These Forgotten Fantastic Four Villains Need to Join the MCU

[[{“value”:”

The Fantastic Four were Marvel’s first big step into the world of an interconnected universe of superheroes and their stories. Often called Marvel’s First Family, their reputation, alongside Spider-Man, as the characters that put Marvel on the map is well-deserved. While the Fantastic Four has never really gotten a chance to shine in their full glory in live action, that hasn’t stopped their comic book counterparts from constantly embarking on exciting adventures, wonderfully small-scale characters arcs, and bombastic science fiction thrill rides.

The team has been consistently popular since their inception in the early 1960s, and while that popularity has rarely extended past their home medium, it doesn’t take away from the fact that they are among Marvel’s most iconic heroes. For every group of iconic heroes, there must also be a group of iconic villains. No hero can be truly iconic without at least a few iconic villains, and the Fantastic Four have iconic villains to spare. From the likes of Doctor Doom, Galactus, Mole Man, and the Maker, to lesser known foes like the quartet of villains known as the Frightful Four — a devious group of supervillains banded together in the hopes of overcoming the Fantastic Four once and for all.

The Frightful Four Matches The 60s Aesthetic of the MCU Fantastic Four

The Supervillain Team Would Fit Perfectly In the Retro Futuristic Realm of the New Fantastic Four Film

With The Fantastic Four: First Steps on the horizon, fans have gradually gotten a glimpse of what to expect from the film and its take on characters like Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, and Johnny Storm, along with some of their key supporting cast. The new Fantastic Four film appears to be intentionally departing from the standard Marvel Cinematic Universe style and is embracing a more distinctive, 60s-inspired aesthetic instead. This choice is a breath of fresh air for fans who have been hoping for a more faithful and exciting interpretation of Marvel’s First Family, and it seems the MCU might finally deliver the Fantastic Four film fans have been hoping for.

With the 1960s-esque styling and retro-futuristic feel of the marketing material released for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it would make absolutely perfect sense for some of the Fantastic Four’s goofier, more comic-booky villains to appear in some capacity in this new MCU Fantastic Four world. Characters like Red Ghost and his Super Apes, Puppet Master, or Hate-Monger could all fit well within the type of world being established for the Fantastic Four to inhabit, and perhaps one of the most definitive groups of enemies for the team to face off against is the Frightful Four, a villain team made up of a rotating roster of enemies of the FF.

The Frightful Four, though constantly rotating team members, is usually led by Bentley Wittman, aka the Wizard, one of the Fantastic Four’s most iconic foes. Wittman is an evil genius with an intellect high enough to design terrifying devices and traps to use against enemies like the Fantastic Four. His inventions include devices that allow him to fly, as well as anti-gravity disks that he uses against his foes to send them flying helplessly into the air.

The other original members of the Frightful Four were the Spider-Man villain Sandman, the C-list street-level crook known as Paste Pot Pete, or later the Trapster, and the Inhuman queen Medusa, though Medusa would betray the Frightful Four in their second appearance and join forces with the Fantastic Four to take on the supervillains. The team matches the aesthetic of the new Fantastic Four universe that the MCU is developing, and it would be a missed opportunity to not at least include them in some way.

The Frightful Four’s Rotating Roster Makes Them a Versatile Team of Foes

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Could Use The Frightful Four In Many Ways

Unfortunately, the Marvel Cinematic Universe tends to not really show its heroes simply stopping bank robberies or other small crimes. Their stories tend to be galactically scaled or uber-specific in nature, which leaves very little room for smaller villains to appear. Something that fans love so much about long-form, serialized comic book stories is the fact that there is enough time to show characters like Spider-Man stopping any of his D-list villains before moving on to the “main event” against one of his bigger foes. This is a place where superhero television shows actually have the leg up on movies, as they can allow their heroes to fight more villains on a more consistent basis — allowing for tons of fun and funny characters to be included in the series.

The Frightful Four is the perfect team for the Fantastic Four to face off against early in a film before they take on a larger threat like Galactus or Doctor Doom. Not everything has to be world-threatening in superhero storytelling, and that is something that modern comic book movie creators seem to sometimes forget. Fans want to see small-stakes showdowns in the streets of New York City. They want to see Spider-Man web up the Scorpion before getting caught up in a showdown with the Green Goblin. They want to see Captain America stopping a bank heist perpetrated by the Serpent Society before uncovering a conspiracy by the Red Skull, and they want to see the Fantastic Four clobbering the goofy Paste Pot Pete and Wizard.

Sveral secondary characters have joined the Frightful Four over the years. From Hydro-Man, Thundra, and Titania, to Klaw, Red Ghost, or even Electro, the Frightful Four has been stacked to the brim with some of the Marvel Universe’s most well-regarded but often forgotten supervillains. Whether the MCU version of the team would want to embrace the silliness and keep members like Paste Pot Pete or Red Ghost, or go with a more threatening, serious version with characters like Klaw and Wizard, there’s precedent for any version of the team. There’s so much to mine from the original source material, and with the direction The Fantastic Four: First Steps is taking, it seems that the creatives behind the film are sincerely trying to pay homage to the iconic Marvel team as much as possible.

The MCU Needs More Supervillain Teams

It Would Be Great to See Villain Teams Like the Frightful Four In the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is home to plenty of heroes that have joined teams, most notably The Advengers. Teams of heroes seem to be far more common in the MCU than teams of villains, and that is something that The Fantastic Four: First Steps could remedy. Teams of supervillains are some of the most fun, compelling things in comic books, and they are so rarely utilized outside the comic book medium. They have certainly appeared more in animated series like Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Spectacular Spider-Man, and X-Men ’97, but in live-action, villain teams are extremely rare. Hopefully, the new Thunderbolts film can at least partially help remedy this fact, but the Frightful Four appearing somewhere in the MCU would cement it even more.

Supervillains are inherently traitorous, selfish characters, and putting them together in groups that must work together for a common goal is a recipe for hilarity, as well as interpersonal conflict. One of the best aspects of the comic book version of the Frightful Four is just how often they are undone by their own doing rather than by the Fantastic Four themselves. So often, a member of the team betrays the other three, one character lashes out in foolish anger and throws their plans into chaos, or they all simply bicker too much to be a real threat to the Fantastic Four. It’s classic, sturdy comic book storytelling and it’s something that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is sorely missing.

Bringing the Frightful Four into the MCU could be the perfect way of introducing smaller characters that would never get the chance to be the lead villain of any project on their own. Appearances from characters like Batroc the Leaper in Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Crossbones in Captain America: Civil War are breaths of fresh air for comic book fans, as they clearly show a reverence and understanding for the source material, but these kinds of lesser-known villain appearances are so few and far between that they almost feel non-existent.

Not every villain needs to be plotting to take the throne of Asgard or rewrite reality in their own image. Sometimes a character just wants to use their paste gun to rob a bank and get revenge on the Human Torch and his teammates. Villains are sometimes quite simple in their motivations, and the Frightful Four are the perfect example of that.

“}]] The Fantastic Four have some of Marvel’s very best villains, and the Frightful Four, the evil counterpart team to the FF, are among their best foes.  Read More