We’re sure some of you will comb through these remarks\u00a0for clues, and Shakman’s\u00a0mention of\u00a0The Bridge, for example, stands\u00a0out as a concept\u00a0he’s potentially adapted for the MCU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ trailers have confirmed that Mister Fantastic is investigating the Multiverse, while Thunderbolts* showed the team arriving on Earth-616. Many fans hope the Council of Reeds, also mentioned by Shakman, factor into Avengers: Doomsday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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I fell in love with the Fantastic Four when I was a kid growing up in Ventura, California. Encountering a family of super heroes that felt so familiar blew my mind: the humor, the heart, the sniping and griping, the messiness. At the same time, I was taken by the optimism and wonder of their world. With their roots in the \u201960s space race, the F4 have always been about exploration \u2014 whether it is to the cosmos or the Negative Zone or deep into the human mind. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny may have incredible powers, but they are family first, scientists and explorers second and super heroes only when absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n
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Every Marvel filmmaker attempts to build on what has come before in publishing while simultaneously reinventing the characters for the current moment. The same is true with comic creators. What Lee and Kirby launched in the \u201960s changed Marvel forever. Their bold gamble to center a realistic family turned into the biggest hit of the early Silver Age. Every artist and writer since has attempted to build on that legacy while finding something in the characters that made them sparkle anew.<\/p>\n
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In preparation for Marvel Studios\u2019 ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’\u00a0I delved into the 60-plus years of comics history. Marvel\u2019s First Family has been continuously cared for by the best and brightest the company had to offer. None shone so bright as Jonathan Hickman. The humor and heart I loved as a kid? It\u2019s there and better than ever. The messy family dynamics? Made even more interesting as Val and Franklin take center stage. And that sense of optimism and wonder? I don\u2019t think the Fantastic Four have been quite as fantastic as they are in the pages of this book.<\/p>\n
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As we developed the script for the film, I returned again and again to this epic run \u2014 thrilled by brain-bending innovations like the Council of Reeds and riveted by heroic standoffs against the likes of Annihilus. But it was Hickman\u2019s deep insight into the specific family dynamics of the Four that affected me the most.<\/p>\n
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His Reed Richards is part Steve Jobs and part Oppenheimer, always on the edge of saving the world or destroying it. The author runs right at Mister Fantastic\u2019s weakness: believing that he can and should do it all on his own. Reed is determined to \u201cSolve Everything\u201d \u2014 but he learns that the cost of solving everything is\u2026 everything. Ultimate knowledge risks ultimate sacrifice: the loss of his family.<\/p>\n
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Sue has come a long way from the ‘Invisible Girl’ of the early \u201960s. In these pages, she is part United Nations Secretary General and part Field Marshal, backing up diplomacy with force when necessary. Hickman\u2019s Sue may be the most powerful member of the Four \u2014 she\u2019s the glue that holds the world together while Reed experiments in the lab with things that could destroy it. She brokers deals as the world\u2019s finest diplomat, ending up as the Queen of the Sea. In one of my favorite F4 moments, she declares to Namor, ‘I am a Queen that bows before no King.’\u00a0Damn right.<\/p>\n
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How do these two very different people make up the greatest marriage in comics history? We see, page after page, that the secret is their unique balance of heart and mind. Before Jerry Maguire, these two completed each other.<\/p>\n
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Sue and Reed are relatable not just as partners, but also as parents. We understand their anxiety, fretting over the destiny of Val and Franklin just as I fret over my 9-year-old daughter\u2019s future. I cherish the family intimacy of scenes in the Baxter Building and never doubt that these parents love their children and would do anything to protect their future. I know that Johnny and Ben would do the same.<\/p>\n
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And we know that, as super heroes, they will fight just as hard to protect our world.<\/p>\n
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Having absorbed six decades of F4 publishing, many of Hickman\u2019s magical moments and unique character dynamics stick with me. And they made it into our film in small and large ways. From Sue as a diplomat to Reed trying to solve everything even at the risk of imperiling his family. Johnny\u2019s need to be taken seriously. Ben\u2019s gentle nature, forever at odds with his appearance. The Future Foundation. The Bridge. The mystery of children and the anxiety we have as parents about their future.<\/p>\n
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Hickman is a poet, of both the everyday and the extraordinary. His work beats with a heart as big as Sue Storm\u2019s, rendering an emotional journey that culminates in a scene that makes me tear up every time I read it. (I won\u2019t ruin it\u2026 just wait for ‘Uncles.’) His writing is thrilling, thought-provoking and tender\u2026and, like the characters he writes about, fantastic.<\/p>\n
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