Ok so the setup is I have not been watching recent media of the last half decade or so but the dog in superman along with some reviews got me thinking about grabbing it once its available digitally. However I recently found out some of my neighbors are geeky and one is into comics as the main thing and they both recommended FF4 (editing this to say that is supposed to be fantastic four and I don’t know what I was thinking. fantasctic four 4. lol. sorry. boy would have saved me a lot just to write it properly to begin with) and thunderbolts over superman. They felt superman was alright and the dog was sorta the best part but FF4 and thunderbolts blew them away. So for lemmikins and other members of the federation who have seen all three movies. How do you feel about them or rank them or whatever you think it right but you should have watched all three in their entirety.
So I’m a giant comic book nerd [email protected] says hello! and I’ve seen all three PLUS Captain America: Brave New World.
Here’s what I think:
Superman has a level of optimism that the others lack. Supes is, inherently, a good person who wants to do good. It’s hard not to like him. Yes, Krypto is excellent, but the stand out side-character is Mister Teriffic. I never thought I’d see the day where a movie had a live action Mister Teriffic. (Yes, he was in the CW TV shows, no, I don’t count that.)
Fantastic Four is VERY good. It carries with it this impending sense of DOOM throughout though. It’s also the shortest of the four movies at 1 hour, 55 minutes vs. 2 hours, 10 minutes for Superman, 2 hours, 6 minutes for Thunderbolts* and 1 hour, 58 minutes for Cap.
FF really needed an extra 10-20 minutes to flesh out Ben. Everyone else in the film has a job to do, but Ben is just kind of “there”. There are hints of a larger plot thread for him, but it’s undeveloped and ultimately dropped. :(
Thunderbolts* and Captain America: New World Order - I’m going to talk about both of these at once because they are both related.
Both films are tying up loose ends in the Marvel Universe before Fantastic Four re-sets everything for the next phase.
Prior to these films, you had dangling plot threads from The Incredible Hulk (2008), the Eternals (2021), Black Widow (2021), Wakanda Forever (2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2023), and Disney+ shows Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Hawkeye (2021).
That’s a lot, and while you don’t have to go into them having seen all that, you definitely get more out of them if you HAVE seen all that. Red Guardian is my Spirit Animal.
Supes and FF require no previous knowledge of anything and I think they both benefit from starting something new rather than ending something pre-existing.
Is it SATISFYING watching Cap and Thunderbolts wrap things up? Oh, absolutely! But again, giant nerd and I mainlined all that content as it came out.
thank you so much. since I have been avoiding content for awhile it kinda sounds like thunderbolts might not be so great for us as we need more of a one and done.
Yeah, Thunderbolts* starts with the premise of “Hey, let’s take these extra characters from Black Widow, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Falcon and Winter Soldier and just kill them all off…” but if you haven’t seen all that, and don’t really know who they are, it’s not as impactful.