With Fantastic Four only three months away, 20th Century Fox has been steadily increasing their marketing for the film through new images, trailers, and featurettes. The latest promotional material includes character posters for each of the four members. Unfortunately, they’re also not very exciting, as each have similar backgrounds of destruction, and all four uniformed superheroes are rocking the same blank expressions. Regardless, let’s take a closer look at the four heroes.
First up is Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mister Fantastic. Aside from those brief shots of him stretching in the most recent trailer, the marketing material featuring Reed has just been him standing and not using his unique ability. At least we know he can remain calm while flaming projectiles strike the buildings behind him. That’s a good quality for a team leader to have.
Next up, Susan Storm, the Invisible Woman. Unlike Reed, she’s using her powers to turn her arms invisible. Her poster is also notable for including the Baxter Building in the background, which is where the team’s experiment on inter-dimensional travel is headquartered.
Then we have Ben Grimm as the rock-skinned Thing. This is arguably the most interesting of the posters since, unlike his teammates, Ben is captured mid-action with his fist raised. Hopefully he’s about to punch the film’s main antagonist, Doom. Those mitts can do some serious damage.
Finally, there’s Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, who has decided to cover his hands in flame. Personally, I think it would have been cool to have a shimmering heat aura surrounding his entire body, rather than limiting his fiery powers to just the hands.
If 20th Century Fox decides to release a second batch of character posters, hopefully they will make them more visually interesting by having each of the foursome really demonstrate what they’re capable of. Reed could be stretching to grab something, or changing his body into a weird shape, Susan could be creating an invisible force field, Ben could be slamming his fists to the ground, and Johnny could be completely flamed on and flying. Oh, and give them each different expressions, whether it’s excited, angry, upset, or any of the other emotions. Let’s liven things up a bit.
Fantastic Four will be released in theaters on August 7.
