Fifty Years Ago Today... (Fantastic Four discussion)

[Skellington]

An IO9 article on the X-Men earlier this year compressed their 48-year history into a 16-year soap opera, ostensibly using the one-to-three ratio mentioned by Stan Lee in the sixties. Applying that to Valeria makes her 3, while Franklin should be 14 (but then he was only 6 during Onslaught, which would make him about 11 now or about 8 1/2 if you use a one-to-five ratio starting with 1968). Val has lately been written as a super-intelligent but very young child.

I used to always think that a one-to-four or one-to-five ratio applied, which would make the FF about ten years old. Come to think of it, I think Stan Lee or someone else mentioned in 1991 that although the FF had a 30-year history they had been together in-universe for much less than 10 years.

The one-to-three ratio may have been hinted at a few years ago with the Hulk and the Thing. I think that this was concurrent with Bruce Jones' Hulk run. Ben and Bruce meet in a bar and discuss their first meeting, which is referred to as being (about?) 15 years previously.

Re. Alias: It was a MAX title from 2001 to 2004. Arguably its run within the MU is all that should be recognised for the purpose of establishing Marvel Time.

 

[Mr Light]

Oh man, I forgot about Franklin.

I thought Valeria had been born a LOT earlier than that, like the 80s or something. I'm not very up on past FF issues

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well, IIRC, she was conceived in the 80s...

 

[Skellington]

^ Reality was restructured or something, so there was no years-long pregnancy for Sue. She just became heavily pregnant all of a sudden. The storyline apparently also involved Val's conception being dragged forward in time.

 

[Turtletrekker]

^But Val is the baby conceived during the Byrne run, right? The baby that was believed to have been miscarried?

 

[Skellington]

^ Okay, time for some nonsense from Val's Wikipedia entry:

While Chris Claremont intended to resolve the storyline, he never got the chance, as Jeph Loeb and Carlos Pacheco took over Fantastic Four and brought Valeria back into the title, changing the character's origins. She was revealed to be the second, unborn child of Reed and Sue Richards, whom Sue had seemingly miscarried years before,[1] and who had originally been named Valerie Meghan Richards.[2] Under the guidance of Roma, Franklin had used his powers to save the child, who was taken by Roma, who knew that the girl would serve a great purpose in the future. In the comics themselves, Roma professed to have cared for the girl, but the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe took the opportunity to tie up some loose ends by claiming that Valeria was actually raised in an alternate future as the daughter of Doom and Sue. Loeb and Pacheco brought Valeria back into the book as the FF went up against the cosmic menace of Abraxas, and Valeria fulfilled her purpose by merging her powers with Franklin and reconstituting Galactus to stop Abraxas. In the restructuring of reality that ensued, Valeria was regressed to a fetus within Sue's womb once again, on the cusp of being born.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Wow. Way too convoluted. But it's always fun trying to calculate what the ages and relationships and histories are at any given time. Especially when some characters, like Franklin, grow older and younger arbitrarily over the years (he was portrayed as nearly a teenager during the Thomas years and so, but was regressed to about four during the Byrne run). Up until the end of the 1970s, it was possible to imagine that events were still occurring in real time (I don't suppose that Reed and Ben's WWII service is ever still mentioned); imagine what the characters would be like if that were still true.

 

[Saga]

eh, not as convoluted as Cable or Wolverine.

 

[Saga]

eh, not as convoluted as Cable or Wolverine.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Cable is dead, and Wolverin is close to two hundred years old, and he's got centuries left in him (conceivably?) until his great great granddaughter Rancor kills him and them starts frakking with the Guardians of the Galaxy... "If there's one thing my great great grandfather taught me is "patience". There's no need to fight an enemy head on when you can just wait them out until they die of old age."

 

[Admiral_Young]

Cable is returning in November Guy

 

[Guy Gardener]

Cable is returning in November Guy

So what you're saying, what you're really saying is that right now, right now, is that I am right, that I am right and anyone who disagrees with me is a fool and a communist?

Thank you, I appreciate the love.

 

[Myasishchev]

Wow. Way too convoluted. But it's always fun trying to calculate what the ages and relationships and histories are at any given time. Especially when some characters, like Franklin, grow older and younger arbitrarily over the years (he was portrayed as nearly a teenager during the Thomas years and so, but was regressed to about four during the Byrne run). Up until the end of the 1970s, it was possible to imagine that events were still occurring in real time (I don't suppose that Reed and Ben's WWII service is ever still mentioned); imagine what the characters would be like if that were still true.

I always though a weird but maybe borderline possible solution to that shit was to make it so Reed Richards was actually useful for once, and invented anti-aging drugs, which instead of stockpiling in his skyscraper fortress, he actually permitted people to purchase in exchange for money.

Of course, it doesn't explain horrors like Franklin's age.Yet, for the specific case , Franklin's powers could explain Franklin's age. At some point his parents have got to explain to him that six, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life. Also, that Rachel Summers, the hottest future woman there is, is not likely to put out for a first grader.

And then he'll wish them into the corn field.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You mean like Nick Fury's Infinity Formula which they just dosed Mocking Bird with? Well, a hybrid of the Infinity Formula and the Super Soldier Serum. Bobbie has just been raised up about 15 weight classes, not that any one who can survive (although she didn't if you count the Skrull.) a marriage to Clint Barton can be thought of as a pushover.

...

When Bobbie finds out about Clint and Jessica, she's going to need some revenge sex... Which means that Peter is going to have to ask permission "hey, Hawkeye, um Clint, is it okay if your exwife uses my body to get back at you?"

Sure she wouldn't go there normally, but this is how women piss off men after a heady breakup, by screwing though their friends. Men on the other hand arn't trying to hurt their wives or exwives when they screw through their wives friends. It's just something to do between sports on TV.

 

[Myasishchev]

Sure she wouldn't go there normally, but this is how women piss off men after a heady breakup, by screwing though their friends.

Yes. I know. <_<

But yeah, now that you mention it, why isn't the Infinity Formula widely distributed?

 

[Skellington]

^ The same question applies to a lot of Marvel Universe tech, eg Unstable Molecules, the Fantasticar etc. But yeah, longevity would be one of the more obvious ones. The point has been made about Wolverine that a lot of time woul;d be spent trying to analyze and replicate his healing ability, too.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Myasishchev, you should try watching the current Torchwood Miniseries which is dealing with the fallout of everyone on the planet suddenly being made immortal and undying after an unknown ineffiable event changed everyone.

The world just isn't big enough if the hoi polloi ate forever.

Scrawny, a while back, not that I read it, but there was a miniseries called Fantastic Four Big Town, which postulated a world where Reed and Doom masspruduced and distrubuted al their technology to the world at large.

 

[Skellington]

Yes, I heard of that too but also never read it.

 

[Turtletrekker]

FF panel from Fan Expo Toronto...

Some interesting tidbits...

...the writer (Hickman) jumped directly into the thick of the discussion, saying that rebranding the Fantastic Four wasn't really his plan when he took over the title.

"Steve came on and book sales kind of jumped up. Then we had this big event with Johnny dying," Hickman said. "Marketing saw a chance to rebrand the book, and so we decided to make a little bit more money and get a few more readers. It worked."

Hickman told the crowd that She-Hulk will be appearing in "FF" #10 and will be staying on for about six or seven issues. He also revealed that he "absolutely" has character deaths planned, but wouldn't reveal any details.

Also, comments from former Marvel artist Marko Djurdjevic, designer of the FF costumes, about his former working relationship with Marvel. He apparently had a particular dislike of JMS' work...

Asked by Epting if he wished he did more interior work while with Marvel, Djurdjevic replied, "They never put me with any writers that I liked," before launching into a tirade about Marvel and ripping into writer J. Michael Straczynski, whom he said writes "like toilet paper."

I'm not exactly a huge fan of JMS myself. Didn't care for his Fantastic Four or his Spider-Man. On the other hand, I liked his Thor and he did produce three incredible season of Babylon 5 (S2-4. S1 was OK, S5, baaaad). These comments (and others) seem very unprofessional to me. I hope his other projects work out for him, because I doubt he'll be working for Marvel again any time soon.

 

[Myasishchev]

Myasishchev, you should try watching the current Torchwood Miniseries which is dealing with the fallout of everyone on the planet suddenly being made immortal and undying after an unknown ineffiable event changed everyone.

Heck one of these days, I need to actually watch Doctor Who. Any of it. I've literally never seen an episode. People seem to like it, though.