Their stories are so familiar to the people that it makes revamps, one offs, and writing easy. You don’t have to be creative or relatable to tell the story of mythos that is as passed down and known as the Bible. You can only tell those stories with those infallible gods for so long it gets stale.
The reason that Guardians, WandaVision, and even Thor: Ragnarok became so popular, so all consuming is because they weren’t centered around those same tales. They centered around tales not told on repeat with characters who have flaws and might even be unlikable, and had style with that substance.
Starlord is an asshole womanizer who acts more like a pirate than a superhero, Wanda is chaos as a human being with a not always coherent line of thinking, and we’ll, Jeff Goldblum on an orgy ship is just pure gold. These worlds were colorful, dark, but loving of their characters.
Meanwhile, Thor is a man baby god loosely based on Norse mythos who is pretty impenetrable and only gets more powerful, Spider-man can only keep learning about what responsibilities he has, and just fuck the Fantastic Four and their stupid bullshit.
Fantastic Four and Captain America are 60’s thinly veiled America nationalist retro bullshit and honestly, I’m pretty sure we’re getting sick of the “underdogs” that are supposed to represent American values when we currently live in a bully country.
AND PLEASE don’t get me started on The Phoenix Saga. If one more studio tries to adapt that shitty ass, “We have to sacrifice bland ass Jean Grey” story one more time, without giving Jean Grey a personality of a lamp, I will personally locate a genie and wish all of society forgets that story.
Also, introducing unique and fun characters only in tv shows and then expecting your audience to do homework just to see them in the movies as sidekicks is stupid. You all did Ms Marvel dirty, but Iman Vellani nailed it and will always be my favorite part of the MCU.
And while Superman IS currently well loved, it is ONLY because of how incredible James Gunn is and both studios so badly want everything they have to be in his style only to realize that making a James Gunn-esque movie isn’t just making a music video with quirky characters. James Gunn has heart.
His success has nothing to do with his badass playlists or his ability to make characters cool af, although that helps, he puts real heart into his work. Whether it is Guardians or Slither, James Gunn knows how to lovingly compose an art piece. His success isn’t components, it’s the composition.
Corporations will never have that heart, and when people hired by those corporations get big headed from the attention and unquestioned trust, they lose their heart, their magic. Marvel stories rely on their magic to capture hearts, but like with Wanda, too much of that magic becomes corrupting.
Anyway, TL;DR is stop trying to make Fantastic Four happen, it will never happen. AND get to adapting better stories. May I recommend the incredibly relevant to the times Operation: Zero Tolerance arc? Seriously, being the X-men back and make the Morlocks on big screen, thanks.
*while giving