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Category:    Home > Reviews > Animation > Superhero > The Fantastic Four - The Complete 1994-95 Animated Television Series

The Fantastic Four – The Complete 1994-95 Animated Television Series

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Episodes: B-

 

 

After issuing their terrific Spider-Man 1967 set, many hoped that when a Fantastic Four set was issued, it would be the original series from the same time.  Instead, they have issued the third animated series form the mid-1990s in the set elaborately titled The Fantastic Four – The Complete 1994-95 Animated Television Series.  Not as colorful or natural as the first animated show, yet a bit closer to the second late 1970s/early 1980s show with The Human Torch replaced by Herbie The Robot, created because some “experts” thought crossing R2D2 with Twiki and having a voice reminiscent of Cartman through a voice synthesizer minus obscenities would stop children from setting themselves on fire and trying to fly!

 

As part of this cycle of Marvel animated series (often included in the Marvel Action Hour), it was one of the first to combine traditional hand-drawn animation with computer/videotaped/digital (and maybe analog) images with them.  This caused some compositing problems that have not aged well, while the color schemes are more like the magazine-print era of comic books than the traditional type.  The episodes in this set are:

 

1)     The Origins Of The Fantastic Four (two shows)

2)     Now Comes The Sub-Mariner

3)     Incursion Of The Skrull

4)     The Silver Surfer & The Coming Of Galactus (two shows)

5)     Super Skrull

6)     The Mask Of Doom (three shows)

7)     Mole Man

8)     Behold The Negative Zone

9)     The Silver Surfer & The Return Of Galactus

10)  And A Blind Man Shall Lead Them

11)  Inhumans Saga (three shows)

12)  Worlds Within Worlds

13)  To Battle The Living Planet

14)  Prey Of The Black Panther

15)  When Calls Galactus

16)  Nightmare In Green

17)  Behold, A Distant Star

18)  Hopelessly Impossible

19)  The Sentry Sinister

20)  Doomsday

 

 

That makes for 26 shows in all.  Around this time, the script for the feature film of the team that just came out ten years later was penned, so Marvel thought they would possibly be able to bring the team to the big screen and have a big hit the way Warner & DC Comics were making money on the Batman franchise.  Instead, this series stopped short, while a combination of legalities and technology needing to catch up with that script stopped the heroes from making the kind of splash the X-Men would a few years later.

 

Unlike other Marvel animated series of the time, this one has not dated in content as well.  The attempt to introduce a catchy theme song ala the 1967 Spider-Man was a bust, while its mockery of the media as something funny now comes across as desperate and stupid.  Brian Austin Green is not bad voicing Johnny Storm/The Torch, but Lori Alan as sister Sue sounds like she is auditioning for either a serious drama or the Margaret Thatcher story.  In general, everyone talks at each other too often and this becomes as pompous as the fronting in a wrestling match trying to do Shakespeare.  Fans of the comic will enjoy how the show stays close enough to the comic books, if not satisfying the biggest purists.

 

The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is color consistent, but the technology used to make the show shows its age, with detail limits and compositing errors a bit higher than on similar Marvel animated productions of the time.  Otherwise, these sources are clean.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds that are lively enough, and maybe more so than expected at times, though the audio shows its age at times.  Giorgio Moroder did the music, though that theme does not seem like his work.  Extras include Stan Lee’s personal introductions to all the episodes and a great Stan Lee’s Soapbox on the group taped for this set as well.  With the feature film finally out, there are many who will want to look at these shows again and they have never looked or sounded this good.  Let’s hope the other animated series make it to DVD.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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