Fantastic Four/FF #1 interview and details

[kevinroc]

Matt Fraction has given an interview for Newsarama about his upcoming run on Fantastic Four and FF.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/marvel-now-matt-fraction-fantastic-four-ff.html

Nrama: So at the start of Fantastic Four the main four, plus Franklin and Valeria, are essentially off the board, exploring time and space?

Fraction: Yeah, that's the big story. And the gag is, it's like a space-time machine, so they should be able to come back in four minutes, and it'll have been a year for them. So they'll have this grand family adventure for a year, and it'll be four minutes for us on Earth, because that's how long it takes to allow for a safe passage. But they don't come back.

In Fantastic Four we deal with, what happens on this family adventure? What cool stuff happens? And, over the macro arc, why don't they come back at the end of the year? In FF, we deal with these people who are picked to be a replacement Fantastic Four in case of a force majeure or a hand of god kind of catastrophic accident, which clearly has happened. It's one thing to say to your friends, "Oh, sure, sure, if anything happens, I'll take care of your kids." It's another thing for something to actually happen and then you have to take care of the kids. We've got this new Fantastic Four/Future Foundation, and the kids are still in the book.

Nrama: Right, people were curious about that.

Fraction: I just didn't know how to explain that for USA Today in a way that would make sense. Don't worry — they're sticking around.

- -

Nrama: How important is it that the gender balance in FF is switched from the original team, with three females and one male?

Fraction: It's important. It's all deliberate. It's an inversion of stuff. Everything you think, yes, I thought. [Laughs.] As the father of a daughter, that kind of stuff, it's important to me. Sue got a bad rap for an awful long time in the Fantastic Four, so a chance to kind of claw at some karma from the other column is welcome.

And it fits with the theme of that book, which is orphans, and building a family out of what you've got, rather than what you were given. A maternal presence is important in that book, parental presence is important — aside from all the kids at the Future Foundation, with where Scott Lang is, and what he's up to, and what he's going through.

Nrama: And what he's going through will directly involve Doctor Doom, given what happened in Avengers: The Children's Crusade, right?

Fraction: Yeah. Doom killed Scott's daughter. There's no other way to put it, there's no other way to phrase it, there's no skirting around the issue. Because of his actions, Doctor Doom killed Cassie Lang. What this book is going to be about is Scott and his replacement Four, and the Future Foundation, aiming their resources right at Doctor Doom. The premise he presents to the Future Foundation is "End Doom." And not just kill him, but eliminate him from human memory. That would be worse for Doom than dying. And that's the payback that Scott ultimately wants.

This is their macro arc, this is their reason to being, this is their constant through line: "Let's remove Doom from the equation of life on Earth, and see what happens." But concurrent to that, every FF villain that ever was comes out of the woodwork, gunning for these imposters, thinking now's their time to take their shot. So you've got these people who have not been the Fantastic Four longer than 10 minutes having to fight off all of the latest and greatest versions of the characters you know and love the most. Whereas Fantastic Four is constant new stuff and new places we've not been before, FF is the greatest hits performed by a brand-new band.







(We'll need a tag for the girl in the Thing costume.)
 

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Comments

[protogarrett]

Who is the girl in the thing suit?

And why do writers feel we always need to be tempted with new characters?

[kevinroc]

She's a new character created for the series. Each member of the Fantastic Four picked someone to stand in for them while they went on their trip. Reed asked Scott, Sue asked Medusa, Ben asked Jen and Johnny asked the girl he was with the night before.

[protogarrett]

He asked a hookup to be a superhero? And the rest of the team will somehow through what I assume is a shared aneurysm all agreed to this brillant idea instead of asking any number of more qualified, more trustworthy...

Ah, you know what? Never mind.

[darkknightjrk]

Well, for the F4, the idea with their trip is that while it will take a year for them, it will take about four minutes in real time, so while they got some extra help just in case anything went wrong, they don't think it will take that long.

[theflames]

I know right, why don't they just utilise old under used characters and spin them in a creative way? Worked perfectly for NextWave.

[hyperactivator]

They needed a gateway character. Someone new to ask all the questions like " Who's the crazy guy shooting glue at us?".

Also the Thing costume is an old relic from past story lines where Ben loses his powers.

[theflames]

I imagine there's still alot of characters who could fill that gap... and even then, in this case they don't need a gateway character. Everything these characters face in the new Fantastic Four book will be fairly new to them, since they're facing FFs rouges/situations so any character can deliver some exposition really.

[whoha]

Proto, please, tell me you're being sarcastic.

[protogarrett]

*headdesk*

[whoha]

It's all right. It's cool if Miss Thing isn't your thing.

[jlroberson]

I'm sorry, but that REALLY IS a very Johnny thing to do. I'm cool with it.

[leoboiko]

The one thing in my mind is whether Cosplay Girl’s costume comes with all… fully-functioning… parts. (because if it does I’m utterly O.K. with it!)

[auggie18]

I want to see Scott in the damsel role that early!Sue had so bad. Gettin' kidnapped every twenty seconds, having to deal with villains falling in love with him, reduced to fighting mooks while the rest of the team takes on the real baddies...


Oh yeah, I am so up for this.

[hyperactivator]

I want to see him in a jar or clutched in someone's fist.

[lalalei2001]

Her superhero name is Miss Thing, I think.

[stolisomancer]

Well, if you were complaining about how angry people tend to look on comic book covers, check this out. Everyone seems to be having a pretty good time.

[silverhammerman]

Someone on Comics Alliance pointed out that Scott looks almost bashful, like, "Aw shucks, thanks for buying the book."
And now I can't stop seeing it.

[flint_marko]

Was the stuff with Doom from FF ever followed up upon?

[silverhammerman]

I like the sound of this.
I don't know about the whole "get rid of Doctor Doom" thing, since it's been tried before and never takes because Doom is awesome-sauce, but I guess it means that we'll get to see Mike Allred draw a Doctor Doom centric story, so I'll let it go.
I really don't know about Miss Thing though, I mean, her getting put on the team because she hooked up with Johnny and happened to be present when they went on the trip seems a bit thin, and I really do feel like she's so self-consciously weird that writers after Fraction might not take an interest in her. Sort of the same situation we get every time a writer introduces a new class of X-students.

[kevinroc]

I think that's the real bummer of this. Scott's retribution for Cassie's death is doomed to fail.

And it's not like this is a minor plot point since Fraction called it the "macro arc" of his FF run.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

I think that's the real bummer of this. Scott's retribution for Cassie's death is doomed to fail.

I dunno. Maybe marvel are planning to retire him for a few years, before bringing him back for some undoubtedly well written and interesting "event" which will totally not suck donkey colon

Well, I guess retiring is at least a possibility. They doing that with the daleks next week

Or maybe they will just be lazy and have doom resurrect Cassie at the last moment and restore all involved back to the status quo

Weirder and more inane things involving doom have happened

[kevinroc]

I dunno. Maybe marvel are planning to retire him for a few years, before bringing him back for some undoubtedly well written and interesting "event" which will totally not suck donkey colon

Well, I guess retiring is at least a possibility. They doing that with the daleks next week

Or maybe they will just be lazy and have doom resurrect Cassie at the last moment and restore all involved back to the status quo

Weirder and more inane things involving doom have happened

Retiring Doom for a little bit still strikes me as "doomed to fail" since Scott's goal is to "End Doom." A temporary victory isn't really a victory when Scott's goal is to eliminate him from human memory.

As far as resurrecting Cassie. That's a possible endgame to this scenario that doesn't make it seem like the FF totally failed. Of course I think Marvel wants Cassie to remain dead for awhile before a return but who knows.

As far as a resurrected Cassie just returning to the status quo, Fraction's always found a few ways around that in the past when he brought characters back. Kitty (who wasn't dead but might as well have been considering where Joss Whedon left her) was stuck phased for awhile. Loki is still a child after his own resurrection.

[icon_uk]

I like the idea that klling Doom isn't enough, he wants to wipe him from memory, Doom would HAVE to view that as a fate WORSE that death.

[terrykun]

More and more irritated that we can't get any solicit or cover images of FF that actually include the kids. -__-

[whoha]

I'm guessing they don't want to spoil what happens to them at the end of hickman's run.

[nomadicwriter]

Yeah, it's been mentioned that they're still included, but it seems very much like they've been pushed in the background to make the book all about a new team of four doing Fantastic 4-esque stuff. (Which is the old, tried, tested and repeatedly failed formula for F4 spin-offs that Hickman originally avoided to do something interesting and different with FF.) I do very much appreciate the inverted gender ratio, though, and I love She-Hulk, so I hope this defies my pessimism and does well.

And I'm willing to be cautiously optimistic about the Doctor Doom plot, but it sounds very much like the awesome Parliament of Dooms setup that Hickman left us with is going to be hurriedly rushed through to get to the plot Fraction wants. :/ I just hope the awesome Uncle Doom relationship between Doom and Valeria isn't lost.

[thanekos]

Oh time-traveling Kristoff, if only you'd gone to this New Four with your proposal!

(And it's interesting to hear that Scott's intent is a little more final. At least, not of the kind that should really have someone taking him aside, " No seriously, don't do this, this never ends well when people try it.. ")

[curlyjo1]

Hey, Marvel! I'll buy this series if you bring Cassie back!

[kevinroc]

Creators always talk about the core of a character. And it's something important to note.

What is the core of Scott Lang's character? What is his origin and motivation?

And the answer is "Cassie." He became Ant-Man to save Cassie. That is the core of his character.

This is the main reason Cassie eventually has to make a return. If she doesn't, Scott himself is broken as a character.

[ensiform]

That's generally true, except, you know, comics. Every once in a while, Uncle Ben returns.

[blackruzsa]

I almost forgot that. Scott is Scott because he loves his daughter, and his heroism comes from wanting to make his daughter proud. And while I sometimes find it uncomfortable to see characters who are defined by their devotion to another person, I also find it sweet and meaningful if done right.

[blackruzsa]

Scott has such a moe pose in the last picture. You couldn't tell with just one look that he's the only guy in the team.

BUT PAST THAT, I've never been a reader of FF so I'm not one to judge, but this looks like it might be good. Or, at least, not disastrously bad. And I like Fraction's writing, so...

I'm also glad they're pursuing what happened to Cassie ): Not glad it happened, but that they're not forgetting.

[philippos42]

Looks like Scott Lang and three bruisers. Actually, I thought Medusa was Shary (Ben's ex) at first, which made it even stranger.