SuperFantastic! It's a retro superhero summer as Superman and the Fantastic Four face off

At the movies, superheroes are generally in the business of rescuing people. But what can save superhero cinema itself? The once-dominant genre can still deliver a sporadic smash like Deadpool & Wolverine, an ultraviolent farce that bagged more than a billion dollars last year. But when audiences are exposed to a constant stream of half-cocked yet still somehow overstuffed movies like The Flash, Kraven the Hunter and Captain America: Brave New World, the superhero fatigue becomes all too palpable.

Surely it must be time for a fresh start? Warner Bros and Disney – respectively, the cinematic custodians of DC and Marvel’s vast rosters of colourful comic book characters – certainly seem to think so. Each of these studios is about to launch a supposedly bold new phase in their respective superhero screen universes to try and steer stock prices up, up and away.

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But this being Hollywood, being bold does not mean actually new. Quite the opposite. In a quirk of timing, both companies are slapping a new lick of paint on comic icons so long in the tooth they have already appeared on the big screen multiple times. As we welcome back Superman and the Fantastic Four next month clearly this summer’s hottest superhero trend is retro.

Warner Bros are betting big on James Gunn, the writer/director behind Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy of cosmic comedies. Gunn, who has the spiky haircut and restless energy of a 1990s pop-punk guitarist on a lucrative reunion tour, has been tasked with overseeing a whole new slate of films and TV projects featuring DC characters. For his first building block he has chosen the biggest superhero of them all: Superman, who essentially invented the genre when he first appeared in US comics in 1938.

Gunn’s Ronseal-titled Superman will be the fourth time a new Clark Kent has made it to the big screen, with relative newcomer David Corenswet following in the red boot-steps of Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill. The vibe from the trailers is unashamedly wholesome – hence the deployment of John Williams’s glorious 1978 score from Superman: The Movie – and back to basics.

Superman’s traditional scoop-hunting sweetheart Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and diabolical nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) are present and correct. But Gunn is also sprinkling in lesser-known DC characters like Mr Terrific, Hawkgirl and Metamorpho the Element Man. His vision is clearly vaster than a speeding reboot.

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Compared to the 87-year-old Superman, the Fantastic Four are relative comic striplings at just 64. But their print debut in 1961 helped popularise what would become the signature Marvel brand of a shared universe of characters and storytelling. As with Superman, the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps is not their first cinematic rodeo, although you would struggle to call any of the previous instalments beloved. 

B-movie supremo Roger Corman oversaw a quickie adaptation in 1994 just to keep hold of the film rights (it was never officially released). A brace of Fantastic Four films headlined by Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba in the mid-2000s were harmless fluff; a self-consciously gritty reimagining in 2015 was a disaster. When people quip that the best Fantastic Four movie is Pixar’s The Incredibles they are hardly joking.

So this latest effort – under the official auspices of Marvel for the first time, and launching Phase Six of their cinematic universe – is being seen as a chance to belatedly do right by these foundational characters. Director Matt Shakman, who has mostly worked in TV, has certainly assembled a decent cast: Pedro Pascal is stretchy brainbox Mr Fantastic alongside Vanessa Kirby as the Invisible Woman.

Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things and Gladiator II plays flying hothead the Human Torch while Ebon Moss-Bachrach from The Bear is Ben Grimm AKA The Thing, a big loveable lug made of orange rock. The gravelly voiced UK veteran Ralph Ineson – who basically sounds how The Thing looks – will strap on the elaborate headgear of planet-eating baddie Galactus.

What looks like it will genuinely differentiate First Steps from what feels like dozens of preceding Marvel movies is its setting, a sort of Mad Man-esque retro-future 1960s of curvy cars and helpful robots. Positioning the story so far removed from the current, rather crowded continuity of Avengers and other assorted heroes is a smart move. Hopefully it means this version of the Fantastic Four can stretch out and finally get to do their own thing.

Superman is in cinemas from 11 July. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in cinemas from 25 July. 

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