"Richards.
"In one short night, I've taken everything.
"The boy is blinded, crippled, and enslaved.
"The monster is shattered, lost, his lover now the Mole Man's bride in his kingdom of filth.
"Your wife is drowning in the deep fathoms of her adulterous frenzy, and all that remains... is Doom.
"While you've been locked away, I've been busy destroying your life and the lives of your family forever, Richards...
"Tell me... What have you been doing?"
"Well, Victor... I've been thinking."
- Grant Morrison, Fantastic Four 1234

"Tripping the Light Fantastic"
If somebody called me tomorrow and offered me the chance to write Fantastic Four, I'd be ecstatic as hell -- to say nothing of surprised -- and utterly fucked.

Not quite as fucked as I'd be if I was offered the X-Men or the Hulk or Captain America, but fucked nonetheless.

I have no idea what to do with the Fantastic Four and I largely suspect that anything I did come up with would be based on some random thing that happened to me sophomore year.

If first semester marks the beginning of my Golden Age, then third semester and the reintroduction of Prew-Prew Boo-Boo into the pages of my life as a comic book mark the dawn of my Silver Age. (This analogy really falls apart when you consider the fact that I described my Golden Age as a comparable to the Ditko years of Amazing Spider-Man, which is a total Silver Age comic, but Prewitt's the only one who's got any prayer of pointing this out, and I've long since learned to tune out his never-ending peanut gallery -- and yes, Caleb, I realize how unfair that is to say, but I blow everybody's character traits out of proportion. Just ask Jeffries.)

I spent the bulk of that year in Room 343 where Caleb and Irfan were co-habitating. Actually, I probably spent more time in Room 343 my sophomore year than I did my junior year, and I lived there my junior year. (Many of you may consider this statement hyperbolic to an extreme, thinking, Oh come on! You were sleeping there junior year! That had to take up way more time! Well, you're clearly not considering my strange sleeping habits -- four hours was my average. Six my maximum.) I wasn't alone in my constant squatting, as Irfan's then-girlfriend Angela was also a regular fixture in the tiny dormroom.

Eventually somebody came to the conclusion that our little quartet was a lot like the Fantastic Four. I'm not completely sure who came to said conclusion, but it had to have been either me or Prewitt, and the smart money's on me, because I need to relate my life to comics a little bit more than Caleb does. Figuring out who everybody corresponded to was fairly simple: Irfan was Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), what with his know-it-all sensibility and odd compunction to over-explain scientific concerns whether you wanted him to or not -- all while casually searching for a cure for cancer in his spare time. Angela was labeled the Invisible Woman (Sue Storm) by default because she was a girl -- although, when you consider Irfan's inclination to ignore her for the sake of school work or Family Guy, it kind of fits even more. Caleb was branded the Human Torch (Johnny Storm) because he's a hothead -- Yeah, we thought it was a stretch, too. And I was The Thing (Ben Grimm) not because I'm a hideous freak who mopes a lot -- though I am -- but because out of everybody in the group, I was the one who really had no clear right to be there.

To understand this, you have to understand a little about the FF. They all live together in a Manhattan highrise as a family of "imaginauts". Reed and Sue are married. Johnny's Sue's brother. It's conceivable that these three might share a roof. Ben, however, is just Reed's old college roommate who's become wedged into their lives as a disparate hanger-on because Reed feels pretty freakin' guilty about turning the guy into a monster in his absurd lark to highjack a rocket and win the space race. Grimm really should have wandered off by now and started a family of his own with, I don't know, a blind artist who understands the gentle soul beneath his rocky exterior, but no. He's just been crashing on the couch and raiding the fridge for forty years.

Anyhoozle, as far as the collegiate quartet that once claimed 343 as their personal Baxter Building, we didn't go on many adventures into the Negative Zone. The highpoint of Irfan's in-house scientific experimentation was that strange and terrible night we couldn't decide whether or not a twenty pound weight would smash through the floor and possibly kill the people below us until we actually dropped it from a significant height and finally concluded that no, no it would not.

As far as a rogues gallery, we didn't really have one. (We did have a She-Hulk, however.) As I think about it, if we did have a Doctor Doom, it would have been Woodward, as going to a mock trial tournament is actually a lot like having your house launched into space. Besides if anyone at FARC could have conceivably built a weather machine or time platform or other doomsday device and gotten away with it under a cloud of diplomatic immunity and other obscure legal jargon, it would have been Johnathan. Geez. I'm starting to wish he would talk about himself in the third person now. "Dubs will be your undoing, Ali!" and the like. It'd be awesome.

No. We never saved McDavid from being eaten by a Devourer of Dorms. (Or did we? No. We didn't.) We didn't discover a secret race of mole people living beneath the FARC mini-quad with Lynn Dalsing as their leader, either.

But we did make tee-shirts.

And yes, I realize how pathetic and geeky that is, but I love my Thing baseball-tee with a passion and intensity I've never felt for a piece of cloth before or since. (That includes my bizarre love affair with a grotesque aberration I threw together in The Barrio on a typically lonely summer night with a blanket, a forgotten sweater, and a discarded pair of glasses.) The Thing shirt is my official uniform at any comic convention and will continue to be so even if I start going to these things as a professional instead of a simple geek.

Hell, especially if I start going to these things as a professional.

All of this -- and I do mean all of this -- to say that despite a sea of bad reviews and my own uneasy feeling about it, I actually shelled out ten bucks to see Fantastic Four this weekend.

This is not a great movie. (Duh, right?) But the more I watched it and the more I've had to think about it, the more I start to think that it's about as good as it should have been.

I know how to improve the Spider-Man movies: Make Spider-Man funny. Hell, you don't even have to go that far. I just want him making lame jokes while he's fighting people that are a little better than "You're the one who's out, Gobby..." The best example of this in film thus far is in Spider-Man 2 when Doc Ock throws that sack of coins at him, and Spider-Man flings it back saying, "Here's your change." That's the perfect Spidey movie moment in the humble opinion of this meager Spider-Fan. I want the web-slinger spouting one-liners at every opportunity. Instead, he just tends to grunt and scream. (Although, I have to admit, I love listening to the panicked caterwaul of Tobey Maguire.)

I have two complaints about Batman Begins: I don't understand the film franchise's odd need to explain that whatever villain Batman happens to fight in his first outing is the one behind the murder of his parents. The death of Thomas and Martha Wayne should never be solved or avenged. That's the whole fucking point for petesake! I also balk at the casual use of lethal force movie-Batman has tended to employ. He blows up the Joker's factory by remote Batmobile with henchmen inside in Burton's inexplicably-lauded 1989 flick without so much as a shrug. And in Batman Begins he tell Ra's Al Ghul that while he won't kill him, he doesn't have to save him, to which Prewitt and I came to the same conclusion: Yes, you do. You're fucking Batman. And in the case of ...Begins this isn't just a matter of faithfulness to the comics, because believe it or not, I'm less stringent on that than you'd think. (Sin City is the most faithful comic book adaptation ever made, and I was a little bored because of it.) Batman's cavalier attitude about the death of the Demon's Head runs completely counter to the the philosophical differences that made them enemies in the first place! It's one thing if you want to fun with comic book continuity, because you'll get the comic geek's ten-spot no matter what you do, but you should at least stay consistent with your own story!

My point is that while I know how to fix most comic book movies, I don't know how to fix Fantastic Four. Okay, I'd probably suggest cutting some of the superfluous extreme sports crap with Johnny, but that's the only one I'm dead sure of. I'm even torn about making Doom Doom instead of a frustrated CEO who gets ousted then swears revenge (read "Norman Osborn") because I'm not sure how easy it'd be to wedge Doom's comic book origin into a movie, and it's not like they don't leave enough of those elements in there to satisfy the casual comic book fan.

What I find so interesting about Doom is that there's a bit in the unfinished Scenes from the Next in which John Cusack becomes a megalomaniacal arch-villain because he's been hired to play Doctor Doom in an upcoming FF movie and he goes nuts while researching the role. When Kurt Russell -- who's treating Cusack at Arkham Asylum -- explains this to him, Cusack's response is that this is preposterous, because he'd make a terrible Doctor Doom. (You read that right. Russell has to tell Cusack his own origin, and it's Cusack who doesn't believe it. This was a complicated narrative, let me tell you.) What fascinates me about this is that when the time came to actual make a Fantastic Four movie, they seemed to cast Cusack-lite (apologies to Julian McMahon and Cusack fans alike), and he does what I consider a passable job. (This coupled with my assertion that Teri Hatcher's career was over six months before her Golden Globe win just goes to prove that I don't get Hollywood.)

That's what surprised me about the whole movie, to tell you the truth. When I first saw the cast list, my first thought was "Who the hell is Ioan Gruffudd?" and then my second thought was "Well with the exception of Michael Chiklis, they sure fucked this up." Here's the thing, though: I have no idea who they should have cast instead. This isn't the case with a movie like Constantine. I would have much rather seen Brad Pitt blazing hell than fucking Neo. There isn't an actor alive that I think really needed to be Reed Richards so I'll cut Gruffudd some slack. And honestly, Chris Evans provided me with everything I need in a Human Torch. Hell, he was even funny. But my major beef was always with Jessica Alba, because Sue Storm's supposed to be the hottest MILF in all of comics and I don't get the matriarch vibe from this chick. Maybe it's because she's about a year older than I am. I don't know. But what I realized when I watched the movie is that they weren't interested in portraying the Invisible Woman. They were looking back at the FF's nascent years back when Sue was the Invisible Girl. And if basically, all you want is a girl 15-year-old boys and 23-year-old virgins can fantasize running around unseen but naked, but without paying Katie Holmes prices or putting up with her crazy-as-fuck fiance, Alba's certainly a way to go.

As far as the plot, we get a fairly straight-forward origin and first-fight narrative. I've heard it argued that there isn't enough action because all that seems to happen is that Johnny and Ben stand around bickering while Reed spouts off random sci-fi facts while Sue tries to keep them all together until Doom shows up, but you know what? That's the Fantastic Four right there. (At least, superficially.) A lot of banter and filler while we all wait around for Reed to build something to solve whatever problem comes along, or at least tell the other three how to dispatch with an attacker.

Now none of this is to suggest that anybody needs to run out and see this movie, or even that it's going to be on my Christmas list for next year. Hell, I only went because it was another lonely weekend with Granny and going to the movies is one of the few things I can do by myself without feeling guilty (as opposed to, say, drinking heavily or, well, you know...) My only real problem with all of the bad reviews that this flick has gotten is that the vast majority seem to build their case around the fact that it's not as good as some of the other comic book movies that have come out instead of really looking at it on it's own merit. (Which I think might have merited it one and a half stars instead of the single star Ebert gave it.) It's like saying Star Trek II's crap because it's not as good as 2001: A Space Oddysey. (Which is probably another unfair analogy, but hey. Who's gonna stop me? Hell, who's still reading this entry at this point?)

What I've learned from this cinematic experience is that great films give you something to think about and mull over when you walk away from them... and so-so movies can do the same thing if you're willing to really put some effort into it.

I needed a Spider-Man movie. I'm not sure how I put on shoes for two decades without one. Just like I needed a Batman flick written for grown-ups. There's no need for a Fantastic Four movie. Marvel's producing three different Fantastic Four comics right now, and I'm under the impression that that's two more titles than the current market can bear. It's extremely difficult to write quality FF stories. There's been one run on Fantastic Four that I absolutely loved (although, in all fairness, I was rather impressed when I thumbed through Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's first story-arc at Borders).

It was only after watching this movie, that I realized this shouldn't be the case.

The Fantastic Four lies at the heart of what I love about Marvel Comics, just like my Fantastic Four lies at the heart of what I loved about college.

The FF was the first superhero team in the grand Marvel tradition. (Fuck you, Invaders.) It's wonder and whimsy. It's heroes who can't pay their rent. It's villains who are unspeakably evil but tragic and noble at the same time. And you know what I just realized is the big thing about Ben Grimm? (You like that?) He's the nexus point for the classic Marvel superhero. His powers are a curse. He's constantly wishing he could rid himself of the burden, but he just keeps clobberin' anyway. And he was moping around before Spidey swung on the scene or the X-Men started pushing their cult-like doctrine of Charles Xavier as our personal savior.

And it occurs to me that I might not be nearly as fucked as I assume if I get that highly unlikely phone call tomorrow, because the solution is simple:

If there came a day when I had to write Fantastic Four, I'd just beg those old softies at the House of Ideas to take a chance on an unknown artist with whom I shared some dorm space in a time and place that probably wasn't as simple as I like to remember, but certainly could have been. And I'm pretty sure, after he'd finally convinced me that giving Hobie Brown a job at the Baxter Building and making him the unofficial "Fifth Fantastic" (more Billy Preston than Stuart Sutcliff) was a terrible idea, and I explained to him why having Doom travel back in time and kill one of his past selves in a hilarious fit of rage might not work in Marvel continuity as well as it does in Twisted Toyfare Theatre, I think we could make it work. Maybe by building up H.E.R.B.I.E. as a greater threat than Ultron. I don't know.

This is the collaboration Prewitt and I have been clamoring for. Case in point, while writing this entry, I didn't know who to cast in the roll of our personal Mole Man. So I called Caleb and asked him, "Of all the people we knew in the dorm during my sophomore year, who was most like the mad monarch of a subterranean empire?" and without hesitation he provided the name of Miss Dalsing. And it was perfect.

This is the type of thing that could build our careers so we could run uptown shortly thereafter and pitch J'onzz to the guys at DC. It'd be (and God forgive me for this) fan-fucking-tastic.

It's like Reed says at the end of Mark Waid's incredible run on the series, in one of those essential truths about life that keep me coming to the comic book store week after week: "If it were simply me against the unknown, I truly believe I would have collapsed by now under the daunting enormity of finding new challenges. But what I've learned over the course of our careers is that working alongside good partners makes all the difference. As long as you're with friends, there's no limit to the adventure out there."

And I'm pretty sure I know how we'd start every brainstorming session for the first six issues or so...

"Hey, remember that time Irfangela got in that fight...?"