You know who would make a great Fantastic Four villain for their next reboot!? The Red Ghost and his Super-Apes! What? Comment on the recent film? Ha! Like I'm going to give Fox my hard-earned mulla! What? We already did two ape characters? Well too bad, I like apes! Now sit there and enjoy the origins of this week's Z-Lister, The Red Ghost & His Super Apes!
Ivan Kragoff was created in 1963's "Fantastic Four #13" by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as the Soviet equivalent of The Fantastic Four. Ivan was once a Russian scientist trying to achieve space travel before the U.S. Unfortunately, a crew of Americans beat Ivan to the punch. Four astronauts went into space and returned to Earth with superpowers, these people formed the first family of superheroes, The Fantastic Four. Learning this, Ivan decided he'd attempt the same. Ivan trained three primates to accompany him: Mikhlo the Gorilla, Igor the Baboon, and Peotr the Orangutan. He designed his spacecraft in such a way that he and the apes would be dosed with cosmic radiation the same way the FF were. When he and his crew landed on The Blue Area of The Moon-a fictional area of the moon containing oxygen-he discovered the experiment was a success! Ivan became known as The Red Ghost because of his ability to phase through solid objects, become invisible, and float above the ground. His apes gained powers as well: Mikhlo gained super strength, Igor gained the ability to shapeshift, and Peotr gained the power to control gravity/magnetism.
After fighting The Thing, Red Ghost & His Super-Apes met Uatu The Watcher, a cosmic entity tasked with watching the entire universe. The Watcher brought The Fantastic Four and Red Ghost's crew to The Moon to battle for supremacy. The Red Ghost and His Super-Apes defeated the FF in their first fight, kidnapping The Invisible Woman as a prize. When the rest of the FF returned to save Sue Storm, she had deactivated a force field in Red Ghost's base containing food. The Super-Apes turned on The Red Ghost for keeping food from them and the FF were able to defeat them.
The Red Ghost was a prominent member of The Intelligencia, a group of evil super geniuses. A reverse Illuminati, really. He worked alongside The Leader, The Mad Thinker, The Wizard and MODOK. The latter member was responsible for reviving Red Ghost and his apes after Doctor Octopus shot them into space and killed them. MODOK: Bro of the Year.
I might be the only person who's ever said this, but I want Red Ghost & His Super-Apes to be in a Fantastic Four movie. Seriously! The fact that Red Ghost is a dark mirror to the FF is an interesting angle. Soviet scientist opposes American astronauts, one man and three pet apes opposes a family of heroes, mad genius obsessed with superiority opposes widely regarded heroes. It just works. Maybe I'll do a pitch-it for what kind of FF movie franchise I'd like to see because clearly based on the backlash, that new Fantastic Four movie franchise is as doomed as Sony's Amazing Spider-Man was. Marvel Studios, you saved Spider-Man, now we need your help one last time. Thanks for reading!
#SaveTheFour
Facebook: The Panel Biter
Twitter: @ThePanelBiter
Podbean: Panelbiter.podbean.com
No comments:
Post a Comment