Previous Post Fantastic Four: World's Greatest - pre-credits with Doom marching through Latveria, then him watching the Richards rocket launch. Then it's backflash a few hours to when (Doom sponsored) mercenaries try to hijack the experimental ship heading towards the incoming wave of peculiar cosmic rays. With the regular crew taken down, only Reed, his girlfriend and her brother can assist pilot Grimm with the flight. When sabotage hits them with rays they manifest fantastic powers to survive. Three months later, the FF are moving into the Baxter building amid a media frenzy. Sue's TV studio interview is interrupted when the science lab working with Reed to pinpoint where the places on Earth where the comisc rays seemed "aimed" gets swallowed by the Earth and replaced by a giant monster. Cue FF vs the Mole Man (Monster Island was one of the locales) vs Doom's minions who want to grab the alien tech there that Moley has scavanged. Fold in Ben saving a bunch of citizens who were scared of him and rescuing blind Alicia Masters. Doom doesn't want the tech to exploit - he wats it to sanitise. Big finish as the FF raid Latveria to get the tech off Doom, ending with the "let them go, their death serves no purpose - today!" finish. Post credits - the cosmic wave bounces back through space, accompanied by a fast-moving silver streak. It seems to be captured in a giant purple fist. Fantstic Four: Secret Invasion - pre-credits is Sue and Johnny's dad in prison watching the news about the FF taking down some kind of adroid created by a "Mad Thinker". Seque to flashback about his big con atempt to bilk the young Richards kid out of his family fortune, only to be outsmarted - and his daughter's fury at him for trying to use her as millionaire-bait, and at Reed for taking her father down.Storm is called to the Warden's office - and shot by his double. The Skrulls have arrived! This one is really the Skrulls preparing to take the Earth, to loot it in advance of its scheduled destruction (the Devourer of Worlds has marked it and is coming!). Reed's attempts to locate why cosmic rays might target a small African nation, a spot in the Antarctic, a mountain in the Himalayas etc. is interrupted by the plot to frame the FF for treason. This might be helped by the Puppet Master exploiting Ben because of his association with Alicia; he's received the supply of Wundagorian radioactive clay he needs from a secret sponsor (Doom) on condition that he busts some con artist out of prison (Frank Storm). A puppet-controlled Thing could do that. High-level Skrull infiltrators (a la Warren Craddock) declare the FF outlaws. Reed, Sue, and Johnny have to stop Ben at the prison. The government sends in its own unit to stop all of them, an outfit of criminals put together by "world's smartest man" the Wizard, consisting of career criminals Sandman and Trapster and amnesiac terrorist Medusa; a Frightful Four, if you will. All of this leads to Frank being exposed as a Skrull duplicate now, which was Doom's intent. Picture him striding over the fallen Frightful Four, zapping the Wizard down - "Grown-ups are speaking." - and consulting with Richards now that the truth is shared. Big finish with FF assault on Skrull space-portal to Skrull homeworld to rescue kidnapped humans and deter Skrull invasion. After Doom uses the Puppet Master to broadcast a planetary wave to expose the Skrulls amongst us and Johnny encounters and romances Princess Anelle, Frank Storm sacrifices his life when he stays behind to destroy the portal that grants the Skrulls access to Earth. Post credits - a terrified girl runs down an alley, cornered by thugs - and blasts them down with her elemental power! Fantastic Four: Journeys into Mystery - pre-credits of Blastaar triumphing against all comers in the trial pit, to gain the right to be champion of the Lord of the Negative Zone. Awareded the honour, he does not bow before Anihillus but tries to kill him! But Anihillus has the comsic control rod and is ready. Blastaar is overcome, but not executed. Anihillus has an ally who might need such a slave... Reed is tracking strange enery bursts across the world, related to but different from the cosmic ray stuff and from the Skrull portal. Johnny investigates one such anomaly nearby at the docks - and discovers a redhead being chased by superhuman thugs, Alpha Primitives. So he recues Crystal, very publically. In prison, Medusa sees her sister on TV and remembers who she is. She breaks out. On his onni-scanner, the Inhuman Seeker (the inquisitor who works for Maximus to track down escaped Inhumans) also knows Crystal is at the Baxter building. As Crystal explains something of Maximus' mind-control takeover of the great Refuge. of the general origin of the Inhumans, of the amnesia and exile of Medusa, and of the disappearance of Black Bolt, the FF get distracted by Blastaar's assult on New York - this being the trade deal between Maximus and Anihillus. While the FF are gone, Maximus' Inhumans attack -- the Seeker with mind controlled Karnak, Gorgon, and Triton. Even Medusa's appearance to help Crystal doesn't prevent them from being captured and dragged off to Attilan. The FF contain Blastaar and learn about the Negative Zone. They track Crystal but are prevented from getting to her by the impentrable Nega-Dome that Maximus throws around the city until his plan is complete - use of negative zone energies to extend his mind control across the whole globe. His plan is to harness world resources to evacuate the Inhumans from Earth before its coming destruction. Johnny grabs Lockjaw and teleports away, hoping to find Crystal that way. First he gets a tour of all the places shwoing signs of previous alien visitation to Earth - vibranium mounds, Moloid tunnels, Atlantean ruins etc., even a strange blue area of the Moon. Finally he gets to Attilan to interfere with Maximus' wedding plans for Crystal. Meanwhile, Reed whips up a Negative Zone portal and he, Sue, and Ben head off to try and bypass the barrier that way. This brings them into conflict with Anihillus and the discovery of how Anihillus is charging his cosmic control rod - from his captive Black Bolt! Which should set us up very nicely for a big showdown in Attilan, a romantic reunion for Johnny and Crystal, and Black Bolt speaking. We leave the Inhumans again closing themselves off from the world, but leaving one ambassador outside in care of the FF. Ancient carvings on the oldest Terrigen caves in Atillan warn of the coming of a devourer of worlds... Post credits is a desperate, too-late plea for help from Princess Anelle of the Skrulls to the Human Torch. Galactus has come to Skrullos Prime. And then all life there ends. Haven't worked out the other two in as much detail yet, but... Fantastic Four: World's End The Watcher hides the world with strange atmospheric displays, to no avail. As the FF investigate the Blue Zone and discover the Home of the Watcher, the first of the heralds arrives on Earth. Cue some FF vs Surfer, Terrax, Firelord, and Air-Walker action; followed with the Sufer's encounter with Alicia. Toss in Doom's reaction to his world being threatened, just to set up things for later. After that we more or less play out FF#48-50 but allow more time for reaction from an Earth that thinks it is in its last days - including Reed's proposal to Sue. "Stop Galactus, Reed, then ask again!" Post-credits, Doom finally manages to take down a herald - he captures the Silver Surfer! Fantastic Four: Doomsday - the wedding of Reed and Sue, but Doom has just become the most powerful being on Earth. Includes the Baxter Building in space, every villain that can be used vs every hero that can be used, an appearance by the Watcher, and finally once and for all a battle of smarts between Doom and Richards. I'm getting quite a lot of long car journeys these days, so I have to think about something. Quote: I'm curious to see if those FF movie rights will come back to Marvel sooner rather than later. After the horrible flop that was the summer's FF film, I honestly can't come up with an angle that makes them at all valuable to Fox studios any longer, aside from whatever they can get Marvel to give them in exchange for returning them to Disney before the terms of the contracts say they have to. My view with FF films is that you have to go large or go home. Either embrace the Lee/Kirbyness off it right down to the black dots and Willie Lumpkin or don't bother. The FF is tailor-made for feelgood summer adventure movies, so go with it! Quote: Marvel, however, could make use of the parts of the franchise... Using Doom as a villain, having Galactus or the Silver Surfer in a Guardians of the Galaxy film, that kind of thing. I don't see any studio taking another swing at the family itself for a decade or so though. Right now, even Marvel is better keeping its powder dry to offer the full FF experience later rather than chopping the franchise up for parts. Doom is a great villain, but even he is never more than 80% without Richards to hate. Quote: Sorry, kind of a tangent. I really have no idea what Marvel Comics is up to these days. Good to see folks here though! Indeed.

See, the way you lay it out, it certainly sounds like something I would want to see. It really could be its own universe itself, and build to a huge climax much like Marvel is trying to do with the Avengers films.

Sadly, I just don't see any studio being willing to invest what it would take to make them after the struggles they've had so far. I agree that it's all better as a whole, but I think rehabilitation will probably be required and proving the viability of the characters in some safer bet might be the only path that legitimately leads to the franchise's return to the big screen. Still, maybe Disney will want a big comic adventure in 2030... Assuming they don't just make "Incredibles 3" that year.

I definitely agree that it's a property that requires one to fully embrace the "fantastic" side of it all. Sadly, the script for the latest film originally had much more of that, from what I read. In the original treatment of what would ultimately become this summer's flop (I haven't seen it, I should add), the characters travel to the Negative Zone to harness a power they've somehow discovered there, only to find that the source of it is Galactus. His power cosmic changes them as they flee back through the portal, though Doom is left behind. When the second to third acts roll around, Doom has apparently returned, overthrowing his home nation of Latveria and launching attacks on various high-tech targets... One of which is the Baxter Building where some Moloid project is altered as a distraction, leading to the big FF #1 cover image fight with the monster in the city streets. Eventually, the FF take the fight to Doom where he is assembling a massive weapon and they defeat him, only to find that it's not the "real" Doom... He's still trapped in the Negative Zone where he's now a herald of Galactus, able to project Doombot energy constructs back on Earth. He promised to lead Galactus to Earth in order to get himself home again, but he planned to kill Galactus himself once they arrived and had been doing all of the raids to gather the resources necessary to do so. So it would end with the FF having saved whatever locals were endangered by his attempts, but they had now seemingly doomed the Earth to be devoured by Galactus in the sequel.

From what I gather, the studio decided that it all sounded very expensive, and thought "what if we made it really, really grounded and focused most of the movie on the team dealing with getting their powers (from featureless energy) instead? And apparently they shot it all in somebody's basement.