I’ve come to the conclusion that Michael Chabon was right. In his 1995 treatment for a Fantastic Four movie (available for download here) he wrote:

The world of the movie is a timeless, more innocent world, a world where Evil lives behind an Iron Curtain on the Dark Side of the planet, a world where, even in 1995, it is always November 21, 1963. Men still wear hats, kids are into hot rods and spaceships, women have bouffant hairdos, and New York City is the vibrant, shiny capital of the Free World. A Technicolor, bossa nova, Douglas Sirk world. A world where radiation is not only terrifying and evil but also capable of producing wonders and miracles. A world of amazing machinery and devices. There is wickedness, to be sure, and there are bad people, and it takes the eternal vigilance of a few stalwart champions to keep our shores from being overrun, our homes and towns from being infested from within, by the emissaries of darkness. Fortunately such champions exist: the Fantastic Four.

He’s right. As much as I like the two previous Fantastic Four movies (and I like them a lot for what they are – frothy family-friendly superhero flicks), a true FF movie that captures the spirit of the comics should be set in the 1960s.

Think of it – a period superhero movie; where else could you have Mr Fantastic’s inventions seem so amazing? Where the pogo plane wouldn’t be laughed at? Where you could poke fun at the rampant sexism evident in the early FF comic?

Chabon also thought that you should just skip the origin story entirely and have the FF as established celebrity super-heroes; I like that too.

And yesterday when I posted about January Jones being cast in the new X-Men movie, it struck me that she would make a perfect 1960s Sue Storm. Perfect. And if she was Sue, why not populate the entire cast with Mad Men actors?

Jonn Hamm as the emotionally distant, distractingly handsome super-genius, Mr Fantastic!

The aforementioned January Jones as Sue Storm, the model-turned-headstrong superhero that just wants to get married so that she can finally be kissed and not heard!

Vincent Kartheiser as the self-absorbed none-too-bright cad about town, Johnny Storm!

And as we’re skipping the origin, there’s no need to see Ben Grimm at all – which means John Slattery can use his piercing blue eyes to emote ol’ Benjy through the CGI’d rocky hide of the Thing!

Yep, I think we’ve got this all wrapped up!