No! No! Baaaaaaad Marvel Comics!

[Nightfall]

*six*
AMG,

I must have missed that fight. I thought Cap lost to Stark in a no holds barred fight.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

*six*
AMG,

I must have missed that fight. I thought Cap lost to Stark in a no holds barred fight.

Stark gave Cap a good beating in issue 3, but Cap tore Tony and his armour up in the last issue. Bah to civilians getting in the way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For all we know, the Surfer, COULD. The Power Cosmic is so vague and pretty much equates to "Power What-The-Writer-Wants-It-To-Do-This-Arc"

The problem, besides my "purist" complaint, is that this creates a plot hole so big you could drive Cygnus X-1 through it.

If, arguendo, SS can do this because Galactus can (as weilders of the "Power Cosmic"):

1) Then why didn't he do this in order to spare him the various butt-kickings he's gotten at the hands of the FF?

2) If SS holds back in order to manufacture a reason to divert Galactus from eating Earth...why doesn't Big G then simply do what SS refused to do, eliminating the threat the FF and others pose and continue to eat the Earth?

3) If SS has had the ability to do so all this time and hasn't done so, then why didn't he get rid of his pals of their burdens- like Ben's condition or Alicia Masters' blindness. Is he just a secret sadist?

IOW, it strains credulity by violating the internal logic of the Marvel Universe. It is bad writing. Indefensibly bad.

The fact is that there's a long history of retelling stories in altered fashion.

and

Like every movie version of a comic doesn't mess with the mythology?!

Anyway, which version of the mythology? Doesn't Marvel change the mythos, like, every ten years - when they want to attract a new audience of 10-year-old boys?

and

My point is: it's a movie. Don't over-think the origin of the plot, just go enjoy the movie as a movie. The first FF wasn't bad (sure, it wasn't Spiderman, but what can be?), and this one looks better. Who cares if they do a power-switcheroo? Is that somehow unrealistic? Like any superpower falls under the term "realistic".

Again, there is a good way and a bad way to do those things.

Take Spider-Man's black suit. Originally a symbiote he picked up in the Secret Wars, its bound to be something entirely different in the new movie- at the very least, its origin will differ.

I have zero problem with that- Secret Wars was 12 months of "Deus Ex Machina" rewriting of the Marvel universe with regular comic title tie-ins, followed by another 12 months of the same in a second miniseries featuring the Beyonder on Earth. It allowed Marvel to change things up on major characters and, more importantly, flood the market (alongside similar efforts by DC) to beat down smaller comic book lines. Secret Wars was pretty bad writing, overall.

Its an unneccessary change- one that does nothing to improve the SS & FF brands.

And like the other bad changes I listed above (the twist ending to Scarlet Letter, etc.), its enough to keep me away from the film.

 

[Nightfall]

Stark gave Cap a good beating in issue 3, but Cap tore Tony and his armour up in the last issue. Bah to civilians getting in the way.

*nine*
Actually I was referring to a one shot where Stark and Capt fought after trying to "work" things out.

Btw I still wish Nova had the guts to beat the snot out of Tony and say "Yeah I'm way more bad ass than you have ever been."

 

[Silver Moon]

Let me begin by saying that I have a huge Marvel collectiion which includes over 300 issues of FF and over 100 issues of Silver Surfer (including most of the original series). Guys, it's a Movie - stop nitpicking over details. I for one would not want to see an exact translation of Fantastic Four 48 to 50 as I found the ending to be a real cop-out.

 

[papastebu]

Let me begin by saying that I have a huge Marvel collectiion which includes over 300 issues of FF and over 100 issues of Silver Surfer (including most of the original series). Guys, it's a Movie - stop nitpicking over details. I for one would not want to see an exact translation of Fantastic Four 48 to 50 as I found the ending to be a real cop-out.

Was that the "ultimate nullifier" ending? Me neither.
There is a more recent precedent of ALL of the FF's switching powers, as well as their powers running around and getting into people on the street. It was, I think, in the past year's issues. I can't recall much about it except for that, but it was there.
As to the way the movies have handled the comics? If I'd had a vote, I would have asked for the Ultimates version of things, Spiderman, Hulk, the Avengers/Ultimates, and, most especially the Fantastic Four. X-Men I've almost given up on, but Ilike the ultimate version of that, too.
When I go to a movie about one of these admittedly iconic characters, I try and look at it like I look at the "What If" comics back in the eighties, and the "Otherworld" stuff back in the nineties. They are telling alternate universe/timeline stories, so everything's up for grabs.
That is not to say, though, that I wasn't disappointed with a few things in almost every movie I've seen that has brought one of these characters to life. The only one I didn't have SOME problem with was probably Batman Begins, but then I've only seen that one twice.

 

[jonathan swift]

I am MUCH more concerned about Galactus appearing as a friggen CLOUD rather than as a giant purple humanoid!

The lack of a 30 foot man in a purple toga with a tuning fork on his head is a good thing.

 

[Umbran]

The lack of a 30 foot man in a purple toga with a tuning fork on his head is a good thing.

The toga is Uatu, The Watcher. Galactus wears purple armor.

 

[jonathan swift]

The toga is Uatu, The Watcher. Galactus wears purple armor.

Ah. See, all these 30 foot giants in Marvel run together in my head. The tuning fork still kills me.

 

[Randolpho]

Its an unneccessary change- one that does nothing to improve the SS & FF brands.

And like the other bad changes I listed above (the twist ending to Scarlet Letter, etc.), its enough to keep me away from the film.

Then you missed my point entirely.

Forget about the origin of the plot. Forget all about the "SS & FF brands." Forget it all. Go enjoy the movie as a movie. Look for plot, character development, interesting dialog, exciting special effects. Don't stay away from a movie just because it does things different than the comics or "changes the brand".

Don't be that guy.

If it helps, I'll give you an example of my own where I disagree with a change that was made in a movie from its source material. Specifically, I refer to Aragorn and his whole "reluctant hero/reluctant boyfriend" bit in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the movies, Aragorn has no desire to be king and, although he loves Arwen, he has no desire to see her "wither and die". Contrast that to the books (plus appendix): Aragorn wants to be king, nay needs to be king. Why? So he can marry Arwen, the woman he loves; Elrond has forbidden their union to any save the king of both the north and south. Which is the more satisfying romance? I claim that it's the version presented in the books. Why? Because Aragorn respects and loves Arwen more fully in the books than in the movie. In the movie, Arwen claims that she would rather live a short life with Aragorn than a lifetime of emptiness and regret without him, yet Aragorn rejects that and tells her to piss off to "protect her", because she's too besotted with him to look to herself. He breaks her heart, doing her more harm than he would have by allowing her to chose mortality. It's unnecessarily tragic.

Oy. I look back and realize I've written a novel in and of itself. Clearly it's a touchy subject with me. Despite that, I still went to and *loved* the movies. Sure, they're not the source, but who cares? They're still damn good movies, even with the unnecessarily tragic yet ultimately fulfilled romance.

I'm not saying Fantastic Four will win Best Picture, in fact I quite doubt it. But to simply discount the entire movie just because it clashes with the Fantastic Four/Silver Surfer "brand" is an injustice not only to the movie, but to yourself. You are denying yourself the chance to see what may turn out to be a fairly decent movie.

That's a real shame, IMO.