Disney’s Fantastic Four Will Fail If It Makes Crucial Villain Origin Mistake
The upcoming Fantastic Four movie gives Disney a chance to finally do right by Marvel’s first family. After one unreleased low-budget stinker, a duology of mediocre mid-’00s movies, and one very, very bad attempt at a reboot, the FF deserves to finally have a decent live-action outing. For that to happen, though, the MCU is going to have to nail Doctor Doom, which means—among other things—not tying his origin into the Fantastic Four’s.
The Movies Always Link Doom’s Origins To The Team’s
It’s been said that heroes are only as good as their villains. If that’s true, then it’s not hard to see why all the previous Fantastic Four movies have sucked. Hollywood keeps trying to shoehorn Doctor Doom into the incident that gives the Fantastic Four their powers for some reason. It’s stupid, and it does the character a disservice.
Both Fantastic Four (2005) and Fan4stic (2015) feel the need to make Doom superhuman. The first film and its sequel give Doom electric powers while the 2015 reboot sees Doom develop telekinesis and forcefield projection. Why he couldn’t just be a megalomaniacal human, like in the comics, is completely baffling.
The Doom Of The Comics
The Doctor Doom of the Fantastic Four comics is a Bond villain turned up to 11. Gadgets, deathtraps, perfect android replicas of himself called Doombots—the only thing comic Victor von Doom is missing is a mustache to twirl. Doom doesn’t need generic superpowers when he has a brain to rival Reed Richards and a talent for sorcery that rivals that of Doctor Strange.
Doom Needs Justice
The Fantastic Four (2025) is supposedly only going to feature Doctor Doom in a small role, instead focusing on Galactus and the Silver Surfer. With that in mind, it may seem like Doom isn’t that important to The Fantastic Four‘s success after all, but it’s important to remember that Doctor Doom is one of the biggest threats in the entire Marvel comic book universe.
Fantastic Four setting up the perfect Doom doesn’t just guarantee the future of the franchise but potentially the entire MCU. Especially considering Doom’s major role in Secret Wars, a comic series that the MCU is adapting in some form down the road. However, Doctor Doom isn’t the only villain the Fantastic Four have to redeem.
Galactus
Given the recent announcement that actress Julia Garner has been cast as the Silver Surfer in the upcoming film, it’s a good bet that Galactus will also be making an appearance. Galactus, for those not familiar, is a massive cosmic being older than the universe that eats planets. He’s also purple and wears a giant goofy helmet.
The 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer decided that a big purple guy with a silly hat was just too unbelievable for their film–the film, we might add, that featured a silver man who flies around on a surfboard, a man who covers his whole body in fire, and a woman who can turn invisible. That paragon of gritty realism had no room for a planet-eating space kaiju.
Instead, fans got a big cosmic dust cloud. No, we’re not kidding. Apparently, the contents of an average vacuum cleaner made a more believable threat than a huge interstellar humanoid with the power of a god. It looked stupid, obviously. If your movie already wants us to believe that Stretch Armstrong is real and Jessica Alba has blonde hair and blue eyes, you might as well throw a comic book-accurate Galactus in there as well.
The FF May Not Get Another Chance
Galactus has as much potential as Doom to become a major threat in the MCU, so it’s important that The Fantastic Four gets him right. The MCU has never been particularly comic-accurate, but when it comes to new live-action Doctor Doom and Galactus, sticking close to the source material is the best course of action.
After all, this might be the last chance the Fantastic Four ever get at a successful film franchise. Might as well make it count.
