DISCLAIMER: I am a huge nerd and I don’t care about your superhero fatigue.
How ironic is it that it took four times to get the Fantastic Four right?
Sure, the 1994 Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four gets the characters right, but it didn’t have the budget to make it perfect. Then again, it was created primarily to maintain a copyright.
In 2004, we had Fantastic Four and in 2007, a sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer. The effects were there, the costumes were close, but they felt too compressed. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was not what it would become, and, well, Galactus was a cloud.
2015 brought the Fantastic Four, the fascinating Josh Trank-directed failure that had no idea what it wanted to be.
As I said several years ago, when I covered that film, “The creators should have taken a note from the cartoon versions, as both the 1994-96 series and the 2006-07 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes captured much of what makes these heroes so special. Unlike the Avengers, they are two things: a family and adventure scientists, not truly superheroes.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the first movie that gets that. And gets a better understanding of who these characters truly are.
I was inspired to write this after seeing a social acquaintance describe it as a boring movie, filled with talk instead of action. This kind of upset me, as it showed that this person, like the filmmakers before, didn’t understand who these characters are.
There are two aspects: an intriguing breakdown of the four basic Myers-Briggs archetypes and the distilled personality of Jack Kirby.
In my past advertising life, I volunteered to help teach the Myers-Briggs classes. To keep things simple, we didn’t delve into the sixteen types, but instead focused on the four archetypes: Rationalist, Romantic, Defender, and Creator. We broke them down into marketing terms: Body Copy, Illustration, Logo, and Headline.
Haha, this is a movie review, but let’s go deep.
Oh yeah — spoilers from here on.
The Rationalist (ETNJ, INTJ, ENTP or INTP) is “characterized by their ability to think critically, analyze complex situations and propose innovative solutions. They are known for their independent problem-solving skills, strategic thinking and strong-willed nature.” Other studies will refer to these as the Idealists. They are given to charity and causes, which is who Sue Richards is in this movie. No other film — even several comics — has portrayed her so accurately as she should be. The Invisible Woman isn’t someone blinded by her love for Reed, nor is she a heroine who needs to be saved. She’s dynamic, and her actions change the world for the better beyond her superheroics.
The Romantic (ENFJ, IFNJ, ENFP, INFP) are “typically idealistic and dreamy, and they often have a strong appreciation for beauty.” They are drawn to art, music and writing, while looking for a perfect, true love. Johnny Storm is this personality, someone who the movie notes always has a new girl and who we see designing new costumes for the space mission. Yet he also possesses a strong level of intuition, recognizing that the Silver Surfer’s voice is the same as the space signals Reed has discovered. When he meets her, everyone thinks he has a crush on her, but the truth is that he sees something beneath her cruelty —a humanity that she believes is long gone.
The Defender (ESTJ, ISTJ, ESFJ, ISFJ) is loyal and devoted to family, but may have difficulty expressing their emotions. They follow strict schedules and feel a sense of duty. This is Ben Grimm, The Thing, who is the true heart of the Fantastic Four. The movie shows that he’s the member who remains connected to his Yancy Street community, still shopping at the same places he did when he was a child. He’s the member who cooks dinner for everyone and tries to protect them. As for his emotions, he feels something for the teacher, Roz, but struggles to express his feelings until the night he meets her at the synagogue, when he tells her that he doesn’t want to be around people. He wanted to be around her.
The Creator (ESTP, ISTP, ESFP, ISFP) is a problem solver, but one who often gets lost inside their own thoughts. Usually, they live in the now and “sometimes fail to think about how current actions will lead to long-term consequences.” Reed Richards fits in here, as he’s always thinking of solutions and often forgets — such as when he gave his son Franklin to Galactus, which seemed like a logical decision at the time — how his thoughts will end up angering those he loves. He is constantly thinking of worst-case scenarios and, often, what could versus what will happen. Think of this within the movie, where he confesses to Sue that he always has to think of the most horrible things so that he can protect her, his family and the world.
What the movie truly grasps is that the Fantastic Four are, in many ways, a reflection of Jack Kirby himself.
As the movie ends, this quote emerges: “If you look at my characters, you will find me. No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there.” Then, we learn that Earth-828, where this movie takes place, is named for Kirby’s birthday: August 28.
Director Matt Shakman’s words to Marvel echo this sentiment: “He’s a visionary. We would have no Marvel Studios today without Jack Kirby. He created numerous amazing characters and built this world alongside Stan Lee. So many of our heroes launched from his mind and his pen, and we wanted to honor that. We wanted to honor his distinctive style.”
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige also said, “We wanted it to be more than just a passing tip of the hat. There are direct lines from his pencil that he drew with at his drawing board by himself, pouring his universe-spanning imagination onto the page. There are direct lines from there into this film.”
In fact, they planned this comic as a tribute to Kirby meeting Kubrick, as seen in the making of 2001, which is, well, fantastic because The King drew a series of continuations to Kubrick’s classic movie and was inspired by it himself, as evident in his collage work.
And most of all, The Thing is Jack Kirby.
According to Jewish Currents, “In the Lee-Kirby collaboration, Lee provided his signature pop sensibility and glib humor, but there’s no question that Kirby was the driving creative force of the team. Of all Marvel characters, Ben Grimm is the most directly autobiographical. Kirby and Grimm were both born on the Lower East Side of New York and grew up poor; Kirby on Delancey Street, and Grimm on a fictional street called Yancy Street. Benjamin Jacob Grimm takes his first and middle names from Kirby’s father and Kirby’s real first name, respectively. Kirby and Grimm both fought in World War II and came home moody and prone to fits of anger.”
They go on to claim that The Thing is one of the few Jewish Marvel superheroes and is an outright golem, a creature from Jewish myth.
Yet there are echoes of Kirby’s life in his other characters. The Invisible Woman, Sue Storm Richards, is named for his daughter Susan. Mr. Fantastic’s drive to support his family and protect them in the fact of overwhelming odds comes directly from Kirby drawing all night long, his superhuman endurance creating more comics and characters in a month than some creators do in a lifetime, all to keep his family fed — no health insurance or safety net until way into the 1970s, when he worked in animation.
Seeing this quote at the end of the movie made me happy because it was a realization that, while Stan Lee is important to Marvel, it was Jack Kirby, who brought his characters to life, that made them happen. Jack of all trades created the Silver Surfer. He never intended Sue to be jealous of other women who were around Reed or a damsel in distress. Many of those things originated from Lee’s word balloons. Depending on which story you believe, Kirby had Galactus show up and had to explain it to Stan; Galactus was literally Kirby trying to confront God and see what God would do if He came down to judge His creations.
How much does this movie love Jack Kirby? It names The Thing’s love interest Rachel Rozman (Natasha Lyonne).
Kirby’s wife’s name? Roz.
Beyond the look and feel of this movie, it gets something right: these are really the Fantastic Four.
Only Johnny could realize that the language of the Silver Surfer was in those recordings, while everyone thought he was just chasing girls.
Only Ben could remind everyone that real people were in the buildings they were about to knock down.
Only Reed could devise a plan to save the world that quickly.
And only Sue rallies the world and inspires them to see how to put it all together.
What really worked is that we don’t need to learn the origin of the Fantastic Four. We can understand it quickly, from the TV special that bookends the film. We can see that they’ve changed their world for the better, not just by fighting monsters and villains, but also through their inventions and Sue’s political skills.
Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn become these characters to the point that I was able to shut off and enter their world, a place of mid-century future tech. Sure, we don’t get to see any Mole People with Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), and the Red Ghost is absent (too much footage was shot, they say). However, the character moments are everything in this, such as when Reed is shaken to the core by how they barely escaped Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), cosmic horrors who demand his son’s life in exchange for sparing everyone on Earth.
At once, this can be a movie for people who have no idea about these characters while also rewarding those excited for the appearances of Diablo, Dragon Man, Mad Thinker, Puppet Master, The Wizard, Giganto and Super Ape Peotor (I did say I was a nerd up above, right?*). Writers Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Ian Springer and Jeff Kaplan get the most important thing about the FF right.
They aren’t just superheroes. They’re a family.
*Nerdy facts: The Excelsior rocket is named for Stan Lee’s catch phrase; Shalla-Bal was the Silver Surfer’s lover in the original comics; Alex Hyde-White, Jay Underwood, Rebecca Staab and Michael Bailey Smith from the Corman version all show up; you can see Stan and Jack working at Timely Comics in a quick scene and how about that empty Latervia chair setting up the ending?
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