Amazing how much two different comic book franchises can be. The Fantastic 4 was one of the grandest comic book series, second only to Spiderman, but the movie derived from the former was worth only a fraction of the latter’s spinoff. Actually, even the X-Men series works much better in movies.
There is something about the characters of the series that doesn’t work as well. In both other franchises, the heros are derelicts fighting for survival and hiding from a cruel society that wants to get rid of superfreaks. Oddly enough, we seem all to be able to empathize with superfreaks, and we’d wish we had the superpowers. Easy transition to believing the story.
With the Fantastic 4, the pity element is not as strong. Just as in the case of Captain America, another franchise soon to make it to the silver screen, this group was constituted by a privileged family, who manages to be well-received by their normal surroundings. Not the classical plot for a pity tale.