the volcano war god, the blood god of the temple, the kingmaker -- he/she/they took a whole system of polytheistic gods and turned those stories into the saga of one cosmic being. They did it so well that people have been adding to their continuity across dozens of cultures and thousands of years.
Think of Christianity, Islam, etc. as Ultimate Universes or What Ifs.
I'd give Virgil credit as a runner up for tying so much of the Greco-Roman tradition together as though the component parts made any sense together.
Marvel/DC? Well, let's see how much they matter to people's lives in 500 years.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:58 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seconding 235w103
That retcon made the FF interesting for me for the first time. Here's their origin story as told by Reed Richards himself to his infant child:
Once upon a time, there was a genius who...
...a very bright man who...
Once upon a time there was a very arrogant man who did something very stupid. Without proper preparation or shielding, he took his friends through a wave of radiation that made them all something other than human. His guilt was unbearable... and deserved. These were the people he loved, and he'd destroyed their lives. Thanks to him, they were fated to be freaks... lab specimens or worse...
...unless he changed that fate somehow. Unless he made the world see them for what they were: three of the best and bravest people anyone could hope to meet. So he refused to let them operate in secret. He gave them a home in a city of eight million. And he gave them costumes. And a flying car. And encouraged them to parade around with some pretty outlandish names.
"Mr. Fantastic." Does that sound like something anyone would really want to call themselves? No. But that's the kind of thing that made headlines. And t-shirts. And action figures. He knew that would keep people from fearing them. You see, glamour and fame weren't options. They were necessities. Because maybe by turning his friends into celebrities...
...he could be forgiven for taking their normal lives away.
Someday?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:12 PM on August 9, 2011 [4 favorites]
That retcon made the FF interesting for me for the first time. Here's their origin story as told by Reed Richards himself to his infant child:
Once upon a time, there was a genius who...
...a very bright man who...
Once upon a time there was a very arrogant man who did something very stupid. Without proper preparation or shielding, he took his friends through a wave of radiation that made them all something other than human. His guilt was unbearable... and deserved. These were the people he loved, and he'd destroyed their lives. Thanks to him, they were fated to be freaks... lab specimens or worse...
...unless he changed that fate somehow. Unless he made the world see them for what they were: three of the best and bravest people anyone could hope to meet. So he refused to let them operate in secret. He gave them a home in a city of eight million. And he gave them costumes. And a flying car. And encouraged them to parade around with some pretty outlandish names.
"Mr. Fantastic." Does that sound like something anyone would really want to call themselves? No. But that's the kind of thing that made headlines. And t-shirts. And action figures. He knew that would keep people from fearing them. You see, glamour and fame weren't options. They were necessities. Because maybe by turning his friends into celebrities...
...he could be forgiven for taking their normal lives away.
Someday?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:12 PM on August 9, 2011 [4 favorites]
Reed goes by Mister because he's not a self-aggrandizing jerk to the extent that Doom is (no matter how he was written in Civil War, or was he really a Skrull? I wasn't paying attention).
posted by Eideteker at 3:38 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by Eideteker at 3:38 PM on August 9, 2011
Sangermaine, I hope you don't think I'm trying to undermine your awe at the 50+ year sagas that are the Marvel and DC Universes by pointing out that the Bible and the sum total of Greek & Roman Mythology are the only comparable things I know of.
posted by straight at 4:00 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 4:00 PM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
235w103, that sort of perspective-changing retcon, where you are able to dramatically revise and make sense of a previous story by adding new information without actually changing or ignoring the original is one of my favorite things in comics, when done right.
Frank Miller's explanation of the big yellow bat symbol on Batman's chest is another excellent, if smaller, example. Earth X / Universe X / Paradise X is the most out-of-control insane-but-not-stupid example. I dislike a lot of Waid's stuff, but sometimes he can really work that magic like he does there with Reed.
posted by straight at 4:10 PM on August 9, 2011
Frank Miller's explanation of the big yellow bat symbol on Batman's chest is another excellent, if smaller, example. Earth X / Universe X / Paradise X is the most out-of-control insane-but-not-stupid example. I dislike a lot of Waid's stuff, but sometimes he can really work that magic like he does there with Reed.
posted by straight at 4:10 PM on August 9, 2011
Sangermaine, I hope you don't think I'm trying to undermine your awe at the 50+ year sagas that are the Marvel and DC Universes by pointing out that the Bible and the sum total of Greek & Roman Mythology are the only comparable things I know of.
Actually, it's more common than you think -- there are loads of long-running story cycles that various people have tried their hands at -- King Arthur comes to mind, The Water Margin from China, the idea of the "Wild West" in the US... I expect every culture with a written tradition eventually produces one of these. Heck, even Sherlock Holmes matches the general trend, although the non-canon pieces don't necessarily mesh well with each other). Comics seem lusher because the time period we are looking at is contracted -- we are talking a few decades rather than centuries.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:14 PM on August 9, 2011
Actually, it's more common than you think -- there are loads of long-running story cycles that various people have tried their hands at -- King Arthur comes to mind, The Water Margin from China, the idea of the "Wild West" in the US... I expect every culture with a written tradition eventually produces one of these. Heck, even Sherlock Holmes matches the general trend, although the non-canon pieces don't necessarily mesh well with each other). Comics seem lusher because the time period we are looking at is contracted -- we are talking a few decades rather than centuries.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:14 PM on August 9, 2011
There was a group of tragic/evil Fantastic Four expys in Batman Beyond.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:36 PM on August 9, 2011
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:36 PM on August 9, 2011
Yeah, Waid's retelling of the origin is fantastic.
That panel with Ben smashing the desk and saying that he's no coward is repeated a lot in the early retellings, but gets dropped later on. I've never thought of that as an iconic part of the origin, but I guess that it used to be. Has anyone ever picked up on that facet of Ben's character for a storyline? Ben should have a pretty complex relationship with cowardice and bravery, given that trying to be brave turned him into a monster.
posted by painquale at 12:03 AM on August 10, 2011
That panel with Ben smashing the desk and saying that he's no coward is repeated a lot in the early retellings, but gets dropped later on. I've never thought of that as an iconic part of the origin, but I guess that it used to be. Has anyone ever picked up on that facet of Ben's character for a storyline? Ben should have a pretty complex relationship with cowardice and bravery, given that trying to be brave turned him into a monster.
posted by painquale at 12:03 AM on August 10, 2011
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Weirdly, Wikipedia has alternate versions of Mr. Fantastic, The Human Torch, and the Thing, but no Invisible Woman (and no page for alt. versions of the group itself). I'm particularly fond of the What Ifs? (especially the one where the Four are basically crippled by their powers; gotta dig that one out and read it again).
posted by Eideteker at 12:00 PM on August 9, 2011