The Four Color Media Monitor

In another example of too much villain worship running amok, the Straits Times interviewed a local teen who's collected Marvel comics featuring one of the biggest aliens in the MCU, who first appeared in Fantastic Four back in the mid-60s:

When First Steps opens in Singapore cinemas on July 24, local teenager Lael Lee will be going to watch it not for Marvel Comics’ “First Family”, but for his favourite character, Galactus.

Says the 14-year-old: “From what I’ve seen in the trailers, there’s a lot going on in the film. I don’t think Galactus will play a significant part. But the actor they’ve cast seems cool, so hopefully they do Galactus justice.”

Just as many classic superheroes have secret identities, so too does Lael.

By day, he is a soft-spoken Secondary 3 student at Assumption English School. By evening – or whenever he is done with his schoolwork – he is a mega fan of Galactus, and might have amassed the world’s largest collection of comics which include the character.

Lael has already accumulated 854 of these, and says the second-biggest collection he is aware of numbers around 200. He has his eyes set on another 20 or so Galactus-covered comics to make for a richer and more complete set.

Lael’s father Ernest Lee – a human resources (HR) professional and erstwhile comics fan in his 40s – is the boy’s partner and sidekick in this quest.

“My dad is very supportive of the hobby, mainly because he was a comics collector too. So he funds a portion of the comics I buy,” says Lael, who has inherited Mr Lee’s collection of around 150 comics from the 1990s and posts his finds on his Galactus-centric Instagram account @galactus_hunter96.

But do they think being a fan of villainous characters is a healthy example? I'd like to think it's great if the guy reads comics, but putting aside that his idea of how to demonstrate fandom through collecting back issues is flawed from a modern perspective, it's honestly sad if a supervillain is the reason the guy collects these back issues to begin with. I wouldn't be shocked if some of those 800-plus pamphlets are also comprised of post-2000 stories, way past the time any Marvel tales of these sorts could be considered tasteful and worthy of one's time. And then, in a suggestion this has nothing to do with reading value:

As many young people do when they develop a new fixation, Lael began to rack up merchandise related to his burgeoning interest: figurines, statues and signed artwork.

He says: “Seeing my Galactus comics collection grow gives me a lot of energy. I don’t read the paper comics, though. I treat them like art, like they are an investment. I don’t want the monetary value to be affected.”

He purchased each comic for anywhere between $5 and $150, with the exception of a limited-edition cover that cost about $200, and estimates he has spent more than $16,000 in total. But Lael and his father suspect that some individual comics might be worth more than the price they paid, especially those that are rare, signed or in mint condition.

All of Lael’s 854 Galactus comics are stored in plastic sleeves with acid-free backing boards in his condominium bedroom, which is kept cool and as free of humidity as possible via the air-conditioning system and a dehumidifier. No one else in his family of four is allowed to touch the books, except maybe Mr Lee.

“Just like many teens, Lael is at an age where he is finding himself and his interests. As parents, it is important that we encourage and support them in doing so,” Mr Lee says.

But again, why encourage them to obsess over villainous figures? It's not even clear from this puff piece if the young collector actually buys paperback/hardcover comics, and head-shakingly dismaying he would spend so much money over comics spotlighting villains. News like this only ends up making me even more dispirited about the movie adaptations, and suggests the guy may only be interested in the speculator market, which isn't getting the art form anywhere.

The paper also brought up how studios have kept producing FF adaptations, and claims the Marvel movieverse's future depends on the success of this new film:

Ever since the old Avengers dissolved following the departures of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and the previous Captain America (Evans) in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has lacked an elite superhero team to match their audience-pulling power.

But not for lack of trying. The last X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix (2019), tanked, as did two ensemble movies, Eternals (2021) and The Marvels (2023), sinking any chance of them acting as the new anchors for the MCU.

Marvel desperately needs a top-ranked fighting force, but not any old force. It must carry the MCU story deep into space, where the new cosmic threats live. Since Thanos the genocidal Titan was erased in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU’s roster of epic villains has been blank.

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) was tested as the most evil person in the multiverse in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), but that fizzled due to lack of audience interest and the American actor’s conviction for assault that led the studio to sever ties with him.

Marvel has been eager to introduce new Thanos-level cosmic horrors, such as Galactus, the devourer of worlds. The new threats must enter the story organically, so what better way to do that than with an interstellar encounter with the space-faring crew of Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) in First Steps?

[...] This new reboot is going all out to avoid the foibles of its predecessors. The main characters are older. The cast is made up of actors with proven track records. The movie opens with them wielding their powers, rather than going through another origin story. And from the trailer, the setting will be retro-futuristic, with neither the campiness of the 2005 and 2007 films, nor the bleakness of the 2015 story.

The producers haven't done a good enough job, unfortunately, seeing how its main star made politically charged rants prior to the release of the movie that have the potential to be divisive. It's becoming harder and harder these days to overlook actors who do such things. As a result, the part about organic writing is hard to credit.

And again, if villains like Galactus were the only reason anybody cared about these films, then what's the use of seeing them? It's the heroes who should matter most, and even that's being dampened when the performers make divisive statements that make it more difficult to overlook their presence on the screen. The comics are what should really matter, but only the older ones, not the newer ones, beholden as they are to the bad influence of political correctness.

Labels: Avengers, Captain America, Europe and Asia, Fantastic Four, golden calf of villainy, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, women of marvel, X-Men