The Fantastic Four is one of Marvel Comics longest running series, and has been reproduced in several other mediums – from toys to t-shirts, and to a couple cartoon series. The very first debuted on Sept. 9, 1967. For Fantastic Four fans, this cartoon series was a dream come true. Plagued with bad animation and poor voice acting, by today’s standards, anyways, the series ended on March 15, 1970. Marvel made a go at a resurrection of the series from 1978-1979, sans the Human Torch whom the network believed would be a bad influence on kids – hence the Torch never joined the Fantastic Four during this run and was replaced by Firestar. It was not until 1995 that the Fantastic Four made its third and best run as a cartoon series as part of the Marvel Action Hour with the new Iron Man cartoon.
The Fantastic Four, as most of you should know, is the story of Reed Richards, and Ben Grimm, Susan and Johnny Storm, four astronauts who gain amazing powers while exposed to cosmic rays on a space mission. Reed Richards, now known as Mr. Fantastic, gains the ability to stretch his body. Ben Grimm becomes an orange rock monster, dubbed The Thing, Sue Storm can turn invisible and use invisible force fields and projectiles as the Invisible Woman. Her younger brother Johnny Storm is now able to control fire, using it to turn himself into a human torch, which later becomes the name he goes by as the youngest member of the Fantastic Four.
The Fantastic Four Animated Series on DVD is duplicated on 4 discs – the first 2 mainly covering the first season which ran in 1994, and the last 2 covering the second and final season of 1995. Disc 1 and 2 were extremely enjoyable to watch as they focused mainly on the re-telling of the Fantastic Four origins – which they Fan 4 tell their fans as guests of a Dick Clark telethon (guest voice appearance by the actual Dick Clark), with subsequent episodes that follow straight out of the comic.
The animation in the first year of the Fantastic Four’s ‘90s run was a dramatic improvement over their 1960s/1970s counterparts. The four main characters voiced by Lori Allan (Sue/Invisible Woman), Beau Weaver (Reed/Mr. Fantastic), Chuck McCann (Ben/The Thing), and 90210’s Brian Austin Green (Johnny/The Human Torch). While the majority of the cast does an excellent job at portraying their characters, Beau Weaver comes off more as a Shakespearean actor trying to play a superhero.
For the second season, discs 3 and 4, only one of the voice talents had been replaced – Quinton Flynn replaces Brian Austin Green as the Human Torch. Animation, this time around, had been improved to closely resemble the newest incarnation of the G.I. Joe animated series, and where the most annoying theme song in the history of cartoons had been heard, would now stand a much ...
