Alan Rapp

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

  • Title: The Fantastic Four: First Steps
  • IMDb: link

The fifth time’s the charm? With the exception of The Incredibles, Hollywood has had a pretty bad record adapting a good Fantastic Four to film. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is easily the best attempt (even if the bar is ridiculously low). The first thing director Matt Shakman, writers Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, and Jeff Kaplan, and producer Kevin Feige get right is capturing the proper setting for a film as we open a world set in the kind of 60s futurism that spawned the original comic book. From its opening moments to its closing credits we believe this is a world where the Fantastic Four could thrive, where a robot like H.E.R.B.I.E. would help babyproof the Baxter Building, where you could see the Fantasticar pass by, and where the fate of the world would rely on a family coming together to save the day. A strong argument could be made that the look of the film is its unsung hero.

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Red Sonja: Noir #1

Calling this one-shot Noir is a bit of a stretch, although Red Sonja: Noir #1 does include a couple elements of the genre (although it’s sadly not in black-and-white). Introduced as a one-off story in which Red Sonja‘s short-term partnership with the brigand Tasmin comes to a close when he’s felled while accepting a job from a femme fatale named Shauna who gives Sonja a sob story, none of which is true. 

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Fantastic Four – The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus

  • Title: Fantastic Four: The Animated Series – The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus (Part 1 and 2)
  • IMDb: link | link

Airing in October of 1994, the two-part episode “The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus” stays close to the original story from Fantastic Four #48-50 in which the Watcher (Allan Oppenheimer) warns the Fantastic Four of a coming danger but is unable to stop the Silver Surfer (Robin Sachs) from finding Earth and summoning his master. As in the comic, after an initial skirmish with the Fantastic Four, the Surfer discovers a bit about humanity through his interactions with Alicia Masters (Pauline Lomas) while the Watcher guides Johnny Storm () to the only known weapon in the universe that could turn away Galactus (Tony Jay) and force him to spare Earth.

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