The Fantastic Four (1994) - Because You Watched Starcrash

“That’s for trying to kill me! That’s for trying to kill my friends! And that’s for being a real jerk!”

The Distinguished Professors endure cosmic ray bombardment through laughably-absent safety measures to watch Roger Corman’s copywrite-maintaining placeholder, The Fantastic Four! Topics include the squareness of the Fantastic Four comics in the 1980s and 1990s, the role of the FF in starting the mighty Marvel superteams, the FF as adventurers and not crime-fighters or world protectors, the weakness of Dr. Doom in all of the FF movies, Dr. Doom and his ridiculous hand-acting, the arbitrary nature of Reed and Ben’s relationship with the Storms, doing Mole Man without Mole Man, the weirdness of young Sue and slightly less-old Reed’s relationship, expert/ fanboy blind spots, parallels with Batman v. Superman, still not as big of a failure as Supergirl, Clink’s hatred for plasticity powers (he left out Flatman of the Great Lakes Avengers!), Reed’s real power set, the superiority of the Michael Chiklis Thing, Doom needs to be sent to HR, the strange proportions of the Thing suit, issues with the 2005 FF movie, lurving laughing and loving, the OP nature of the Silver Surfer and Galactus, some love for Jack Kirby and the Thing’s mighty brow, the immense dumbness of outflying a laser, and a shoutout to MF Doom (RIP)!