Michael B Jordan is "Flame On!" The Human Torch - Part 2

[The Question]

I agree that Sue should be a little older to avoid the creep factor, but I'd make her mid-twenties, Reed and Ben early to mid-thirties and Johnny eighteen (though he could be a little older to match more recent stories). There is a traditional dynamic with Reed and Ben as older contemporaries and Johnny as 'the kid' that is a key, defining characteristic of the team. Without their relative ages being somewhat consistent with that tradition, they won't be the Fantastic Four.

The thing is, I don't think that dynamic has been relevant in the comics for a very long time.

Johnny hasn't been "the kid" since at least the early 1980s, he has been portrayed pretty consistently as Reed, Sue, and Ben's slightly younger and cockier peer since then. He stopped being Reed's surrogate son and started being his brother on law a long while back. And even as far back as the later part of the Lee/Kirby first 100 issues, the dynamic between Ben and Johnny was being portrayed as that of surrogate siblings on roughly equal footing.

Plus, in every media adaptation outside of the Coreman film since the start of the 1990s, the age gap has been pretty thoroughly de-emphasized, so it's not like this is without precedent.

I'm not sure it's as key or defining as you make it out to be. Seems to me like a remnant of a thoroughly 1950s Americana mentality that the series subtly dropped a few decades back.

Removal of the 1950s paternalistic vibe within the pages of the comics was what made The World's Greatest Comic Magazine such a great read through the years. Johnny grew up and earned Reed and Ben's respect. Sue gained great powers, and no longer responded when called the Invisible Girl.. Having the four leads approximately the same age removes the creepiness and paternalism and replaces it with.......nothing. It's simply not the FF.

Im not sure I understand what you're saying here. This is probably just me, but it reads like you're contradicting yourself.

 

[Zarex]

Im not sure I understand what you're saying here. This is probably just me, but it reads like you're contradicting yourself.

Through the years the members of the FF grew and relationships changed. Unless you are introducing us to the team mid-career, having the four start out as peers changes the family dynamic in a fundamental way. It's a great story, and Trank is ignoring it.

 

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