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The first look at the latest superhero movie off the Marvel production line (though this one is from Fox, not the Disney-owned Marvel Studios) is remarkable in at least one respect: it doesn't have any superheroes in it.
To be sure, it's a teaser trailer, the latest fad out of Hollywood, a trailer for the trailer yet to come. But if it's any indication of the movie itself, it suggests Marvel may be treating this part of its own history seriously.
The Fantastic Four was the first comic of the "new" Marvel era, created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee (the latter of whom will no doubt have a fleeting cameo in this film, as he has had in most of the Marvel releases since 1989), and launched in November 1961.
It was a tale of a scientist and his three assistants who were trying to beat the Russians into space but instead were turned into "freaks" after their craft was bombarded with cosmic rays. Reed Richards became the stretchy Mr Fantastic, Susan Storm became The Invisible Woman, her brother Johnny The Human Torch ("flame on!") and pilot Ben Grimm turned into the stone-chested The Thing ("it's clobbering time").
There is only the briefest glimpse in the teaser of these alter-egos – the back of The Thing, a ball of flame. Mostly, it is the four's "normal" selves (played by Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell, respectively) we see. It's all back story.
"How did we get this far?," a voiceover asks. "Human beings have an immeasurable desire to discover, to invent, to build … But with every new discovery, there is risk. There is sacrifice. And there are consequences."
F4 fans know all about those consequences, though the uninitiated may be left to scratch their heads. But after four animated TV series and two big-screen incarnations before this – the last of those in 2007 – maybe there aren't too many in that category anyway.
Some observers are suggesting the sombre tone of the teaser might point to a respectful sci-fi-leaning treatment, but that hardly seems likely given the incessant search for the yet-more-spectacular that defines the modern superhero film. More likely it's simply a case of keeping your powder dry until a little closer to the August release date.
It's clobbering time, all right. Just not quite yet.
