The Fantastic Four is a fictional superhero team appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The group debuted in The Fantastic Four #1 (cover dated Nov. 1961), which helped to usher in a new level of realism in the medium. The Fantastic Four was the first superhero team created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, who developed a collaborative approach to creating comics with this title that they would use from then on. As the first superhero team title produced by Marvel Comics, it formed a cornerstone of the company's 1960s rise from a small division of a publishing company to a pop culture conglomerate. The title would go on to showcase the talents of comics creators such as Roy Thomas, John Buscema, George Pérez, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Walt Simonson, and Tom DeFalco, and is one of several Marvel titles originating in the Silver Age of Comic Books that is still in publication in the 2010s.
The four individuals traditionally associated with the Fantastic Four, who gained superpowers after exposure to cosmic rays during a scientific mission to outer space, are: Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards), a scientific genius and the leader of the group, who can stretch his body into incredible lengths and shapes; the Invisible Woman (Susan "Sue" Storm), who eventually married Reed, who can render herself invisible and later project powerful force fields; the Human Torch (Johnny Storm), Sue's younger brother, who can generate flames, surround himself with them and fly; and the monstrous Thing (Ben Grimm), their grumpy but benevolent friend, a former college football star and Reed's college roommate as well as a good pilot, who possesses superhuman strength and endurance due to the nature of his stone-like flesh.
Ever since their original 1961 introduction, the Fantastic Four have been portrayed as a somewhat dysfunctional, yet loving, family. Breaking convention with other comic book archetypes of the time, they would squabble and hold grudges both deep and petty, and eschewed anonymity or secret identities in favor of celebrity status. The team is also well known for its recurring encounters with characters such as the villainous monarch Doctor Doom, the planet-devouring Galactus, the sea-dwelling prince Namor, the spacefaring Silver Surfer, and the shape-changing alien Skrulls.
The Fantastic Four have been adapted into other media, including four animated series, an aborted 1990s low-budget film, and the studio motion pictures Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the SilverSurfer (2007).
As you can see Sue is suppose to be biological brother in the new 2015(reboot) most likely he will be adopted(assuming) just have to wait until the storyline gets out there. For me i personal don't care about the change shake it things up a little bit also im glad to see more heros of color like the falcon will be in the new Captain America film that will be open in theaters very soon.i have to say I understand what people are saying also about "not changing the race" some people want it to be true to the original(picture above), But he isnt a stand out character like A Batman,Wolverine,Superman etc.... some people don't realize Jessica Alba is biracial and she played a White women Sue Storm(I guess because she looks Caucasian made it ok?), Electro was made African American and he was originally Caucasian as a comic book fan i would want to see more original black characters put on film with there own movies there has only been a hand full that has graced the movie screen(I can Count on my hands how many heros of color have had there own films). Hollywood from what i see is scared of making more movies with characters of color because they don't want it too be a black,spanish or asian superhero movie besides majority of these characters were made when segregation, lynching and all that crazy mess was still going on so of course every great character is white then when they make are characters they seem to be just cheap and very weak. when am i going to see a Black Panther,Blue beetle(spanish), Static Shock,Batwing,Blue Marvel,Luke Cage,Steel(not that Shaq movie that don't count) come hollywood cut it out and bring some of the many characters of color to life! Give you take on this, Here is an article by Jesse Schedeen from IGN
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Last week Fox finally announced the quartet of actors who will be playing the Fantastic Four in that franchise's long-awaited reboot. By all rights, it should have been a good day for fans of the F4, if only because it's nice to have hard proof that Fox is finally doing something with the property again. Unfortunately, and despite the fact that this particular casting choice had been strongly rumored for months, the furor over the decision to cast Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm has drowned out pretty much everything else connected to the reboot. A lot of fans are quite firmly and loudly opposed to the idea of having a black actor portray a character who has traditionally always been portrayed as white. This seemed like a good time to address that controversy, as well as the larger issues of race and diversity when it comes to superheroes. Really, what does the Human Torch's race matter?
The complaints about the Jordan casting seem to boil down to these core arguments:
- Johnny Storm has always been portrayed as a white character.
- Hollywood shouldn't try to change a character's race just for the sake of political correctness or money.
- Audiences will be confused if the race of this iconic superhero character is suddenly changed.
- Having a black Johnny and a white Sue means the characters aren't brother and sister anymore.
To which I offer these rebuttals:
- Yes, and so were Kingpin, Heimdall, Perry White, and Nick Fury at one point.
- Unless you've read the script and sat in on the production meetings, it's a little presumptuous to claim you understand the motivations behind this decision.
- Just like that time everyone's brain melted when WB replaced Billy Dee Williams' Harvey Dent with Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face?
- A mixed-race family? That's unpossible!
To elaborate one point #1 further, I think a lot of people are forgetting that changing the race of a character isn't even unheard of in the Fantastic Four franchise. Jessica Alba is part Hispanic, and she played the traditionally white Sue Storm in the previous two FF movies. I don't recall anyone complaining back then. Is there a certain threshold in terms of skin color an actor has to cross before it suddenly becomes offensive?
Of all these complaints, the only one I can see any merit in right now is #4. When the rumors about Jordan being offered the role first surfaced last year, I did feel a twinge of apprehension. They may be a superhero team, but the FF are a family first and foremost. The fact that the previous set of movies downplayed the family element is one of many reasons why they weren't very good. It's also one of the reasons why The Incredibles is a monumentally better FF movie than Fox has been able to deliver. So if we're to take this casting as confirmation that Johnny and Sue aren't siblings, it doesn't bode well for the reboot or Fox's long-term handling of the franchise.
But there's no reason to assume that's the case yet. If anything, the fact that Johnny and Sue are different races could be a good thing. Re-imagining them as adopted siblings and part of a mixed-race family essentially forces the reboot to delve more deeply into that family element. The movie won't be able to simply take for granted that Sue and Johnny are brother and sister. It'll have to firmly establish that bond and answer questions like "Are they related by blood or adopted?" and "What sort of family life did they have before becoming superhero explorers?". Suddenly, the family element - that most basic and defining trait of the Fantastic Four - becomes a central theme of the movie.
And the story should be much better off for it. The typical American family is no longer characterized by four white people living comfortably in the suburbs. More than ever, America is the great melting pot. There are families made up of countless races, nationalities, and cultures. Many children have parents of different races. Many parents adopt children from other countries. Even General Mills understands that, as seen by their recent Cheerios commercials featuring a mixed-race family. If something as All-American as Cheerios is on the progressive bandwagon riding into the 21st Century, how could superhero movies not follow suit? All of this speaks to the idea that the FF are the most eclectic and unusual family unit in the Marvel Universe, especially once you factor in the strange, wonderful children in the Future Foundation. That's something the new movies need to celebrate.
So I really can't see how casting Jordan as Johnny Storm is a bad thing. Friday Night Lights proved he has the necessary charisma and swagger. The Wire established him as a dramatic actor worth watching, with Fruitvale Station more or less cementing him as a major up-and-comer. That Awkward Moment proved he has solid chemistry with Miles Teller. And he already has experience working with director Josh Trank, and in the superhero movie Chronicle, no less. It seems like all the bases are covered.
But this whole "controversy" does bring up some larger issues. Is there ever a problem with something as basic as a character's race or gender being changed for an adaptation? Should movie studios feel free to change whatever they deem necessary in order to appeal to the widest audience possible? Considering how dominated superhero movies are by handsome, white males, is it time to inject more diversity into these films?
As far as the first question goes, I would argue that there are only a handful of characters where the race or gender are actually fundamental to who they are. I don't particularly see how it matters if, say, Peter Parker is white or black or Indian or Russian or Brazilian or whatever. Heck, there already is a Latino Spider-Man (Miguel O'Hara) and a mixed-race Spider-Man (Miles Morales), and neither character's debut caused the world to spin off its axis. All that matters is you have a nerdy wallflower who gains great power, learns a terrible but necessary lesson about responsibility, and goes on to become a wisecracking superhero with a heart of gold. That's why I was crushed when the campaign to get Donald Glover cast as the new Spider-Man didn't pan out. It's not about the novelty of having a black Spider-Man. It's about the fact that Glover has every quality I want out of Peter Parker, and probably would have schooled both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in the art of superhero snark. Like most Daredevil fans, I had no issue with Michael Clarke Duncan being cast as Kingpin, because he had the combination of size, presence, and acting ability that is usually hard to come by. Similarly, as long as Jordan's Johnny Storm is a suave, overconfident ladies man who revels in his newfound celebrity and struggles with the need to grow into a mature adult, he's true to the source material. I can't see why his skin color has anything to do with anything.
Similarly, how many characters would be fundamentally altered if they were gender-swapped? At this point, most superheroes already have partners or sidekicks or offspring of the opposite sex. Spider-Man has multiple Spider-Women. Wolverine has X-23, a clone who shares not just his powers, but his troubled past and mean streak. Is it really so different if Superwoman saves the world from Lexi Luthor, pines after Louis Lane, and gets together for Saturday night poker with Batwoman and the girls? There's not really a precedent for this in superhero movies yet (aside from Jenny Olsen appearing in Man of Steel), but it's been employed to great effect in other genre adaptations (Professor Moriarty being played by Natalie Dormer in Elementary and Starbuck being played by Katie Sackhoff in the Battlestar Galactica reboot come to mind). With the rumor that the FF reboot's Doctor Doom will be female, we may soon get a chance to see how this plays out in the Marvel Universe.
There are certain heroes for whom such a transformation wouldn't make sense. Take Captain America, for example. He was created as a tool of propaganda by the US military. He was meant to give the American public a figure to rally behind. And unfortunately, the American public circa-WWII was still riddled with racism. A black or Hispanic or Asian-American soldier couldn't aspire to such a lofty position, which was essentially the whole basis for Robert Morales and Kyle Baker's Truth: Red, White, and Black mini-series. Steve Rogers has to be white for the sake of that traditional origin story. And I do appreciate the irony of Captain America opposing everything the Nazis and men like Red Skull stand for, despite being the very Aryan ideal they treasure.
Some have brought up the argument, "If it's okay to make a white character like Johnny Storm into a black man, is it also okay to do the reverse and make Black Panther or Falcon or Luke Cage into white men?" And it's a fair question, I suppose. To echo what I said before, there are a lot of characters for whom race is a superficial trait. The Dark Knight Rises revamped Bane from a Latino into a more ethnically ambiguous character. That caused a bit of consternation among hardcore Bane fans. But in that case the transformation worked. While Bane's Latino heritage has been explored to strong effect before in the comics, I don't consider it an immutable part of his character. That ethnic ambiguity was part of his mystique in the movie. What kind of bizarre little country produces an accent like that, anyway? Family gatherings must be a laugh-riot.
So I don't suppose it would fundamentally alter a character like Blade if he were to become a white man. I seem to recall the last Blade series even established his mixed-race heritage, revealing that his father was a white British man. But the issue at play in all of this is the relative lack of minorities in superhero films. Why would you exacerbate the problem by giving the world even more handsome, white males in spandex?
And more often than with white characters, I think race does become an important element of these characters. In the case of Black Panther, he's the king of the most advanced nation on Earth - a place that has been a haven of scientific, technological, and cultural advancement on the African continent for centuries. Change Wakanda into a nation full of white people, and everything takes on a profoundly racist subtext. As for characters like Luke Cage and the Falcon, they're very much products of their upbringing. Both characters grew up in Harlem and dealt with crime and gang violence as part of their day-to-day existence. And maybe you can change the Harlem setting to Oakland or Detroit or some remote American Indian reservation, but without that harsh struggle and minority angle, they aren't quite the same characters anymore.
Basically, there's a core to every character that has to remain intact, regardless of what else is changed. Sometimes race or gender is part of that core. More often it isn't. But there's still the question of whether studios should be making changes like this to combat the general lack of diversity in superhero films. The number of these movies with minorities or females in the lead roles is pretty pitiful. And for every ground-breaking example like Blade, you have a dud like Hancock or Steel gumming up the works. And whenever female characters are featured prominently, it seems to be more for the benefit of male fans. Why is it that anytime Black Widow shows up on a movie poster, she's the only character more concerned with flaunting her butt than flexing her muscles and looking tough?
Much of the blame has to be laid at the source material. The problem with the superhero genre is that it was built largely on the backs of middle-aged, Jewish-American men in the '30s and '40s. Diversity and equality weren't really buzzwords anyone lost any sleep over back in those days. It wasn't until the 1970's that someone looked up from the drawing table and said, "You know, maybe if we're trying to sell the idea of the X-Men being hated and feared for being different, we shouldn't have a team made up entirely of young, handsome, middle class white people." Only after all that time did superhero comics begin making any sort of effort to acknowledge the feminist movement or reflect the real racial and ethnic diversity in America. And even today, there's still a long, painful road to travel before this genre gets to where it needs to be. And fans deserve their share of the blame. If readers weren't so intractable and insistent on only reading books that "matter" and that feature the familiar heroes they grew up with, it wouldn't be so damned difficult for newer and more diverse characters to catch on.
Whether you're looking at the comics or the movies, there's a growing fear that these stories aren't being made to appeal to a wide enough audience. To some extent, I find those fears overblown. You don't make Dark Knight or Iron Man 3 bank without appealing to a pretty wide audience. And I've noticed a definite increase over the past year or so in the amount of kids wandering into comic shops looking to get into the hobby. But those numbers are in spite of the way these projects are framed and marketed. As far as I'm concerned, it can only help if superhero comics and movies offer fans more minority heroes, more female heroines, more gay heroes, and more international heroes. It gives younger fans more role models to look up to. It builds a world that is more true to the one we inhabit.
Will this Johnny Storm controversy eventually die down? Probably. I look at how popular and mainstream Nick Fury has become over the last few years thanks to the Marvel Studios films. They took their cue from the Ultimate Universe rather than the traditional Marvel Universe, and now the average superhero fan only see's Samuel L. Jackson's face when they hear the name "Nick Fury." The black Nick Fury has now become the standard as the Marvel Universe is continuously adapted and reinterpreted in various media. But, and this is despite the clunky way Marvel chose to introduce a black version of Fury into their traditional comic book universe, none of that takes away from Fury's decades-long history as a grizzled, Hydra-busting white man. Those stories still exist. That Nick Fury still exists. Nor is the Johnny Storm we've come to love over the past 50+ years going to suddenly fade out of existence because of this movie. Maybe we'll see a black Johnny Storm in the next Marvel vs. Capcom game or when Disney finally decide that an FF cartoon is worth pursuing again. Is that such a bad thing?
here are some of the comments made on IGN:"maybe if they put white makeup on him like rdj had black paint on him in tropic thunder"
"Being black myself, I would much rather prefer they actually focused on real black superheroes instead of lazily changing the race of a character."
"I don't recall anyone throwing a temper tantrum when Tom Cruise was in "The Last Samurai". Michael B. Jordan was a good in Chronicle, Fruitvale Station and The Wire. He'll do fine and a lot better than the last goof who played Storm."
"Even as a black guy myself i'm not tryin to knock Michael b Jordan's hustle, major props on getting a big role but...it's simply a role where he does not belong lol. I sat through Iron Man 3 like WHY is Mandarin not Chinese shooting magic out his hands with a sage robe on?? Why is Gweneth Paltrow saving the day in Iron Man's suit?? None of this correlates to what's on the menu of what this is SUPPOSED to be. Hell Michael B is a great young actor, and will land a homerun role someday, but with comic based films you gotta stay true to the source material. Should of casted him in something else marvel."
"Race shouldn't matter when it comes to anything really but with that being said lets see what would happen if Black Panther,Cyborg, or John Stewart were cast as a white man I bet we'd see some differing opinions then."
"The solution to this problem is to stick to the source material. End of story. Johnny Storm is white, Luke Cage is black. Captain America is white. The falcon is black. Cast as such. I don't see how this is confusing or debateable."
"New on IGN Articles: "Why Black Panther should be White Panther."
"IGN Thinks since Nick Fury is black now, T'Challa should become a White man, and since Africa is full of poor people it would only seem reasonable for a rich white man to rule. No one reads black panther anyways, so no one will notice he was a black man. Plus hollywood like White people as main heroes and only secondary characters as Blacks."
"IGN Thinks since Nick Fury is black now, T'Challa should become a White man, and since Africa is full of poor people it would only seem reasonable for a rich white man to rule. No one reads black panther anyways, so no one will notice he was a black man. Plus hollywood like White people as main heroes and only secondary characters as Blacks."
- Dear IGN, as a life long Comic fan, stop trying to make things sound okay when they are not.
In Marvel we trust, In Sony/Fox we all hate.... Stop ruining my childhood."
In Marvel we trust, In Sony/Fox we all hate.... Stop ruining my childhood."
"can't believe how topical this is:
"Reverend Al Sharpton:
You talk about racial equality, how we’re making
progress. The problem with that progress
is it’s always a day away. Tomorrow, tomorrow—you
love that!—because it’s always a day away. I’m here to stick
out my chin today! Today! Give us an African-American
Spider Man! Give us a black that can run faster
than a speeding bullet and leap over tall buildings in a
single bound! Not tomorrow—today! Today! The sun
needs to come out today! Not tomorrow, your Honor! God Almighty!
Give the American people a black Orphan Annie. It’s just not
good enough to say she doesn’t look the part."
You talk about racial equality, how we’re making
progress. The problem with that progress
is it’s always a day away. Tomorrow, tomorrow—you
love that!—because it’s always a day away. I’m here to stick
out my chin today! Today! Give us an African-American
Spider Man! Give us a black that can run faster
than a speeding bullet and leap over tall buildings in a
single bound! Not tomorrow—today! Today! The sun
needs to come out today! Not tomorrow, your Honor! God Almighty!
Give the American people a black Orphan Annie. It’s just not
good enough to say she doesn’t look the part."
'Boston Legal' season 1, episode 1, 2004
(personally, i think making johnny black will change the dynamic of the family too much, but who knows)"
(personally, i think making johnny black will change the dynamic of the family too much, but who knows)"
just some of the things you will see in the comment section...
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/25/between-the-panels-why-the-human-torchs-race-doesnt-matter
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