Just my 2 cents.
I love SPIDERMAN... I love the FANTASTIC FOUR... These are irreplaceable characters and franchises.
I'm (cough cough) a little older than most fans, but I grew up with the original stories for these characters in my brain. Though some elements seem dated now, the essential charm of each book and each character has stayed with me my whole life.
For COSMIC superhero stories, there is no alternative: the FANTASTIC FOUR is the original. Stan Lee and Kirby at the height of their powers. It was, and is, great stuff. Galactus. The Negative Zone. Doctor Doom. The Mole Man. Sub Mariner's reawakening. This Man, This Monster. Fantastic concepts, worthy of the name.
And SPIDERMAN... Lee and Ditko, Romita and Conway. The earnest, original nerd, the loser, the non-stop soap opera drama, the internal narrative we all had, in a way, in our heads as teens... And the stories... Green Goblin. Vulture. Doc Ock. The Lizard. The deaths of the Staceys. The Osbornes... On and on. The debt of modern superhero comics to these stories is impossible to calculate. It's why we're here!
And I'll be honest. I've read almost nothing of the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. I've read some of the very early ANTMAN, and a little of irredeemable ANTMAN.... But I can't help but feel that MARVEL is turning their back on SPIDERMAN and the FANTASTIC FOUR... The very characters that BUILT Marvel.
Now, I know getting the movie rights to these characters back would be expensive. I understand that this will NEVER happen.... But to develop these *other* characters cinematically as their seeming replacements does the originals a great disservice!
Look at IRON MAN. We love that first movie! It's great, and Robert Downey Jr. and the script made that whole franchise fresh and fun in a way that most of us would never have expected. But does someone want to tell me what kind of a world we're living in where the movie IRON MAN is funnier and more likeable than the movie SPIDERMAN?
And this gets to the heart of the matter. The movies matter. They are seen by far more people than read the comics. Their success shapes the future of the comics themselves. And both SPIDERMAN and the FANTASTIC FOUR *deserve* *better*!
And again, I know that the movie rights will not be regained...
But what about TV?
Nobody really cares about a SHIELD series. Not as much as they would for a live-action SPIDERMAN series set in the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE.
And the FANTASTIC FOUR.... If the Marvel cinematic universe should have begun with ANY movie... If the cinematic universe honoured the cornerstone of the comics empire at all... In lieu of the lost movie rights, there would be *NO* SHIELD TV series, with characters 99.9 % of the public doesn't care about....
There would be a FANTASTIC FOUR live-action series... A series that fills in the missing history of the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE by honouring the comic that made it all possible!
And SPIDERMAN.... I want a modern-day, episodic, 'not waiting 2 years to see the next episode treatment' of that character! Spiderman, swinging through the streets of New York alongside the heroes in the SHARED Marvel universe!
We all want that... And it's possible - isn't it? Maybe I'm uninformed. I've searched the web, trying to find out with clarity... But from what I can tell, MARVEL could make these live-action shows, tied to their shared universe, and there's nothing to stop them....
MARVEL, if this is true - if you have the rights - give us the geektastic, ongoing, week-to-week phenomenon that Marvel had back in the early sixties and seventies - give us *that* *on our television screens!* Push the epic event of creating a shared cinematic universe even further by extending the empire to television with characters that people will *really* care about... Not some nameless 'BUFFY meets ALIAS' non-event, but the heroes we know - and love! - on our screens, culminating and concluding in movie events the like of which we've never imagined!
I know it can be done! These characters have paid for the mortgages, the cars, the vacation homes and groceries of Marvel employees for decades.... Please give them their due!
Sincerely, a Marvel fan.
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