‘Fantastic’ writer knows his heroes

When Dwayne McDuffie was an assistant editor at Marvel Comics in the 1980s, a profile listed his greatest unfilled ambition: write “Fantastic Four.”

Now that McDuffie is writing the comic book series, “there’s nothing left for me,” he cracks.

“Fantastic Four” was his favorite comic as a kid, he says.

“I like adventure. I really like science. I like big ideas. I like the characters, the interrelationships.”

Reed and Sue Richards (Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman), Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (the Thing) make up the superhero team that McDuffie enjoyed as a kid — and that is drawing movie audiences to “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”

In the comics, though, the team has seen some changes. Reed and Sue are taking some time off to repair their fractured marriage and have been replaced by Black Panther and Storm, who were married last summer.

The new lineup, resulting from events in Marvel’s headline-making “Civil War” miniseries, was already in the works when McDuffie began his run on the book early this year.

“I’m kind of like an old-fashioned guy, so I was really into the idea of doing the team as it was when I was a kid,” McDuffie says. “But I’m also a big Black Panther fan.”

The Fantastic Four is a family, and Black Panther and Storm fit neatly into the Reed and Sue roles, McDuffie says.

“Storm and Sue are both kind of level-headed people who in their own way ground their husbands’ excesses. In Reed’s case, he lives such a life of the mind that he loses track, and he’s not good at expressing his emotions or even being aware of them.

“And Sue keeps him in touch with that.”

Similarly, Black Panther is royalty, and the weight of his position separates him from his feelings at times. “Storm is a way for him to stay in touch with the man inside the king.”

The character most attuned to everyone’s feelings is probably the Thing.

“The Thing is my absolute favorite character,” McDuffie says. He’s a study in contrasts: a generous, heroic figure whose rough, bricklike exterior conceals the man inside.

“Ben is really open-hearted and warm, and he doesn’t look that way. People who don’t know him react to the surface.”

Johnny, the youngest member of the team, revels in his celebrity status, McDuffie says. “He likes helping people, but he also likes all of the cool stuff that comes with being the guy who helps people.”

McDuffie stresses that Reed and Sue are still key to the book — they may be off the team for now, but they’ve been in every issue he’s written. As far as how long Black Panther and Storm will remain, “they’ll be around for as long as it’s interesting,” McDuffie says. “And maybe a little bit longer.”

A recent story line featured Silver Surfer and the planeteating Galactus. That was not from any editorial mandate to tie the comic into the movie, McDuffie says, but was story-driven.

“They had been home a lot, and I see them as a family of explorers. So I immediately wanted to take them someplace far. So I thought, let’s do a space adventure.”

His current story arc finds the Fantastic Four facing off against the villainous Frightful Four. He’s not a fan of spoilers — “I want to surprise people” — but hints that the Frightful Four story line will lead to a bigger story.

“It’s going to be huge. The stakes are going to be tremendous.”

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