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COMICS & GAMES BY CRAIG STORRIE
) After two mediocre but financially successful films back in 2005 and 2007, the FANTASTIC FOUR are back on the silver screen this month with a total reboot of the franchise. Directed by Josh Trank of Chronicle fame and written by XMen Days of Future Past writer Simon Kinberg, the story is based more on the Ultimate universe version of the characters than the regular Marvel universe. This is mostly evident in how the team get their powers; in the original story it was from cosmic rays in space whereas in this movie they get them from an alternate universe which changes them in a variety of ways. For those people that aren’t up on the Fantastic Four or their origins and powers, let’s take a look at where Marvel’s first family came from and just why Stan Lee thought to call it “The world’s greatest comic magazine!”
GAMES The fantastic four have featured in a number of video games over the years. Some good, some bad and some downright awful! Let’s take a look at some of the games that featured Marvel’s first family and if they are worth playing or not. ) FANTASTIC FOUR (1997). Taking its inspiration solely from the comics, this side scrolling brawler is a video game along the lines of Golden Axe or Final Fight. Starring the Fantastic Four and their on and off team mate She–Hulk, the story sees the heroes transported to various locations by the villainous Doctor Doom to do battle with their most famous enemies such as Super-Skrull, Mole Man and Attuma. There are even secret bonus rounds where the player can battle Dragon Man, Iceman and even the Incredible Hulk. Whilst looking interesting, having a great soundtrack and intuitive controls, the game is pretty awful. It’s super short, has too many difficult enemies and a storyline that is so uninspired it’s boring. One for all you Fantastic Four fans to avoid, I’m afraid. ) FANTASTIC FOUR and RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2005 and 2007). I grouped these two games together as they are the games based on the first Fantastic Four series of films starring Jessica Alba and Marvel’s future Captain America, Chris Evans. Both take the form of an isometric dungeon crawler where you battle various enemies from the F4 comics and face villains from the movies such as Doctor Doom and the Silver Surfer (before he is revealed to be a good guy). Whilst both have some interesting ideas, like fusion powers (something that would later pop up in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2) such as Sue combing her powers with Johnny to make a force field fire bomb and four player co-op combat on one screen, the games suffer from one outstanding problem: they are sooooo boring! Combat is just button bashing with no skill required and the enemies you face are all carbon copies of each other. It’s such a shame as whilst the positives do shine through it’s just not enough to make it worth playing and is best left on the proverbial shelf! ) MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE SERIES (2006 onwards). Finally a game series with the Fantastic Four that I can recommend. Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a series that features four playable characters on screen at once that you can switch between on the fly, very much like the awesome X-Men Legends series. So to make it a Fantastic Four game, just choose the four heroes and there you go, a deep and rewarding Fantastic Four game. It’s even better in the first game as the main villain is none other than Doctor Victor Von Doom himself. I’ve spoken about how great this series is before so I won’t go on about it here just know that it is a brilliant and fun series that features all kinds of superheroes and villains for you to control!
The Fantastic Four were the first superhero team created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and produced by Marvel comics way back in November 1961. Their debut helped to usher in a more realistic take on superheroes presenting them as ordinary people with regular problems instead of men and women who stood like gods above everyone else. Without the Fantastic Four we wouldn’t have the Marvel comics or characters that we know and love today, their dysfunctional yet loving family relationship helped Marvel rise from a lowly comic book publisher to a worldwide conglomerate powerhouse. After charting a mission to outer space, four ordinary people are exposed to powerful cosmic rays which grant them awesome abilities once their ship crashes back down to Earth. These four individuals are Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards), a scientific genius who is granted the ability to stretch to unbelievable lengths and shapes; The Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), Reed’s girlfriend and later wife who can turn invisible and create powerful force fields; The Human Torch (Johnny Storm) is Sue’s younger brother who can cover himself in flames and fly at incredible speeds; and finally The Thing (Ben Grimm), Reed’s best friend who has super strength and endurance thanks to his body being transformed into stone-like flesh. Like many superheroes the Fantastic Four have an extensive list of recurring villains that they face again and again. Apart from the X-Men, the Fantastic Four probably have the most wellknown gallery of villains of any Marvel superheroes. These include Atlantean king Namor the Sub-Mariner, the space faring shape changing Skrulls and Galactus the devourer of worlds. The most famous of these villains has to be Doctor Doom hands down. Since appearing in the fifth issue of the Fantastic Four, Victor Von Doom has gone on to be one of the greatest super villains of all time terrorising everyone in the Marvel universe from the X-Men to The Avengers. The son of a witch, Doctor Doom is a genius inventor, powerful sorcerer and is also the leader of the fictional nation of Latveria which sometimes grants him diplomatic immunity!