Origin of Fantastic Four:
Marvel’s first family was introduced into the MCU back in 1961. Ever since then, they’ve rocking in the books but haven’t made their mark in the movies. Fox managed to screw the pooch 3 times. Doctor Doom was ruined thrice and they also managed to spoil Galactus. But we’ve loved their stories in the comics. Their crossovers with Black Panther, Spider-Man and all other Marvel characters have been amazing. They’ve had one of the most interesting origin stories.
Most of the Marvel fans are aware of the basics when it comes to their origins. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm went on a space mission and things went horribly wrong. They were exposed to Cosmic Ray as Reed Richards flew his team into a Cosmic Ray bombardment. When their ship came crashing down, their bodies were transformed and their new powers allowed them to survive.
But in the recent comics that are telling the origin story once again, writer Dan Slott has revealed that their origin was not an accident. Reed Richards was apparently working on a faster-than-light drive and he always thought that it was because of his miscalculations for the necessary shielding that their ship ended up in Cosmic Ray bombardment. But in Fantastic Four #17, it is revealed that Reed didn’t miscalculate. He was spot on, but the team had been seen coming in by the Overseer.
For those who aren’t initiated, Overseer is the absolute ruler of the planet Spyre. This was the same planet where Reed Richards & his team were going for their mission. The Overseer didn’t want humans to enter his planet and contaminate Spyrian society. So he learned how to use and manipulate the Cosmic Rays and then he used that as a weapon. He thought that the people in the ship would be destroyed, but we know what really happened after that.
The upcoming Fantastic Four movie of the MCU could take in from this version of the story. Or as we’ve been imagining, Quantum Realm could also be used for the origins of the Fantastic Four. They could be introduced in Ant-Man and the Wasp 3. It’s just sad that since Fox spoiled the Fantastic Four twice, Marvel wouldn’t use the basic space origins of the team.
Talking about Fox and their shenanigans, there was a time when Fox could have done a massive crossover even before The Avengers had happened. The X-Men and the Fantastic Four could have met in one of their films and even Daredevil would’ve been involved. Back in May, Kevin Smith’s Fatman Beyond podcast had the writer of Rim of the World, Thor, and X-Men: First Class, Zack Stentz on the show.
He revealed the fact that he had submitted a script for the aforementioned ensemble. He said:
“My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and we were working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them that, I can’t tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters, all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time. We almost had Paul Greengrass directing it which would’ve been so cool but he had another project to do instead. It didn’t end up going but it was a script I was really proud of and it would’ve been really good.
This was at Fox in 2011, which doesn’t really exist anymore, so maybe they won’t sue me for revealing. Even though, I didn’t reveal what it was called.”
After this was done, there was another attempt at creating something like this again. Stentz continued:
“The other thing that’s never going to happen is the version that Ash and I did of the Fantastic Four. Josh Trank, who ended up doing the Fantastic Four that we saw in the theaters, we were supposed to be writing the script for him but nobody told him that we were doing it. So, when he officially signed on he was like, ‘Why are you imposing these other writers on me? I want to use my own writer. I wanna do my own script.’ And he did his version instead. It was one of those hammer blows to our career at the time, even though we had gotten paid, because I was so freakin’ proud of that script. It was how the Fantastic Four were almost the Fantastic Five except a young man named Victor von Doom was just too damaged and f—ed up to be part of them. It was a script I was very proud of. Josh Trank didn’t wanna do it.”
Fox could’ve had an awesome movie even before The Avengers. But they didn’t pursue this. Now all of this doesn’t matter any way. The Fantastic Four movie would release either in 2022 or 2023.
