With a film adaptation of The Avengers on the way Marvel Studios has recently been making a conscious effort to link all of their franchise to one another so that they’ll appear to exist in the same “universe”.  This way the idea of them all converging in The Avengers movie won’t be so far-fetched.  Many of Marvel’s comic-come-movie characters are planned to participate in The Avenger’s film including Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, so on and so forth.  One Marvel franchise, however, has been shoved aside.  Stowed away beneath the stairs like Harry Potter (who actually may be rejoining quite soon the way those Twilight brats are beatin’ up the box office).  The franchise of which I speak is the Fantastic Four.

To answer your first question:  yes, I too would pretend that the Fantastic Four movies never happened if I were responsible for them.  But I don’t think it’s the fact that Marvel is ashamed of the Fab Four.  No, it’s not that at all.  The problem I think is that they’re having trouble finding responsibilities for these heroes within the group.  You see, even since the days when Marvel characters were limited to immobile illustrations, I always thought the Fantastic Four was pretty g-d useless.  All they’ve ever really been is a group comprised of cheap rip-offs of other famed Marvel characters.  Below I’ve comprised a detailed analysis of why the Fantastic Four, member-by-member, has been omitted from The Avengers movie…

Team Member:  The Thing
Who He’s Exactly Like: The Hulk (Umm… no shit)
Why he doesn’t deserve to be an Avenger:  The Thing is literally The Hulk with one exception – The Hulk can’t talk when he’s all beefed up which makes him about eight-trillion times less of a whiny bitch than The Thing.  The Thing spent the entirety of the Fantastic Four movie and its sequel complaining more about his dissipated “good looks” (honestly dude, you were played Michael Chiklis – trust me, you’re better off as a rock person) instead of tending to his primary concern – that “clobberin’ time” was in full effect.  The Hulk?  Well he’s a man of simple pleasures:  inaudible grunts and massive destruction of public property.  If we need an emergency guest on the Dr. Phil show, we’ll give The Thing a ring.  But last time I checked The Avengers needed some muscle to fight evildoers.  Advantage:  Hulk.

Team Member:  Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch)
Who He’s Exactly Like:  Tony Stark (aka Iron Man)
Why he doesn’t deserve to be an Avenger:  The Human Torch does a combination of two things:  flies around and lights on fire.  Johnny Storm does one thing:  macks it with the ladies.  Tony Stark/Iron Man does three things:  all of the above a whole lot better.  So the Torch flies and ignites… pretty cool - except for the fact that old Johnny-Boy couldn’t figure out how the hell to control his powers by the end of the second film.  It took Tony Stark a one-minute cross-continental flying sequence to hone his to perfection in Iron Man.  I’m also much more trusting of technology than a freak ability you inherited after being dumb enough to fly your spacecraft straight into the middle of the Perfect Storm – if the Perfect Storm was infallible and happened on the outskirts of the galaxy.  Johnny Storm prefers to use his heat-oriented powers to melt stuff, Tony Stark prefers to blow shit up and never have to deal with it again.  If only he was around during the end of the first film when The Torch “took down” Victor Von Doom – then we may not have been forced to sit through Rise of the Silver Surfer.  As mentioned above, there’s also the matter of both Tony Stark and Johnny Storm being ladies men.  The problem is that Johnny Storm sucks at that too.  Storm is reduced to hitting on tight-up “female” Plain Jane military officers who want about as much to do with him sexually as Ellen Degenres does George Clooney.  Tony Stark is witty, charismatic, brilliant, and can remove Leslie Bibb’s panties with his mind.  Advantage:  Iron Man.

Team Member:  Mr. Fantastic
Who He’s Exactly Like:  Spiderman
Why he doesn’t deserve to be an Avenger:  While Spiderman isn’t exactly a member of The Avengers, there’s good reason for his non-participation – he’s cleaning up the messes Reed Richards and his crew of flunkies are leaving all over New York City.  If there’s one thing you’re aware of after watching a Fantastic Four movie, its that the Four have no f**king clue how to defeat evil without completely leveling sixteen city blocks and killing two hundred civilians.  Seeing as New York is also Spidey’s hometown, that probably keeps him pretty busy with rescue and relief duties 364 days of the year.  Mr. Fantastic is technically the brains behind the Fantastic Four operation – which should be an excuse for his fantastic-ly lame superpower:  being really stretchy.  The problem is that Reed has to physically stretch to his target and wastes a lot of time getting from here to there.  Spiderman can stretch long distances without actually ever going anywhere – all he has to do is take three milliseconds of his time to shoot a web and he can save a falling baby, swing from here to there, or tie down a villain – without actually ever going anywhere.  With the word “superhero” being thrown away on guys like Mr. Fantastic, Gumby might consider moving to NYC and starting a career in crime fighting.  Spiderman spends his films fighting multiple villains by HIMSELF.  Mr. Fantastic can’t handle a guy he’s been dealing with for the last twenty years with a team of four people.  For shame…  Advantage:  Spiderman.

Team Member:  The Invisible Woman
Who She’s Exactly Like:  A rock
Why she doesn’t deserve to be an Avenger:  Firstly, she’s girl and, to me, the Avengers has always been about dude-love – kind of like the Little Rascals’ clubhouse.  Secondly, and probably much more relevant, she’s f**kin’ worthless.  While Invisi-Girl’s powers are pretty palpable (or not at all considering you can’t see her when she’s on), they’re also incredibly lame and unfathomably useless.  When could being invisible come in handy during crime fighting?  To sneak up on someone?  To gain access into a super-secret area?  Yeah, it’s pretty much never useless out of those boundaries.  The Avengers spend their time fighting REAL villains - not ones you can stop by sneaking into a lab or sneak up upon and knock unconscious while they’re snatching a purse.  The Avengers are in need of some cheerleaders though – maybe Suzie Q could do that… Hmmm, but we’re talking a pretty freakin’ spirited inanimate hunk of sedimentary materials.  Advantage:  Rock.

So if you didn’t know it before – now you do.  The Fantastic Four are pretty much about as useful as a trampoline in an old folk’s home.  Now we can just hope that the Four’s exclusion from The Avengers results in no more Fantastic movies (which I say in a wholly ironic manner).  Until next time, Happy Holidays and stay scared.