Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes

Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes is an animated television series based on the Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four comic book series and the movie itself. The series is the team's fourth foray into animation, and combines two-dimensional anime-style art and three-dimensional computer animation produced by the France-based animation company MoonScoop Group, and is also produced by MoonScoop division Taffy Entertainment. All in collaboration with M6 and Cartoon Network Europe. In the United States, the show suffered an erratic airing schedule on Cartoon Network, having premiered as part of Toonami on September 2, 2006 but only running for 8 of the season's 26 episodes before being pulled without explanation. It returned to the network starting June 9, 2007, shortly before the release of the film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, but again, only nine further episodes were aired, leaving nine installments unaired in the USA. The show aired on Boomerang for a brief time before moving to the Nicktoons to air the final episodes. Episodes unaired in the US began airing on the Nicktoons Network in the winter of 2009.

It is distributed in the worldwide by MoonScoop Group.

Plot

 * When top scientist Reed Richards led his team of explorers into space, they were blasted by a shower of cosmic rays. Endowed with incredible powers, their lives were changed forever as they became... The Fantastic Four!

World's Greatest Heroes is not directly connected to any of the previous iterations of the Fantastic Four, telling its own version of the team's origin and meetings with their greatest villains. Additionally, Johnny Storm's sister is identified as Susan Storm, implying that, like the earliest versions of the story, she is not yet married to Reed Richards but is dating or engaged to him. The series begins with the FF as already-established adventurers, foregoing an actual "origin episode" for the group. When the series was released outside of America, it featured a modified opening sequence with new narration that verbally established the origin of the team, but which did not expand on the mysteries of the origin any further.

Storylines and influences
In its intended viewing order (reorganized significantly for its errant broadcasting schedule, but presented correctly on DVD), the first half of the series forms a loose story arc that spans thirteen episodes, focusing on the mysteries of the Negative Zone and Doctor Doom's attempts to exploit its power, in addition to stories pitting the FF against the Mole Man, the Puppet Master and the Impossible Man, with guest-appearances by fellow Marvel Comics heroes Ant-Man and the Incredible Hulk. Significantly, the FF clash with Ronan the Accuser and the alien Skrulls in two separate episodes, whose stories converge in the opening episode of the season's second half. The second half of the series is less cohesive, featuring only single-episode adventures with villains such as the Frightful Four and Diablo and guest-appearances from superheroes, [[wikipedia::wikipedia:Namor|Namor and She-Hulk. The series climaxes in a world-endangering appearance from Terminus, used instead of the FF's more notable globe-threatener Galactus, who was off-limits to the creative team.

Unlike its 1990s predecessor, which consisted almost entirely of straight or slightly modified re-tellings of classic FF comic book stories, World's Greatest Heroes features mostly original stories, heavily re-imagining the origins and/or first encounters many supervillains have with the FF. Nonetheless, certain Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic book stories are drawn upon as the basis for a select few episodes of the series: in "Doomed", Doctor Doom exchanges minds with Reed, like he did in 1963's Fantastic Four #10; the Impossible Man is defeated when the FF simply ignore him, just as he was in 1963's Fantastic Four #11; and in "Doomsday Plus One", Doom launches the Baxter Building into space, as seen in 1962's Fantastic Four #6. Later-era comic books, notably those by John Byrne and Chris Claremont, are also drawn upon: in "The Cure", She-Hulk replaces the Thing on the team, as she did following 1987's Secret Wars; in "Doomsday", the FF is thrown into turmoil when Doctor Doom forges a journal that claims Reed intentionally mutated the team, as in the 1987 comic book mini-series, X-Men vs. Fantastic Four; and in "Frightful", unstable molecules are unleashed and begin destabilizing matter, as seen in Mark Waid's 2003 Fantastic Four Vol 3 #65-66.

In addition to its influence upon the indistinct origin of the team, the 2005 live-action movie also shaped the Thing's love interest, Alicia Masters, who is rendered as African American for the series. While traditionally Caucasian in comic books, this change kept some level of visual continuity with the feature film, in which she was played by African American actress Kerry Washington. Her stepfather, the villain Philip Masters, the Puppet Master is changed into an African American, too.

Guest stars

 * Michael Adamthwaite - Namor
 * Don Brown - Henry Peter Gyrich
 * Trevor Devall - Diablo
 * Michael Dobson - Ronan the Accuser, Mr. Bonner-Davis
 * Paul Dobson - Mole Man
 * Brian Drummond - Agent Pratt
 * Laura Drummond - Courtney Bonner-Davis
 * Andrew Kavadas - Dr. Bruce Banner
 * Mark Gibbon - The Hulk
 * Jonathan Holmes - The Wizard
 * David Kaye - Tony Stark/Iron Man
 * Terry Klassen - Impossible Man
 * Scott McNeil - Annihilus
 * Colin Murdock - Willie Lumpkin
 * Peter New - Rupert the Geek
 * John Novak - Supreme Intelligence
 * Mark Oliver - Cmd. Kl'rt/Super-Skrull
 * John Payne - Henry Pym/Ant-Man
 * Alvin Sanders - Puppet Master
 * Rebecca Shoichet - Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk
 * Venus Terzo - Lucia von Bardas
 * Lee Tockar - Terminus
 * Samuel Vincent - Trapster, Peter Parker

Superheroes guest appearances

 * Hulk (Hard Knocks, The Cure (reused footage on Mole Man's TV))
 * Ant-Man (World's Tiniest Heroes)
 * Namor (Imperious Rex, Atlantis Attacks)
 * Flatman (The Cure)
 * Frog-Man (The Cure)
 * Texas Twister (The Cure)
 * Captain Ultra (The Cure)
 * Squirrel Girl (The Cure)
 * She-Hulk (The Cure)
 * Ninja Star (The Cure)
 * Iron Man (Shell Games)
 * Spider-Man (Frightful), though he only appears as his alter ego, Peter Parker and was not even referred to by his real name.

Villains guest appearances

 * Mole Man (De-Mole-Ition, Molehatten, The Cure, Contest of Champions, Strings)
 * Puppet Master (Puppet Master, Strings)
 * Ronan the Accuser (Trial by Fire, My Neighbor was a Skrull, Revenge of the Skrulls, Contest of Champions)
 * Annihilus (Annihilation, Contest of Champions)
 * Super-Skrull (My Neighbor was a Skrull, Revenge of the Skrulls, Contest of Champions)
 * Skrulls (My Neighbor was a Skrull, Revenge of the Skrulls, Contest of Champions, Strings)
 * Lucia von Bardas (Bait and Switch, Doomsday Plus One)
 * The Wizard (Frightful)
 * Klaw (Frightful)
 * Trapster (Frightful)
 * Dragon Man (Frightful)
 * Attuma (Atlantis Attacks)
 * Diablo (Johnny Storm And The Potion Of Fire)
 * The Grandmaster (Contest of Champions)
 * Terminus (Scavenger Hunt)