This October’s drawing obsession: drawing skeletons for things that don’t actually have them. I think it’s inspired by wandering through a Spirit Halloween one year and seeing a plastic figuring of an octopus skeleton. If you have non-skeletal skeletons you’d like drawn, just leave them in the comments or join me for the FancySchmancy Creature Feature.
Recently I had the pleasure of watching Fantastic Four: First Steps, and I must say, in comparison to previous iterations, it is a … marked improvement. Before we jump into the Creature Feature, I’ll share my quick thoughts on the film.
Overall, I thought the movie was a lot better than Marvel Studio’s usual 7-out-of-10 fair. The art direction was spectacular, the musical score was iconic, the dialogue was sharp and mercifully devoid of quips. I like that it took place in another dimension, so the story wasn’t trying to carry the weight of 15 years of world building. The cast gets to act their heart out, the action sequences are the most genuinely suspenseful I’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie, and the effectiveness with which they showed the sheer scale of Galactus made him feel like a genuinely terrifying threat.
My only gripe is that, like most Marvel movies, this one suffers from status quo syndrome. None of the characters felt like they go through any sort of arc, and when you compare it to films like James Gunn’s Superman, where the main character actually has to grapple with some of his core beliefs, it feels a little hollow. But given the Fantastic Four’s track record … I’ll take an 8-out-of-ten if I can get it.
Anyway, since Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place in an alternate dimension, I thought it would be a fine opportunity to discover one opposite of ours and record that version in my abyssal bestiary. So, without further ado, I introduce to you the Fantastic Four of Earth 161.
Creature No. 6: Mr. Sensitive, discovered by Twitch user Harukio. This version of Reed Richards may not be the smartest person alive, but he’s certainly the most in touch with his feelings. Mr. Sensitive boasts the same stretchy appendages as his counterparts in other dimensions. Unfortunately this means he can remain bedridden for weeks at a time, retrieving pints of Cherry Garcia from the fridge while he binges Nicholas Sparks novels for the emotional catharsis. At present, Mr. Sensitive is in a dissociative fugue state after Sue Storm critiqued his lingonberry muffin recipe, and is currently recovering in a seaside cottage, while Galactus eats his whole entire planet.
Creature No. 7: The Inebriated Woman, discovered by Twitch user Daedlogistics. In this dimension, Sue Storm’s remarkable powers can only be activated by conspicuous levels of alcohol consumption. But hey, when you’re the world’s most hardworking super-mom, you deserve a cocktail or five now and again, you know? While she can’t turn invisible, she can turn emotionally unavailable. And although many foes have threatened her marriage to Reed Richards, none have come as close as when she stumbled into the foyer of the Baxter Building midday, drunkenly declaring to the attending staff that Reed, quote, “can stretching everything but the part that counts.” Ooh, no force field can shield you from that one.
Creature No. 8: The Patriotic Torch, discovered by Twitch user Harukio. In this dimension, Johnny Storm takes a page from the Steve Rogers playbook, donning the stars and stripes to become a living Fourth of July firecracker. This Johnny still loves the ladies, but nothing compares to the red-hot, flaming lust he has for Lady Liberty. When he’s not grilling burgers and supplying pyrotechnics for Bruce Springsteen concerts, you can find him scorching through the cosmos on a mission to protect the planet he loves most: America.
Creature No. 9: The Floof, discovered by Twitch user KevoKoala. After a bombardment of cosmic rays, this version of Ben Grimm transforms into a behemoth of living cotton candy. Now the fluffiest hero on the planet, the Floof fears no foe—except maybe hungry carnival goers, sudden bouts of rain, and baffled raccoons from 2010 viral videos. Catchphrases the Floof has workshopped include: “It’s Empty Calorie Time!” “Let’s Get Sticky!” and “Time for a Dia-beatdown!” Sadly they landed as softly with the focus groups as most of his punches.
Creature No. 10: Handsy Von Doom, discovered by Twitch user DoctorDiggityDank. After the tragic explosion of a necromancy machine that would have allowed him to give his dead mother one last high five, the Victor Von Doom of this dimension was grotesquely disfigured, as his face and feet became hands. Blaming Reed Richards for his disfigurement, he will stop at nothing until he has flipped each and every member of the Fantastic Four the bird, and received their heartfelt apologies. Until then, the Latverian wizard will continue to hold the world hostage, wielding five butter guns with reckless impunity.
I wasn’t a fan of Superman growing up. He was always a little boring to me. Every decision he made seemed to be the right one, and besides proximity to a glowing green rock, he had no natural weaknesses. Morally and physically, Superman’s strength always made the stakes feel too low for his stories to be truly heroic.
I gravitated more towards heroes like Batman: ones that were brooding and flawed. I liked that Batman walked a mental tightrope, barely hovering over the psychological precipice his villains would often willingly plunge themselves into. I liked his lack of superpowers, how his thinly armored mortality meant that his heroism required more risk. In the battle for my fandom, Batman often won, and Superman often lost.
That said, I always wanted to love Superman. I remember when the teaser for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel first dropped—the swelling orchestrals, the bucolic scenes of a young Clark Kent—I thought we might get a movie about whether the world’s most famous do-gooder from the Second World War could exist in a 21st-century world of moral grey.
Unfortunately, Snyder’s answer to that question seemed to be: who cares? Sure, he gave us a couple of ham-fisted allusions to the Christ and a paint-by-numbers scene of our hero crying over having to murder of General Zod (which, to me, seemed to be a no-brainer given Zod was a genocidal maniac). But otherwise, there was no wrestling with the anachronism of Superman. If anything, the MCU took up that banner with their Captain America saga. But no such exploration for the man in red, blue, and gold.
For that reason, I was hopeful for James Gunn’s Superman. Gunn’s stories are usually about the exploits of barely reformed thieves and mercenaries, so a Boy Scout like Superman might seem like an odd fit. But Gunn knows how to find what makes comic book characters tick, and how to match that ticking to the beat of your own heart.
In Gunn’s film, I found a Superman I could root for—and who felt like he was rooting for me.
As an adult who’s a fraction less cynical than his teenage self, I’ve come to understand what Superman is, and I think James Gunn understands it, too. Superman is, at its heart, a thought experiment: in a world where power and cruelty often go hand-in-hand, what would it be like for the world’s most powerful man to be kind? It’s why Superman must be kind in his stories; otherwise, despite the laser vision and the freezing breath, there is nothing truly remarkable about him.
His rival Lex Luthor has power, too—in some ways more power, as his intelligence gives him an omniscience about the world that allows him to manipulate it in ways that Superman can’t. Lex tells himself that people’s reliance on Superman’s strength weakens them, a self-deceiving humanism that acts as a smokescreen for his solipsist view of the world. In truth, Lex isn’t jealous of Superman’s power but of his kindness, the actual quality that indicts Lex Luthor as just another unremarkable, power-hungry man.
There are so many things about this movie I could praise. The casting is flawless, especially with David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan. I could watch a two-hour stage play of their Clark and Lois, just dialoguing about their strange, budding relationship in a Metropolis studio apartment. I love the genuine Midwestern warmth of Ma and Pa Kent, the plucky grit of the Daily Planet staff, the disjointed foibles of the Justice Gang. I love how weird this movie is, how unabashedly it embraces the cosmic, surreal, and eclectic nature of comic books. I love how it promises a DC universe where many stories can be told and voices can be heard, without the MCU burden of sterile cinematography and tangled plots that clumsily weave between films.
But mostly I’m just glad that it gave us a Superman our pop culture has desperately needed for the past decade: one who recognizes that kindness is the most rapturous and radical way to wield power. James Gunn has given us a modern Superman we can now hold up to the Lex Luthors of the world and say: see, you bastards? This—this is how it’s done.
A couple of weeks ago I finished playing the game Outer Wilds, in which angler fish play an outsized and terrifying role. Simultaneously, a black seadevil captivated the world by rearing its beautiful head from the depths, making its way to the surface for unknown (and for some, portending) reasons.
So I thought, what better subject for our weekly FancySchmancy Creature Feature than this fiercely fanged hellspawn?
As always, friends in chat provided me with prompts, and the Bestiary in which we draw selected them at random. Here were the results.
This is what I imagine a male angler fish sees right before it merges with the female’s flesh for eternity (look it up).
This one charmed me. I like to imagine that this is what Bluey sees when she casts one of her imaginative spells on her dad.
I’m a big fan of Balatro, and it’s fun to imagine what powers this Joker might imbue for your deck. Maybe it lures you into playing a strong hand that it then destroys. Not advantageous, but it feels on brand for the game.
I literally cursed the moment I had to draw any sort of vehicle, but as it turns out, drawing a penny farthing isn’t so bad. Plus, look how happy he is.
Finally, we drew a merman with an angler fish head, or as I like to call him, a mermgler. In my head canon, this is exactly what Poseidon looks like.
The FancySchmancy Creature Feature happens on Twitch most Saturdays at 10am EST. I play FancySchmancy, an eldritch scholar on an academic quest to draw an infinite set of bestiaries, chronicling every creature in the multiverse. Each week I pick a theme, chat gives me prompts, and the bestiary picks which prompts to draw. Join me for a chance to have your prompt drawn.
