#785 – The Biblical Fantastic Four

The Fantastic Four reboot has rounded out its team of super heroes. Director Josh Trank, best known for the well-done Chronicle, is helming the film about a team of super-powered astronauts and scientists. I haven’t really read that many Fantastic Four comics and I didn’t see either of the first two movies. I heard that they weren’t that great so thankfully I didn’t have a blog compelling me to watch and review them.

Trank has cast Miles Teller as Reid Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing. The cast is all relatively young, with Mara as the only cast member over the age of 30. I don’t have strong feelings about most of the casting. Although I think Jordan will be great as the cocky and brash Johnny Storm. But if Johnny and Sue are still going to be siblings, there might need to be an adoption involved.

Here are some biblical characters who also could have been cast in The Fantastic Four.

Solomon – Mr. Fantastic

Now Solomon didn’t have the ability to stretch his body into all sorts of different shapes. Even if he did, I’m sure he still would have managed to fall into sin because of his 700 wives and 300 concubines, maybe even more so. While Solomon didn’t have Mr. Fantastic’s super powers, he may have been able to match his super intellect. Mr. Fantastic’s greatest contribution to the super hero community isn’t his powers but his brain. And while Solomon didn’t always apply his knowledge and wisdom to his life, he definitely had them.

Priscilla – The Invisible Woman

Again, Priscilla didn’t have the ability to turn invisible or create force fields. In spite of those shortcomings, though, she was still an amazing woman. She and her husband partnered with Paul in his ministry. She was a teacher in the early church. And she may be the author of the Book of Hebrews. While she didn’t have any super powers, Priscilla was definitely a strong woman like Sue Storm. In the comics Sue has to balance the roles of wife, mother, sister, friend and super hero, which she does with regular aplomb. I think that Priscilla would have had the same strength of character and grace under fire.

Elijah – The Human Torch

More than anyone else on this list, Elijah actually had some super powers. While his powers came from God instead of radiation from space, he still was able to perform some awesome feats. With God’s help Elijah both started and ended a drought. He also called down fire from heaven, which makes him the perfect Human Torch. I don’t know if he could use that heavenly fire to fly around, but he totally could have totally shouted “Flame on!” in his showdown on Mount Carmel.

Lot’s Wife – The Thing

Samson seems like a logical choice to be the Thing, but he gets a lot of play here at The Christian Nerd. Instead, I thought that Lot’s wife would make a great Thing. She wasn’t an astronaut, she didn’t have super strength and she wasn’t very heroic. But Lot’s wife had a hard, tough exterior just like the Thing. Unfortunately a pillar of salt wouldn’t be much good in a fight with Doctor Doom, unless he was riding a horse that could get distracted by a giant salt lick.

I really liked Chronicle so I have a lot more hope for Trank’s version of The Fantastic Four. Still, they’ve never been my favorite team so I’m going to reserve my excitement until we hear more about the movie. Besides, at this point, all of my excitement is spilling out for Guardians of the Galaxy.

What Bible characters would you put in the Fantastic Four?