Fantastic Four general series discussion (spoilers)

Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

Victor Von Doom said:
I never really got into the series before CW.
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I can't remember if I've recommended this to you before or not, but check out Fantastic Four "Imaginauts" and "Unthinkable" if you haven't already. They are the first 2 TPBS from Mark Waid's run and are out of print, but if you search you can still find them. They are also collected together in a HC.

It's just FF at its best. After that it lost steam and I lost interest but those were just great stories.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

I've always liked how Marvel kept the "World's greatest comic magazine!" line up at the top of every issue even though it obviously isn't the greatest, nor is it technically a magazine. I always loved when Stan Lee said those kinds of things and I like how this one stuck. And I hope that after the whole Civil War, it'll be back atop every issue's cover. I'm pretty sure it hasn't said that up there since the Thing Vs. Hulk in Vegas story.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

I couldn't find a more recent F4 thread to ask this in, so I'm bumping this one back up.

Is Reed Richards a good person?

In Civil War, he seems astoundingly self-serving and only regrets his clearly wrong actions when they negatively impact him. Even though CW is often poorly written concerning characterization and motivation, especially among the Pro-Regs, he's cast in a really bad light. I've only heard of these events in passing, but didn't he once put Franklin in a coma and resurrect Galactus? From what I heard, he had valid reasons and the ends more than justified the means, but that's toeing the line more than most heroes do.

I also heard (in passing) about a storyline where Doom or someone planted evidence that Reed had exposed the crew to cosmic radiation on purpose, that he had exposed three people he supposedly was close to to deadly radiation without telling them, just to see what would happen. Even thought that's not true, I think it's very telling that according to what I heard, that the other members of the F4 believed he might do it--his wife and teammates who he's worked and lived with for a decade or two. It reminds me of the Tuskegee syphilis study and Edward Jenner's testing his smallpox vaccine on a young boy.

Like I said, I'm not claiming Reed is evil, but he seems more chaotic neutral than lawful good. Can someone who's been reading the F4 longer and has a better grip on his character elaborate on this?
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

TwilightEL said:
I couldn't find a more recent F4 thread to ask this in, so I'm bumping this one back up.

Is Reed Richards a good person?

In Civil War, he seems astoundingly self-serving and only regrets his clearly wrong actions when they negatively impact him. Even though CW is often poorly written concerning characterization and motivation, especially among the Pro-Regs, he's cast in a really bad light. I've only heard of these events in passing, but didn't he once put Franklin in a coma and resurrect Galactus? From what I heard, he had valid reasons and the ends more than justified the means, but that's toeing the line more than most heroes do.

I also heard (in passing) about a storyline where Doom or someone planted evidence that Reed had exposed the crew to cosmic radiation on purpose, that he had exposed three people he supposedly was close to to deadly radiation without telling them, just to see what would happen. Even thought that's not true, I think it's very telling that according to what I heard, that the other members of the F4 believed he might do it--his wife and teammates who he's worked and lived with for a decade or two. It reminds me of the Tuskegee syphilis study and Edward Jenner's testing his smallpox vaccine on a young boy.

Like I said, I'm not claiming Reed is evil, but he seems more chaotic neutral than lawful good. Can someone who's been reading the F4 longer and has a better grip on his character elaborate on this?
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Maybe I don't know the character of Reed Richards as well as I think I do, but his characterization in Civil War is just wrong. Totally unlike him.

That's not a criticism of Mark Millar - yet. If it's a mind control issue then, yeah - it makes sense.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

apparently fantastic four #544 is going to be part of, the initiative (which is like decimation i guess) coming out in march

do you think this is where we'll see the new FF?
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

TwilightEL said:
I couldn't find a more recent F4 thread to ask this in, so I'm bumping this one back up.

Is Reed Richards a good person?

In Civil War, he seems astoundingly self-serving and only regrets his clearly wrong actions when they negatively impact him. Even though CW is often poorly written concerning characterization and motivation, especially among the Pro-Regs, he's cast in a really bad light. I've only heard of these events in passing, but didn't he once put Franklin in a coma and resurrect Galactus? From what I heard, he had valid reasons and the ends more than justified the means, but that's toeing the line more than most heroes do.

I also heard (in passing) about a storyline where Doom or someone planted evidence that Reed had exposed the crew to cosmic radiation on purpose, that he had exposed three people he supposedly was close to to deadly radiation without telling them, just to see what would happen. Even thought that's not true, I think it's very telling that according to what I heard, that the other members of the F4 believed he might do it--his wife and teammates who he's worked and lived with for a decade or two. It reminds me of the Tuskegee syphilis study and Edward Jenner's testing his smallpox vaccine on a young boy.

Like I said, I'm not claiming Reed is evil, but he seems more chaotic neutral than lawful good. Can someone who's been reading the F4 longer and has a better grip on his character elaborate on this?
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I'm not reading Civil War at the moment, but based on the character trajectory of Reed from the Illuminati-Sends-The-Hulk-In-Space fiasco and what you said I am pretty much of the "out of character" camp.

I also heard recently that Susan left Reed to join the Anti-Registration side, but what was totally whack about it was that she left Franklin and Val with him even after she pretty much implied that she considers Reed mentally unstable. Which I think, is completely out of character for her since one of the things that writers have always emphasized about Sue (for better or worse) is that she is Mommy Extreme, and would never place her children in a dangerous situation. The only excuse I think one can make for this is that she might've chosen to leave the kids because she doesn't want to her decision to go against the government to weigh on them (though even that excuse seems pretty thin).

That said, as a big bed-wetting Fantastic Four doody-head, I can't say I agree with interpreting Reed as a Machiavellian type, heroic or otherwise. I think pairing that sinisterishness with his cosmic-enhanced intellect is too OBVIOUS and cheap an idea, like people who think the '*******' Batman is somehow 'ingenious'.

If anything, I think the most extreme a writer should be allowed to do with Reed is to portray him as a man capable of cold disregard rather than manipulative intent... literally an absent-minded professor. Reed's not a chess-playing schemer and I say that not because I think he should somehow always be written as a noble character, but because politicking with the rest of the superhuman community beyond making public stances on certain issues doesn't strike me as something he'd be interested in.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

ourchair said:
I'm not reading Civil War at the moment, but based on the character trajectory of Reed from the Illuminati-Sends-The-Hulk-In-Space fiasco and what you said I am pretty much of the "out of character" camp.

I also heard recently that Susan left Reed to join the Anti-Registration side, but what was totally whack about it was that she left Franklin and Val with him even after she pretty much implied that she considers Reed mentally unstable. Which I think, is completely out of character for her since one of the things that writers have always emphasized about Sue (for better or worse) is that she is Mommy Extreme, and would never place her children in a dangerous situation. The only excuse I think one can make for this is that she might've chosen to leave the kids because she doesn't want to her decision to go against the government to weigh on them (though even that excuse seems pretty thin).

That said, as a big bed-wetting Fantastic Four doody-head, I can't say I agree with interpreting Reed as a Machiavellian type, heroic or otherwise. I think pairing that sinisterishness with his cosmic-enhanced intellect is too OBVIOUS and cheap an idea, like people who think the '*******' Batman is somehow 'ingenious'.

If anything, I think the most extreme a writer should be allowed to do with Reed is to portray him as a man capable of cold disregard rather than manipulative intent... literally an absent-minded professor. Reed's not a chess-playing schemer and I say that not because I think he should somehow always be written as a noble character, but because politicking with the rest of the superhuman community beyond making public stances on certain issues doesn't strike me as something he'd be interested in.
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I thought Sue left the kids because she didn't want them to be sitting in the Anti-Reg camp when Thunderbolts or Clor come bursting in blowing everything up. She didn't want to put them in danger or put them in the middle of a war zone.

So what you're saying is that Reed normally can be a distant scientist and sometimes detach himself from a situation, but he's overall a good person who cares about his family even though he sometimes forgets to spend time with them? Yeah, that was the impression I'd gotten from him before Civil War. Cool.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

TwilightEL said:
I thought Sue left the kids because she didn't want them to be sitting in the Anti-Reg camp when Thunderbolts or Clor come bursting in blowing everything up. She didn't want to put them in danger or put them in the middle of a war zone.
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Yeah, that was what I hypothesized as the 'best' explanation.
ourchair said:
The only excuse I think one can make for this is that she might've chosen to leave the kids because she doesn't want to her decision to go against the government to weigh on them.
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I still disagree with it, but it's not a bad explanation. Again, I don't read Civil War, so I'm probably not the best person to defend/argue present actions in relation to past ones, since I don't know how this stuff is precisely playing out.

TwilightEL said:
So what you're saying is that Reed normally can be a distant scientist and sometimes detach himself from a situation, but he's overall a good person who cares about his family even though he sometimes forgets to spend time with them? Yeah, that was the impression I'd gotten from him before Civil War. Cool.
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Yup. I think Reed can be callous. But that's not the same as being manipulative.

If we're going to talk about how he would/should act in 'event' storylines, he may be capable of thinking of large-scale consequences such as the space-time continuum or sociological balance or principles of non interference (i.e., Star Trek Prime Directive) but I think Reed doesn't think of human-scale consequences like personal relationships too often.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

New image up on Newsarama

NewFF.jpg


Which is supposingly the New Fantastic Four, as of #544

Here's the link

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=94408

And the writing is by Dwayne McDuffie, the current writer of Beyond
 
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Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

Like I said before, I guess it's because the FF weren't diverse enough, so they had to make half the team black.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

Did you guys hear that they might be replacing Johnny with Sunpyre? It evens out the women on the team, and adds in another culture.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

Ultimate Houde said:
He coplotted and wrote most of that series
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Really? I had no idea. That somewhat restores my faith in the possibilities for his run.

I just know that he created Static Shock (who I don't care about), and wrote Beyond!(which was decidedly meh).

I was under the impression that DC: The New Frontier writer/artist/graphic designer Darwyn Cooke co-wrote/co-plotted the majority of JLU , though admittedly I have no idea what gave me that impression.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

compound said:
I was under the impression that DC: The New Frontier writer/artist/graphic designer Darwyn Cooke co-wrote/co-plotted the majority of JLU , though admittedly I have no idea what gave me that impression.
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He was connected to JLU. I think he made storyboards and the design of the characters...
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

Ultimate Houde said:
Do you watch Justice LEague or JLU?

He coplotted and wrote most of that series
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Interesting. I don't watch them regularly but what I've seen I liked.

Beyond, however, was "beyond" bad.
 
Re: Fantastic Four series discussion (spoilers)

compound said:
Really? I had no idea. That somewhat restores my faith in the possibilities for his run.

I just know that he created Static Shock (who I don't care about), and wrote Beyond!(which was decidedly meh).

I was under the impression that DC: The New Frontier writer/artist/graphic designer Darwyn Cooke co-wrote/co-plotted the majority of JLU , though admittedly I have no idea what gave me that impression.
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Dwayne was involved in a majority of JLU, and Static Shock, in fact he invented Static Shock.

He also wrote episodes for Superman and Batman Beyond.

New Frontier had involvement from Bruce Timm, maybe that's where the connection comes from
 
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