Basis for the Fantastic Four ? - The Angry Red Planet (1959) Discussion

[–] paling 19 years ago

Why should anyone be influenced by a such a lame bunch? I don't know. But on the other hand, there are resemblances.
Did you know that Stan Lee originally wanted to call them The Fabulous Four?

"I hate it when they talk during the movie."

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[–] xredgarnetx 18 years ago

I would not be surprised. The timing is right on the money. I always thought of Mohr as Reed Richards. I believe Mohr did the voice of Richards in the earliest TV cartoon incarnation of the FF. For those of you under age 20, you may not be aware that Stan Lee and his crew were desperately trying to revive Marvel Comics, which had slid from great superhero stuff in the 1940s and early 1950s into monster titltes by the mid to late 1950s. Captain America, Sub-Mariner and others had been completely forgotten by about 1958. The FF were actually recycled heroes from Marvel's superhero days, among them the Human Torch and Thing (standing in for those Heap/Man Thing-type creatures of yore). Lee and company brilliantly resurrected Marvel's superhero side and quickly closed the books on monster comics, which had no future. Now you know why some of your favorite modern-era Marvel superheroes first appeared in such oddball titles as ASTONISHING TALES. I picked up the first issue of FF in 1960, at age 10, thinking it contained four fairly standard Marvel horror stories, about an Invisible Girl, The Thing, The Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic. I could not imagine what kind of monster Mr. Fantastic was supposed to be.

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[–] zubzwank 17 years ago

You know, that's an interesting idea. Jack and Stan certainly
borrowed from movies. For example, do the Kree or the Skrulls
(two Marvel alien races) sound anything like the Krell(Forbidden Planet)?
How about the 1964 Avengers story "This Captive Earth!" (This Island Earth)?
There is a one-on-one correspondence to the four in the ship with the
exception of a young Johnny Storm: scientist, lunky guy, lady astronaut!

I loved Gerald Mohr's rat pack-esque dialogue, which would have landed
him a sexual harassment suit nowadays. Also his black socks-and-loafers
spaceship gear!

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[–] bruce-129 15 years ago

This Island Earth was good! Angry Red Planet ... not so much!

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[–] escalera-2 12 years ago

Probably not written down anywhere, but it most certainly is possible. Between this and the "recovered film" from the space mission in The Creeping Unknown (1955), aka, The Quatermass Experiment http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049646/ with a little imagination one can see the origin of The Fantastic Four as seen in the original 1961 comic book.

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[–] ghost_hat 10 years ago

The space suits also bear a striking similarity...! Seriously, if you look at the space suits the FF wore on their original trip into space, they look VERY similar to the ones in this movie.

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[–] PJWhoopie 8 years ago

In addition, when Iris is first being attacked by the giant Venus flytrap, with the helmet and red filter, her face looks exactly like the Kirby style of drawing Sue Richards' face. It was that moment that first brought the FF to mind.

Follow that with the incredibly casual nature of the entire adventure, the over-the-top pipe smoking scientist, the pretty gal to be rescued, the cocky womanizer, and the blue collar clobbering time petty officer from Brooklyn. The early issues of the FF are right there. However, before this movie, Kirby had already created Challengers of the Unknown, another precursors of the FF. Its possible this movie was just part of the stew, along with the monster comics and space comics of the 50s such as Adam Strange. Bring back the Human Torch, as DC was doing to some of their old characters, probably brought in the four elements of fire, earth (rocks), water (fluid) and air (invisible) for the characters.

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