No member of the Fantastic Four is likeable. Even Stan “Eternal Moustache” Lee knows this, and he is the guy who dressed them in for-no-reason blue jumpsuits with giant ‘4’ campaign buttons, an outfit that could not scream “SELF-IMPORTANT DOUCHEBAG” any louder if it were bright green and equipped with an automated klaxon that shrilled “SELF-IMPORTANT DOUCHEBAG” on the eights. If you read a Fantastic Four comic, there is a 90% chance you will be reading about the Fantastic Four fighting alongside somebody else, because even Stan Lee thinks they are so boring and unlikeable that the only way he can stand writing about them is if more interesting heroes are there to take up most of the panel space they would otherwise use to piss everyone off. Since Stan Lee is responsible for the Fantastic Four being assholes, you would think he would just change them if he didn’t like them. But there seems to be an editorial rule over at Marvel (the only one) that says writers can’t change a character from something stupid into something cool unless the new guy is either a Weapon X clone of the old one, a Doom Bot pretending to be the old one, or a Skrull pretending to be the old one, which means, in all three cases, that the new one has to be evil. That seems like a pretty stupid rule to me, but no one asked me when they came up with it, so I guess my opinion doesn’t matter. Yet. Until it does, the Fantastic Four will continue to use their mutant magical space radiation powers to defy physics by both sucking and blowing at the same time, and I will continue to not get paid to point it out to people who do not care. And that is why I write on the Internet. Next paragraph.
It is not just that the members of the Fantastic Four are unlikeable. No, it is almost like that super dose of magical space radiation not only gave them magical space radiation powers, but also magnified their most obnoxious personality traits about ten or twelve thousand times. To demonstrate:
Mr. Fantastic
It is not just that the members of the Fantastic Four are unlikeable. No, it is almost like that super dose of magical space radiation not only gave them magical space radiation powers, but also magnified their most obnoxious personality traits about ten or twelve thousand times. To demonstrate:
Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, aka The Guy Who Had the Fucking Balls to Actually Name Himself ‘Mr. Fantastic’. Mr. Fantastic has the powers of being super smart and being able to change the size and shape of his limbs, because I guess the same mutated gene controls both intelligence and limb-bendiness in Comic Book Land. But it doesn’t matter all that much, because he hardly ever uses his limb-bending power, except to make his arms and legs all long and twisty so he can tie people up with them. That’s right: Mr. Fantastic has a power that makes him about as effective as an average rope, and the rope has the added bonus of not making whoever is tied up with it feel like their back is being dry-humped by Reed Richards. Since he usually ties up bad guys, maybe the creepy pervert back-humped feeling is the whole point. Which I suppose makes a little sense, except that I find it very hard to believe that the one thing that will finally reduce the murderous, narcissistic Dr. Doom to fat evil genius tears is realizing that Reed Richards’s penis is pressed against the small of his back. Not to say such a thing is not the very essence of creepy – if Reed Richards’s penis were pressed against the small of MY back, you damn well bet I would give up my ambitions for world domination. But I am a lonely, angry little man with a rarely updated website. Dr. Doom is an evil genius in an indestructible suit of armor, who pulverized so many genitals with his massive indestructible metal fists that he became Supreme Leader of a reclusive Slavic principality in the Carpathian Mountains. Which isn’t terribly impressive until you remember that the Carpathian Mountains are the home of Dracula, and that Dracula only lived there because he was once a Slavic prince and when he died, Satan was so afraid of him he would not let him into Hell. People like me are afraid of Reed Richards’s penis pressed up against us – people who manage to maintain autocratic control over a group of people so badass they become vampires by SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF THE DEVIL are not afraid of Reed Richards’s penis. They may be afraid of God, they may be afraid of garlic, but they are not intimidated by a blue guy-rope or that guy’s intimately-close blue guy-rope.
But does Reed Richards care? Oh hell no. Because the only person more egotistical than Dr. Doom and Dracula combined is Reed Richards. Just read the comic. And not even a whole comic. It only takes about two panels of Reed Richards’s speech bubbles to see that he is an insufferable egotistical douchebag who never misses the opportunity to remind everyone how smart he thinks he is. And as if this weren’t bad enough, he talks, acts and looks like Ward Cleaver from Leave It To Beaver, but with an inexplicable blue jumpsuit and magical space radiation powers. He routinely stops using contractions and explains everything in condescending detail, like he thinks everyone around him is at the intellectual level of the Beaver. At least, that is why I do it.
But I write on the Internet, where 90% of everything is porn, and the other 10% is webpages posted by people who think the government is using porn to control our minds. Reed Richards is talking to people who are supposed to be scientists and a space shuttle pilot. Either Reed Richards is an asshole to everyone close to him, or everyone close to him, despite their reputed careers, is retarded. Having read more than several issues of the Fantastic Four, I am convinced it is both.
Which begs the question: is Reed Richards super-intelligent when compared to normal humans of average intelligence, or is he only a “genius” when compared to the short bus mutants of the Fantastic Four? Remember, this is the “famous mind” who couldn’t impress fucking Richard M. Nixon in Fantastic Four #104. Sure, Magneto and Sub-Mariner working in evil tandem is not a little problem for anyone to solve, but this is the Fantastic FOUR – they outnumber Magneto and Sub-Mariner two super-mutants to one, and one of their mutants is a giant rock monster. And even then the then-President would apparently prefer that someone else, ANYONE ELSE, handle the problem. Richard Nixon never hugged Spider-Man or anything, but he also never called Spidey an incompetent douchebag. And remember, Nixon is our only 20th Century President who employed honest-to-goodness hired goons. That is like the Supreme Leader of Iran saying he’s not going to buy nuclear weapons from you because he thinks you take that religion thing a little too seriously. Clearly, like Richard Nixon, Reed Richards is a condescending douchebag apparently surrounded by idiots. And like Nixon, both are significantly less cool than Spider-Man.
The Invisible Woman
The next obnoxious member of the Fantastic Four is the Invisible June Cleaver to Reed Richards’s Bendy-Ward, Sue Storm. Sue Storm is Reed Richards’s wife and…Sue Storm is Reed Richard’s wife. She has absolutely no personality outside of agreeing with Reed, defending Reed, following Reed around, wondering where Reed is because she misses following him around, laying on her back spread-eagle while Reed yells out his own name in ecstasy, and afterwards, making Reed a delicious sandwich. And then washing the plate when he’s finished. Oh right, she can also turn invisible and create limited force-field bubbles, but as this combination of powers has helped the Fantastic Four defeat a supervillain a total of negative fifty-six times, her being Reed Richard’s wife is arguably much more important to saving the world.
Think I am just being a sexist dick for comedic effect? I challenge you: find me a single page in Fantastic Four history where Sue Storm doesn’t dedicate at least one speech bubble to how awesome and important Reed Richards is, and I’ll buy you an interdimensional super dog from the parallel present. People say that Marvel is more in tune with modern feminism than DC because they have had more super-powered women in their lineup for longer. But Sue Storm is the perfect example of why that argument is stupid. Marvel may put a supposedly super-powered person with boobs in every book they publish, but they don’t get points for feminism if that woman is merely some guy’s doting wife, a lusty object of comic relief, or kidnapper bait. Sue Storm is all three, all the time, so no points for Marvel, no points for the Fantastic Four, and especially no points for Sue Storm. No matter how good her sandwiches are.
(A question: How does a person who can turn invisible and isolate themselves in a six foot force field bubble still manage to get kidnapped and tied up with a non-super-rope nine times out of ten? Maybe I’m missing something because I’m too sexist. Feel free to clue me in, Internet.)
The Human Torch
The next worthless prick in the Fantastic Four is Johnny Storm, Sue’s brother, aka The Human Torch. His powers are setting himself on fire, and being more of a loud-mouth, self-obsessed whole-ass than Reed Richards and Dr. Doom combined (and knowing Marvel, this has probably happened at least six or seven times, and the Skrulls did it as part of a new plan to take over the world, and it failed every time). Johnny Storm is every fratboy you’ve ever failed to get to turn down the Eminem, except that instead of having the superpower of being able to hold down several kegs of Milwaukee’s Best without poisoning his brain, he can set you on fire with a mini-meteor he literally pulls out of his ass. Oh, and he can fly, because if you can set yourself on fire, you can heat the air around you and…thermal updrafts…but it also somehow works in space…and you don’t have to breathe then, either. Or something. I do not possess the fantastic magical space radiation bloated mind of Reed Richards, so I cannot begin to comprehend the awesome nonsensimagical physics at work here. All I know is, don’t tell Johnny Storm to turn down the Eminem, or he might set your underpants on fire with his middle finger.
The Thing
The last member of the Fantastic Four that pisses me off is the aforementioned sentient rock monster, The Thing. Yeah, that’s right. The combined awesomenesses of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (possibly by the Skrulls) couldn’t come up with a better superhero name for a giant orange rock monster than ‘The Thing.’ And they even gave the guy’s pre-radiation alter-ego the name Ben Grimm.
His last name is Grimm, you guys. He’s a giant orange rock monster. And all you can come up with is ‘The Thing?’ Not ‘The Great Grimm?’ Not ‘Grimmrock the Smasher?’ Not even the Best Name Ever ‘Grimmenstein?’ No, he’s just ‘The Thing,’ his outfit is a tiny blue Speedo, and he is pretty much just The Incredible Hulk except that when The Thing punches stuff, orange rock crumbs break off his knuckles. And this is the guy who had, before the dose of magical space radiation, a cool name and was such an awesome Air Force test pilot that he flew spies into Communist Russia and was then promoted to experimental space shuttle captain.
This has got to be the only time in comic book history where a guy was way cooler BEFORE he got turned into a superpowered bash monster.
Understandably then, it is all downhill from here. Despite the fact that Ben Grimm was a famous flying ace before his transformation – and that the transformation didn’t do a damn thing to his ace flying brain – the only job Reed Richards gives him in the Fantastic Four is Official Smasher of Crap. At this point, anyone else in Ben’s position would probably have told Reed Richards to fuck himself sideways and joined Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D., where they would also no doubt expect him to smash things, but would also no doubt let him fly experimental aircraft. But Reed Richards was Ben Grimm’s best friend, so Ben believes him when he promises to find a cure for Ben’s rock-monsterness. A six year old could tell Ben how full of shit Reed is, since Reed is the very person who wants to exploit Ben’s smashing rock hands against the wide array of enemies he’s made during a lifetime of condescending douchebaggery. And there’s also the little factoid that Ben didn’t even WANT to fly Reed into space for his illegal little experiment in the first place, which the government had torpedoed because they only waste money on space boondoggles kids of Senators come up with. But no, Ben trusts Reed. Even after Reed and Johnny Storm HIGHJACK A SPACE SHUTTLE, and on top of that insist on complicating the thruster fuel specs with a hundred extra pounds of utter non-astronaut-nor-scientist known as The Woman Reed Richards is Fucking. But no, Ben Grimm trusts Reed Richards and always will, even if it means violating federal law, endangering his life by making flying the space shuttle more difficult, and being exposed to gene-raping magical space radiation.
I bet Reed Richards came up with the name The Thing and the little Speedo just to show the world that the giant rock monster was as much his bitch as Sue Storm.
So the pre-Thing Ben Grimm clearly had no self-esteem whatsoever. Now that Ben is The Thing, he should certainly have gained the profound sense of self-worth I assume being giant and indestructible gives someone. But then I remember that this is a Marvel comic, and that in a Marvel comic, superpowers are not cool. In a Marvel comic, superpowers in fact turn you into a persistently depressed angst-hole, who can’t wait to recite poetry about how terrible it is that you can’t work in retail anymore. Unless you happen to be Wolverine. Wolverine is so into being a superhero that he dresses in neon yellow and goes out of his way to challenge thirty foot purple robots to arm wrestling matches. But The Thing is not Wolverine, so while he will fight thirty foot purple robots when Reed Richards orders him to, he takes breaks between crater-punches to Twitter about the cold darkness where his heart should be. And since the Fantastic Four have been around about forty years longer than Twitter, most of The Thing’s tweets have been action-obscuring speech bubbles lamenting his new massive pointy brow ridge and his new tiny orange turtle penis.
I know that complaining about a non-Wolverine Marvel character being whiny is like complaining about a non-Superman DC character trying to be as angry and badass as Batman. But with The Thing, it just does not make any sense. He can throw cars. He is no longer legally obligated to wear clothing in public. No one will ever mess with him for fear of getting a mouthful of broken teeth and orange crumbs. And on top of all that, he even has a girlfriend, a hot blind sculptor who apparently likes a mouthful of orange crumbs. Yes, I know she is blind, and we are supposed to think she only likes Ben because she cannot see how hideous he is supposed to be. But unlike Lee and Kirby, who apparently think all women are utterly shallow and that blind women are also extremely stupid, we understand that there is no way any human being can fuck a ten foot rock monster and hold any delusions about what they look like.
Rereading this paragraph, I realize that being The Thing is now my new ambition, plus or minus the disability of my potential girlfriend, since my years on the Internet have taught me that no matter what horrifying thing is wrong with you, there are at least 10,000 normal, healthy women who cannot wait to fuck you. So The Thing is not a sympathetic character. He is instead a superficial asshole, who has tossed aside what little remained of his personal dignity on the faint hope that his best friend will get around to making him look average and boring again.
I do not care how many cars he can throw, how many times he has stood up to the Hulk, how many thirty foot purple robots he has used as a baseball bat to swat low-flying Skrull ships into Dr. Doom’s Palace of Evil Robot Dracula Cue Lightning Flash. All of this wonderful nonsense is reduced to miserable bullshit the moment he opens his mouth and makes it clear that he thinks he would be having far more fun mowing his lawn in his size thirty-four khakis. Thanks for ruining my fun, The Thing.
I also do not understand why the writers keep making his speech bubbles look like they are coming out of the mouth of a stereotypical 1930s New York gangster who just got off the boat from Sicily. Ben Grimm was an experimental space shuttle pilot. Qualification Number One for that job is being able to speak clearly enough to tell Houston you have a problem.
Maybe he only started talking like that after the exposure to magical space radiation. Maybe the inside of his mouth crumbles apart like his knuckles. But then, would he not choke to death on the crumbs while he slept?
See, this is why I like the X-Men. When I read an X-Men comic, I am too busy watching Wolverine slicing purple robot cocks to wonder if The Thing has to wear a mouth condom to bed so as not to suffocate on his own crumbling epidermis.
The Fantastic Four are fantastically stupid.
His last name is Grimm, you guys. He’s a giant orange rock monster. And all you can come up with is ‘The Thing?’ Not ‘The Great Grimm?’ Not ‘Grimmrock the Smasher?’ Not even the Best Name Ever ‘Grimmenstein?’ No, he’s just ‘The Thing,’ his outfit is a tiny blue Speedo, and he is pretty much just The Incredible Hulk except that when The Thing punches stuff, orange rock crumbs break off his knuckles. And this is the guy who had, before the dose of magical space radiation, a cool name and was such an awesome Air Force test pilot that he flew spies into Communist Russia and was then promoted to experimental space shuttle captain.
This has got to be the only time in comic book history where a guy was way cooler BEFORE he got turned into a superpowered bash monster.
Understandably then, it is all downhill from here. Despite the fact that Ben Grimm was a famous flying ace before his transformation – and that the transformation didn’t do a damn thing to his ace flying brain – the only job Reed Richards gives him in the Fantastic Four is Official Smasher of Crap. At this point, anyone else in Ben’s position would probably have told Reed Richards to fuck himself sideways and joined Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D., where they would also no doubt expect him to smash things, but would also no doubt let him fly experimental aircraft. But Reed Richards was Ben Grimm’s best friend, so Ben believes him when he promises to find a cure for Ben’s rock-monsterness. A six year old could tell Ben how full of shit Reed is, since Reed is the very person who wants to exploit Ben’s smashing rock hands against the wide array of enemies he’s made during a lifetime of condescending douchebaggery. And there’s also the little factoid that Ben didn’t even WANT to fly Reed into space for his illegal little experiment in the first place, which the government had torpedoed because they only waste money on space boondoggles kids of Senators come up with. But no, Ben trusts Reed. Even after Reed and Johnny Storm HIGHJACK A SPACE SHUTTLE, and on top of that insist on complicating the thruster fuel specs with a hundred extra pounds of utter non-astronaut-nor-scientist known as The Woman Reed Richards is Fucking. But no, Ben Grimm trusts Reed Richards and always will, even if it means violating federal law, endangering his life by making flying the space shuttle more difficult, and being exposed to gene-raping magical space radiation.
I bet Reed Richards came up with the name The Thing and the little Speedo just to show the world that the giant rock monster was as much his bitch as Sue Storm.
So the pre-Thing Ben Grimm clearly had no self-esteem whatsoever. Now that Ben is The Thing, he should certainly have gained the profound sense of self-worth I assume being giant and indestructible gives someone. But then I remember that this is a Marvel comic, and that in a Marvel comic, superpowers are not cool. In a Marvel comic, superpowers in fact turn you into a persistently depressed angst-hole, who can’t wait to recite poetry about how terrible it is that you can’t work in retail anymore. Unless you happen to be Wolverine. Wolverine is so into being a superhero that he dresses in neon yellow and goes out of his way to challenge thirty foot purple robots to arm wrestling matches. But The Thing is not Wolverine, so while he will fight thirty foot purple robots when Reed Richards orders him to, he takes breaks between crater-punches to Twitter about the cold darkness where his heart should be. And since the Fantastic Four have been around about forty years longer than Twitter, most of The Thing’s tweets have been action-obscuring speech bubbles lamenting his new massive pointy brow ridge and his new tiny orange turtle penis.
I know that complaining about a non-Wolverine Marvel character being whiny is like complaining about a non-Superman DC character trying to be as angry and badass as Batman. But with The Thing, it just does not make any sense. He can throw cars. He is no longer legally obligated to wear clothing in public. No one will ever mess with him for fear of getting a mouthful of broken teeth and orange crumbs. And on top of all that, he even has a girlfriend, a hot blind sculptor who apparently likes a mouthful of orange crumbs. Yes, I know she is blind, and we are supposed to think she only likes Ben because she cannot see how hideous he is supposed to be. But unlike Lee and Kirby, who apparently think all women are utterly shallow and that blind women are also extremely stupid, we understand that there is no way any human being can fuck a ten foot rock monster and hold any delusions about what they look like.
Rereading this paragraph, I realize that being The Thing is now my new ambition, plus or minus the disability of my potential girlfriend, since my years on the Internet have taught me that no matter what horrifying thing is wrong with you, there are at least 10,000 normal, healthy women who cannot wait to fuck you. So The Thing is not a sympathetic character. He is instead a superficial asshole, who has tossed aside what little remained of his personal dignity on the faint hope that his best friend will get around to making him look average and boring again.
I do not care how many cars he can throw, how many times he has stood up to the Hulk, how many thirty foot purple robots he has used as a baseball bat to swat low-flying Skrull ships into Dr. Doom’s Palace of Evil Robot Dracula Cue Lightning Flash. All of this wonderful nonsense is reduced to miserable bullshit the moment he opens his mouth and makes it clear that he thinks he would be having far more fun mowing his lawn in his size thirty-four khakis. Thanks for ruining my fun, The Thing.
I also do not understand why the writers keep making his speech bubbles look like they are coming out of the mouth of a stereotypical 1930s New York gangster who just got off the boat from Sicily. Ben Grimm was an experimental space shuttle pilot. Qualification Number One for that job is being able to speak clearly enough to tell Houston you have a problem.
Maybe he only started talking like that after the exposure to magical space radiation. Maybe the inside of his mouth crumbles apart like his knuckles. But then, would he not choke to death on the crumbs while he slept?
See, this is why I like the X-Men. When I read an X-Men comic, I am too busy watching Wolverine slicing purple robot cocks to wonder if The Thing has to wear a mouth condom to bed so as not to suffocate on his own crumbling epidermis.
The Fantastic Four are fantastically stupid.
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