The Superhero Cinematic Civil War: Quoth the Kraven, "Nevermore." - Part 61

I mean, at least we Supes fans got TV versions we can point to and say “see, this one respects and modernizes the character beautifully - more like this, please.” F4 fans don’t even have that. Y’all have my sympathies. :salute:
One could argue the two best superhero movies are F4 adaptations.

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You could argue that about both main villains in Batman Begins. Riddler in The Batman. Most of the characters in Ragnarok. I don't think one element being off, or even multiple ones, means the material isn't decently faithful. The actual crew is faithful in both Corman's and the first Alba flick. It was the same for Silver Surfer, where homeboy was always well done.

Now I'm not saying their good. But I do think if the villain being super faithful is the only way way for it qualify, then a lot of the best, most faithful adaptations wouldn't count.

I actually think Batman on his own is a really good example, because the Joker has been wildly different in all adaptations, and it's only Snyder's that many would consider to be "unfaithful".
Thing is Luthor has been wildly different across various eras and those movies were products of times when Luthor was one way and altered later on, thus influencing future versions. Same for Joker. Doom hasn't really been very different. He's been fairly consistent with the one difference being his Ultimates version. I think the Corman version did him okay, but that is not a major motion picture. That's a B movie. The Story version in no way resembles Doom IMO. They tried course correcting it in the 2nd movie, but he was fundamentally broken already. The presentation for Doom was just all wrong.
 
As a Spider-Man fan, I can't imagine what I'd feel if instead of Dafoe's Green Goblin, I got the Green Goofer or whatever every time they wanted to do Norman. Even the worst villains in any of those movies are half-decent adaptions.
 
Thing is Luthor has been wildly different across various eras and those movies were products of times when Luthor was one way and altered later on, thus influencing future versions. Same for Joker. Doom hasn't really been very different. He's been fairly consistent with the one difference being his Ultimates version. I think the Corman version did him okay, but that is not a major motion picture. That's a B movie. The Story version in no way resembles Doom IMO. They tried course correcting it in the 2nd movie, but he was fundamentally broken already. The presentation for Doom was just all wrong.
I understand that. But my point is Doom is not the whole of any of those films. He's not even the most important element. It's the family. Which is why I'd say that outside of the 2015 monstrosity they've done a decent job in terms of faithfulness in adaptations. They just haven't been good movies.

Though on an aside, I think conceptually McMahon's Doom isn't that far off. The arrogance, anger, and grudge all come through decently. And as stupid as it looked, the surfboard stuff was 100% comic Doom.
 
Ironically I think Corman's Doom was by far the best Doom.

Also, for the record, if Corman's cheap a** would have just given them a COUPLE million more, i think they could have actually churned out a decent F4 movie overall. They were clearly trying with the quarters they had.
 
As a Spider-Man fan, I can't imagine what I'd feel if instead of Dafoe's Green Goblin, I got the Green Goofer or whatever every time they wanted to do Norman. Even the worst villains in any of those movies are half-decent adaptions.
Imagine if Dane Dehaan’s green goblin was the only adaptation of the character that we’ve ever gotten, or if there was an even worse adaptation that followed after the fact

That’s what being a Doctor Doom fan feels like lol
 
Sure every Fantastic Four adaptation is garbage, but hear me out: did they ever kill off the team and replace them with their own OCs? :o
 
I understand that. But my point is Doom is not the whole of any of those films. He's not even the most important element. It's the family. Which is why I'd say that outside of the 2015 monstrosity they've done a decent job in terms of faithfulness in adaptations. They just haven't been good movies.

Though on an aside, I think conceptually McMahon's Doom isn't that far off. The arrogance, anger, and grudge all come through decently. And as stupid as it looked, the surfboard stuff was 100% comic Doom.
McMahon wasn't the issue. The script and approach were. Sure, the family comes first. But that doesn't require throwing out the baby with the bath water. When you have a Joker or Luthor level villain, doing them right makes the heroes better. It raises all ships.

The primary issue is Doom is yes angry and vain, but the scars and armor are essential parts of the character and it goes beyond iconography. Doom is in that armor cause of his own mistakes and he doesn't want himself or others to see his imperfection. Making him businessman with Electro powers doesn't convey that core aspect of his character. It just makes him Norman Osborn with Electro powers. If you're not using the most fundamentally interesting aspects of the character, then why bother using him at all? Your other examples are yes different, but still evoke the core ethos of those characters. Doom for me in those is nowhere close to the mark.

Perfect example: you said he has the surfboard and it's classic Doom. Sure, visually. But why does he put on the armor? He has the power cosmic. His face isn't messed up. Why is he wearing it? Reason: cause they're looking at the character like an action figure and he has it in the book. But there is no story based or character based logic for him to he wearing it. The armor and mask isn't just a cosmetic choice. It's a mask that Doom is using to hide the manifestation of his greatest mistake and sign of his own imperfections. It's a metaphor. The fact that these movies examined Doom precisely as an action figure and as an aesthetic and not a character is exactly why no one remembered that version of Doom 10 seconds after the credits rolled. Hence why for me, he simply wasn't Doctor Doom in any meaningful way
 
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One could argue the two best superhero movies are F4 adaptations.

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Frankly, Syndrome is a better Doctor Doom than any prior adaptation that we have gotten of the character. But, it just doesn't scratch that same itch for me. Cause I still want to see something awesome like that....with the FF and Dr Doom. I have accepted that just isn't happening at this point though
 
I dont think Doom will work at all. We are sacrificing a guy who can be a constant presence in the MCU for many years so we can get RDJ getting Kang's sloppy seconds. It just angers me

I still don't get why they didn't just re-cast Kang?

Save Doom for a proper build up with an actor that can do the role for years to come.
 
I still don't get why they didn't just re-cast Kang?

Save Doom for a proper build up with an actor that can do the role for years to come.
Because the general audience doesnt care about Kang anymore with all the mess around this character. Majors, Antman-mess, you "need" to watch Loki for it... Marvel needs a big hit with its new Avengers movie like 1,5B.

I just hope Dooms first action is to kill the council of Kangs as an opening scene so we can give this chapter a good closure.
 
I don’t think it much matters if Victor, Ben and Reed all attended the same college and the future despot of Latveria blamed the future Dr. Richards of tampering with his attempt to rescue Momma Doom from damnation. I have been reading FF comics for about half a century and never felt the petty aspect of the relationship to be particularly compelling.

What I do find compelling, and it has been exploited wonderfully by Jonathan Hickman and in Ryan North’s great current run, is that Victor is Valeria’s Unky Doom. He is responsible for her existence and will destroy anyone and anything that puts his god daughter in jeopardy, including her own parents. If Shakman and his team can bring that aspect of the relationship to the big screen I think RDJ Doom can work despite the lack of a shared history.
 
I don’t think it much matters if Victor, Ben and Reed all attended the same college and the future despot of Latveria blamed the future Dr. Richards of tampering with his attempt to rescue Momma Doom from damnation. I have been reading FF comics for about half a century and never felt the petty and jealous aspect of the relationship to be particularly compelling.

What I do find compelling, and it has been exploited wonderfully by Hickman and in Ryan North’s great current run, is that Victor is Valeria’s Unky Doom. He is responsible for her existence and will destroy anyone and anything that puts his god daughter in jeopardy, including her own parents. If Shakman and his team can bring that aspect of the relationship to the big screen I think RDJ Doom can work despite the lack of a shared history.
Doom's relationship with Valeria only works because of the prior history Doom has with the FF. Without that, Doom has no reason to care about Valeria at all. She's a random kid to him.
 
Because the general audience doesnt care about Kang anymore with all the mess around this character. Majors, Antman-mess, you "need" to watch Loki for it... Marvel needs a big hit with its new Avengers movie like 1,5B.

I just hope Dooms first action is to kill the council of Kangs as an opening scene so we can give this chapter a good closure.

They probably won't care about Doom either at first. The stunt casting could easily backfire.
 
Doom's relationship with Valeria only works because of the prior history Doom has with the FF. Without that, Doom has no reason to care about Valeria at all. She's a random kid to him.

Shakman needs to establish Doom as an FF baddie, sure, before he becomes an associate member of the family. But this can be done without Doom and Reed being college bros or even coming from the same corner of the multiverse. The relationship between Pedro Reed and RDJ Victor isn’t doomed, pun intended, if in the MCU reboot Matt and his team brings the godfather element to the big screen.
 
Shakman needs to establish Doom as an FF baddie, sure, before he becomes an associate member of the family. But this can be done without Doom and Reed being college bros or even coming from the same corner of the multiverse. The relationship between Pedro Reed and RDJ Victor isn’t doomed, pun intended, if in the MCU reboot Matt and his team brings the godfather element to the big screen.
But that is the thing, Doom isn't being established as an FF baddie. He is being established as an Avengers villain. So you may not see value in what is being lost in Reed/Doom's backstory, but say goodbye to Valeria/Doom's relationship as well. That's the price ya pay when you just dumb Doom down into being a general MCU bad guy played by RDJ
 
But that is the thing, Doom isn't being established as an FF baddie. He is being established as an Avengers villain. So you may not see value in what is being lost in Reed/Doom's backstory, but say goodbye to Valeria/Doom's relationship as well. That's the price ya pay when you just dumb Doom down into being a general MCU bad guy played by RDJ
Paint it with a DC coat of paint: it's like making Lex Luthor a JL villain and casting him with Batman's actor.
 
My main thing is, I still can't quite picture Downey delivering a performance where he is pontificating in that classic, over the top, self aggrandizing way that we all love seeing Dr. Doom do from the comics and cartoons. I can';t picture Downey doing that without it seeming like he's making fun of it. I know the man is a formidable actor but I feel like his Doom is going to be at a very different pitch than we wanted.
I know this is the laziest thing in the world to say, but Daniel Day Lewis would have made a great Doom. Daniel Plainview, Bill the Butcher…nobody does over the top immoral pontificating like that guy.
 
Because the general audience doesnt care about Kang anymore with all the mess around this character. Majors, Antman-mess, you "need" to watch Loki for it... Marvel needs a big hit with its new Avengers movie like 1,5B.

I just hope Dooms first action is to kill the council of Kangs as an opening scene so we can give this chapter a good closure.

Yeah, the Majors drama aside, they failed to make audiences care about Kang as an incoming threat. Nobody cared about Kang. BUT I think if they really wanted to they could have fixed it. Recast him and start making Kang a presence in films leading up to Kang Dynasty.

But the planning in the MCU these days has just been non existant. It still baffles me how the Marvel brainstrust since Endgame hasn't been able to weave these films and tv shows together in a coherent way to interconnect them and build an overarching narrative. Like how do you not connect Loki season 1, No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness?! There should have been a direct lineage between those three projects. There should have been lineage between all of the phase 4 and 5 projects.
 
Yeah, the Majors drama aside, they failed to make audiences care about Kang as an incoming threat. Nobody cared about Kang. BUT I think if they really wanted to they could have fixed it. Recast him and start making Kang a presence in films leading up to Kang Dynasty.

But the planning in the MCU these days has just been non existant. It still baffles me how the Marvel brainstrust since Endgame hasn't been able to weave these films and tv shows together in a coherent way to interconnect them and build an overarching narrative. Like how do you not connect Loki season 1, No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness?! There should have been a direct lineage between those three projects. There should have been lineage between all of the phase 4 and 5 projects.
There was interconnectivity in that they all featured the multiverse, in the same way the phase 1 and 2 movies had multiple films that featured infinity stones (sometimes retconned after-the-fact to be infinity stones) without being direct sequels to one another

If they had been too connected, you'd have had people b****ing that they had to watch Loki to understand the other two films, as people did about having to watch Wandavision for DS3 and The Marvels.


What I would've done would be to put all the Phase 4 and 5 movies into two buckets: one for Endgame fallout, and one for Multiverse setup-

Endgame Fallout: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Eternals, BP2, FATWS, Secret Invasion, She-Hulk, GOTG3, Thor: L&T
Multiverse: Loki, Shang Chi, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, DS:MOM, Ant-Man, The Marvels
with Wandavision as the bridge between the two

Make sure that each project ties heavily to those themes, eg. more multiverse elements in The Marvels and Shang Chi
More of a bridge between the past and present in Black widow
More touching on the status of superheroes in the MCU in She-Hulk
etc
(And Moon Knight and Werewolf by Night would just set up Marvel Knights)

And lastly I would've made sure Phase 4 ended with a New Avengers movie
 
One could argue the two best superhero movies are F4 adaptations.

tumblr_p4q4vfYxqG1usai37o1_540.gif
I would love to know what the original version of Tim Story's F4 looked like before they had to scramble to change it up after seeing The Incredibles. Especially since that only came out about 8 months or so before Fantastic Four.
 

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