Superhero movies: Fantastic Four

Getting back to media, I am going to write about the superhero movies in the reverse order of my viewing them.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/09/superheroes-comics-movies-and-people.html 

Getting back to not being sure about where my blogging is going from here, I am writing about media on a day other than Friday. In fact, I hope to get all three of the movies done over the next three days, and then I don't know what I will do Friday.

It's wild.

I had mentioned that I was least familiar with the Fantastic Four, so it makes sense that I was surprised to see a female Silver Surfer, Shalla-Bal.

In fact, she has been around since 1968. It is not even particularly arcane knowledge, because I also learned that Joe Satriani has a track about her, "Back to Shalla-Bal" from 1989's Flying In A Blue Dream.

I had admired "Surfing With The Alien" from 1987 (on the same-titled album), but I had not initially realized that it was about the Silver Surfer, So, Joe Satriani knows more about the Fantastic Four than I do, as well as being better at music; I defer to Joe Satriani.

In terms of using Shalla-Bal versus the more familiar Norrin Radd, while either -- both having served as heralds of Galactus -- can explore the issue of collaborating to save your own (which seems like a good topic now), I thought Johnny's interactions with her helped us get to know him better in a way that Norrin Radd would not have delivered. That was well done.

I thought the movie also did better by Sue than was often the case in the comics. They would frequently give lip service to how important she was or how her powers mattered, but then she was either moping about her conflicted feelings for Namor or off buying designer dresses. It's like somehow over the years more people have become capable of imagining a woman as a complete being. 

I admit I did not see a lot of complaining about the movie regarding "wokeness". 

I am not sure about whether there was complaining I missed because I am distracted by school, or whether there really wasn't much because Disney did not do a great job of promoting either Fantastic Four: First Steps or Thunderbolts*. (That being said, if Disney did mess up the marketing, I could imagine it being a wokeness matter, based on Kimmell and Elio and Strange World.)

Regardless, I can imagine some comics fans being very irritated about the Silver Surfer being Shalla-Bal instead of Norrin; why do they always have to go changing characters!?!

I will admit that I rolled my eyes when I saw the ads for the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. Yes, adopted siblings exist, but Sue and Johnny Storm have been so consistently blond, wealthy white people, meaning well but affected by their affluence, that casting Michael B. Jordan (who will probably always be the definitive Killmonger) as Johnny did not feel organic. 

(I also say that as someone who has never seen any other Fantastic Four movies because they have consistently gotten not-so-hot reviews -- even with some really good actors in them -- that the fact that this one was well-made and entertaining is kind of miraculous. We should be celebrating.)

I do have two things to say on diverse casting.  

One is that historically when so much media has been centered on  white men, yes there absolutely should be representation and it is reasonable to take steps toward that representation. It's better when they are well-considered -- rather than obvious shoehorning -- but the move toward greater diversity and inclusion is fair.

Sometimes it works better. Having a modern-day Nick Fury be more like Samuel L. Jackson than Hugh Hefner is a great move, and not unreasonable if there is a father/son connection. For White Tiger, Ava was Hector's niece; family successions are not unknown.

In addition, one thing you have with long-running comics is that there are so many changes over time that there are other people and versions and these changes can very easily be incorporated. 

So just in the realm of Spider-people  there is Peter Parker but there is also Miles Morales and Miguel O'Hara and Jessica Drew and Julie Carpenter and Mattie Franklin and Charlotte Weber and Cassandra Webb. That's not even mentioning the various incarnations of Gwen Stacy, or What Ifs, or that there are different Earths. 

First Steps and Thunderbolts* are not even set on the same Earth, so that message from space in the teaser at the end of Thunderbolts* seemed like it could have related to First Steps, but it probably doesn't. I really don't know.

This can be very frustrating. 

Sometimes it is just that they keep needing to invent new problems to keep things going, so various heroes go bad, or villains collaborate and become heroes, and back and forth. There are "first steps" all the time, but final steps? It's like your grandmother's stories, but since they keep changing writers it's not Bradley Bell having Ridge unable to decide between Brooke and Taylor for the eighty-fifth time.

This is a major part of why when I had a chance to buy ghost stories as a kid, I tended to go with collections of ghost stories; there would be conclusions!

It also creates lots of opportunities and variety, which can be great, though it works better if the writing and casting are good.

That being said, I have avoided reading anything DC after the new 52 really, because I hated that, and I will never forgive (or read, and you do not have to read something to hate it) One More Day.

If you know, you know. 

I hope Joe Satriani would agree.