11 Criminally Underrated Superheroes Hollywood Totally Ruined

7. Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four 2015
20th Century Fox

This one stings, because not only have Marvel's first family had about four attempts at live action, but all have been fantastically naff. Roger Corman's 1994 attempt lives on solely through nightmarish set photos of The Thing, and 2005's series - while nailing three of the four with some great casting choices - tanked on repetitive melodrama and a strident inability to portray Doctor Doom correctly, something that the 2015 reboot managed to actually make worse.

Struggling to adapt the four is understandable to an extent, but genuinely, why is it that we're yet to get a proper version of Doctor Doom? Y'know, the iconic evil Latverian dictator whose whole shtick is that he's just plain bad? It's the most basic premise for a villain and yet we repeatedly have to sit through contrived and often wholly unnecessary attempts to wed the character to Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben on an almost familial level. Just let Doom toot as and when he pleases. God.

Dr Doom Toot
Marvel Comics

The frustration gets compounded further when upon the realisation that Marvel Studios could do so much with the FF license (Galactus and Silver Surfer interacting with the Guardians of the Galaxy is enough cause for excitement). Worse still, the situation regarding the Four's onscreen rights has led to the group being totally disbanded in Marvel's comics, with only the occasional cameo and reference gracing the pages of some of the publisher's premier books.

It's clear that the Four haven't had it easy this last decade, and with Fox set to hold onto the rights in spite of their latest failure, it looks as though our favourite family are staying put for the foreseeable future. Here's hoping that Noah Hawley can make it worthwhile.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.