FANTASTIC FOUR: WORLD WAR TWO, or, How I would Try and Fail To Screw Up A Fantastic Four Movie

Roger Corman screwed it up. Tim Story screwed it up (twice!). Josh Trank screwed it up.

Clearly, it's way too easy to screw up making a Fantastic Four movie. There may be a curse involved. So how to get around that? Easy: You set out with the intent to make a Fantastic Four movie outside normal canon. That way, the screwing up gets screwed up, and you end up with a successful movie after all! It's a case where using a double negative is the only way to go.

So, here's my plan:

First, we're not going to use those silly "superpowers" at all. That clandestine space launch, the cosmic rays, all of that is out the window. Instead, the story will take place before any of that happens. That's right, my FF movie will be a prequel!

If you go all the way back to the original comics from the early 1960's, there's interesting back story given to the characters. Both Reed Richards and Ben Grimm fought in World War II. Reed was an undercover operative in Europe, working with the Resistance against the Nazis, while Ben was a fighter pilot, doing his own bit against Hitler.

Nazis and Hitler! It's a foolproof scenario. If the story starts to lag, punch a Nazi. Works every time. (See: the Indiana Jones movies. Nazis involved? Whoo-hoo! No Nazis? Meh.)

So, we'll have Reed and Ben in Europe during WWII. But Reed's on the ground, Ben's in the air. What kind of story do we need to get them together? And where are Sue and Johnny Storm, and how do we make them part of this story? Especially since Johnny, even going by the original continuity, wouldn't have been born yet.

Well, let's just dump Johnny Storm, then. Fortunately, there's another character from Marvel backhistory who can serve in his place....

Among the various versions of Fantastic Four history and backstory that have been retconned, alternate-Earthed, or conveniently ignored over the past six decades, I'd borrow several pieces and make them my own.

What? Of course I can screw around with canon and continuity. It's now established in the Marvel Universe that there are multiple universes, with multiple versions of the same characters, but different, each existing in their own timelines. It means you can do pretty much anything you want to do with characters and canon, It's just one more variant in the multiverse, and only Marvel's lawyers can stop you!

Let us proceed:

Pre America's entry into WWII, Sue Storm is the brainy teen-age daughter of Franklin Storm, a professor who leads a program to recruit and develop young scientific prodigies to aid the American government. (Howard Stark is involved in this somewhere, you betcha.) But because of her youth (about age 14-15 at this time) and because she's a girl (girl cooties! eek!), she's not taken seriously, even though she's brilliant enough to qualify for the program if she were male.

Said prodigies are boarded in Professor Storm's large home while attending their advanced classes at Big Brain University, and include Reed Richards, who shares the room being vacated by Victor von Doom; Doom, son of Latverian aristocrats, is returning to Europe to fight the Nazis who've invaded and occupied Latveria. Ben Grimm is also around Big Brain U, on a football scholarship while he pursues an engineering degree and races fast planes in his spare time. (The team motto of BBU's football team is, of course, "It's Clobberin' Time!") He also teaches Sue to fly a plane; through Sue, he meets Reed, who becomes a good friend.

Hah! See what I did there? "Invisible" Sue, "Clobberin' Time" Ben? I'm taking away those superpowers and replacing them with metaphors! Because I am one of those high-falutin' artsy-fartsy literary fuckers. Who likes to punch Nazis.

[Note to self: Have some "High-Falutin' Artsy-Fartsy Literary Fucker" business cards printed up.]

Fast-forward a few years. America is in the midst of WWII. Professor Franklin has been recruited into a top-secret program somewhere in the American Southwest, effectively ending the program at Big Brain U. Students have scattered, and most have enlisted, been drafted, or are working for the war effort.

Sue followed up on her unofficial flight training, and is now a WASP. No, this has nothing to do with Ant-Man. Women Air Service Pilots served to release male pilots for overseas and combat duty, by serving as instructors and trainers, and by flying newly-built planes from factories to military bases in North America. Regular (male) flight crews then flew the planes to oversea bases. So we need a way for Sue to be flying planes to Europe, counter to actual history.

Ben Grimm is an American fighter pilot based in England. (This is a change from original canon, where he flew in the Pacific side of the war.) He has stayed in touch with Sue and Reed by mail, and they try to meet up in London whenever their schedules coincide. Reed's the one most often unavailable, for classified reasons.

Reed has told Ben he's a paper-pusher in an office somewhere in the war bureaucracy. Reed is lying out his wazoo. In actuality, Reed makes clandestine undercover missions into Europe to try and extract Allied-friendly scientists and/or recover their research, or to steal or destroy Germany's own scientific programs and scientists, and to lend his scientific expertise to Resistance units. (Another Howard Stark idea, most likely.) Reed is actually very good at things like making IEDs ("two paperclips and a ham sandwich"), or turning the barbed-wire fence of a POW camp into a radio receiver/transmitter, as well as other skills he's picked up.

So, let's have a go at what sort of film synopsis might exist for:

FANTASTIC FOUR: WORLD WAR TWO

(Because this is pretty long -- about 7500 words -- I'm putting a jump break here.)

OPEN IN 1939, an aerodrome in upper midwest (near Chicago, probably) A race plane is going thru high-speed maneuvers, turns and rolls.

VOICE-OVER

SUE STORM: Yes-s-s-s-s!

BEN GRIMM: Slow it down a little, Sue. Don’t press it. You’re still new at this.

CUT TO PLANE INTERIOR

The plane's occupants are SUE STORM, about age 15 at this time, a lovely teenager with a bit of a wild streak, and BEN GRIMM, a broad-shouldered 20-year old.

SUE: I love this, Ben! It’s so great!

BEN: Don’t go crazy now. Time to land.

SUE: Is it already?

BEN: Yep. Remember all the steps?

The plane lands. In the AERODROME OFFICE, the attendant, STAN, an old gentleman, is listening to radio reports of Germany invading Eastern Europe.

Stan admonishes Ben for letting Sue do stunt flying

STAN: “You’re only supposed to be teaching her how to fly and land a plane normally. Professor Storm will rip you a new one if he finds out.”

BEN: “You won’t tell him, will y-- Hey, did the radio just mention Latveria?”

SUE: “Oh no. Poor Victor.”

BEN: “Let’s get back to your house.”

STORM HALL

The Storm residence (“Storm Hall”) is a large house of several stories that doubles as a residency for gifted students. A sign in the yard announces “Stark Scholarship Residency”. Ben & Sue ride up on Ben’s motorcycle. Inside, there’s shouting from upstairs. Several students are standing around, looking worried.

REED RICHARDS is trying to talk VICTOR VON DOOM out of packing. When Victor moves toward the room’s door, Ben blocks his way. There’s a brief tussle and words exchanged; Victor denigrates Ben’s common background and sports scholarship. Before an actual fight can break out, Professor Storm, Sue’s father, shows up. He engages Victor in a calmer discussion, but Victor is adamant about returning to Latveria to fight for his country. “Mr. Stark will be disappointed.” “I never needed the scholarship, but it gave me access to Stark’s program and resources.”

After Victor leaves, the discussion moves to whether the US will become involved in the war and how it will affect Professor Storm’s program for highly advanced students. Storm tells them Howard Stark set up and financed the program because he saw war coming, and wants the US to be as technologically ready as it can be. But if the US is dragged into active participation, the students are likely to be scattered across battle zones. Dissolve to:

TITLE CARD:

1944

Approaching England, a military plane of non-standard design. At the controls are HOWARD STARK and, as pilot, Sue Storm in a WASP uniform. Stark starts to move back in the plane. The navigator asks in a whisper if it’s okay to leave a woman in charge of the cockpit. Stark: “I only ask for the best.” “The Luftwaffe isn’t what it was, but they’re still round, Has she done any combat flying?” “Not officially.”

The cargo area holds a man in a greatcoat and military boots. Between boots and bottom edge of coat, a bit of red is visible. This is JOHN HAMMOND. He is light-skinned, blonde, and has extraordinarily pale eyes. Two military men, seeming more guards than companions, sit on either side.

Stark asks the pale man how he’s doing. “I need to smoke.” His face is expressionless. “After we land,” Stark replies. “Are you still willing?” The man shrugs at the question. “What does it matter? I’ll do what you want.”

Distress call. A damaged fighter plane is struggling to reach England. Sue recognizes the voice as Ben’s. Argument with Stark. Punches the souped-up Stark Special, catches up with Ben’s fighter, uses her own wing to support Ben’s damaged wing. (CUT TO Hammond peering out the window of the Stark Special, rapt at the sight of flames from Ben's damaged engine.) Sue & Ben agree to meet for dinner in London if they can. Reaches land. Ben breaks away at the last moment and is able to make a rough landing in a field. Sue circles back, sees Ben out of cockpit, waving helmet.

ENGLISH AIRFIELD

Stark’s plane has landed. The pale man is escorted off by his guards. He pauses before getting in a car, raises an unlit cigarette to his lips and inhales; the cigarette tip glows red, and so do the pale man’s eyes; he blows out a stream of smoke. Sue sees this and is startled; Stark sees Sue’s reaction and advises her “Higher classification than yours, sweetie.” He tells her it will be a few days before he needs her as pilot again, but follows up by asking if she’d like to have dinner with him. Sue says her father asked her to get in touch with one of his former students reportedly working in London, Reed Richards. It’s clear she is dodging the latest of many overtures from Stark. Stark raises an eyebrow, but remains silent.

LONDON RESTAURANT

Sue and Ben are at dinner when Reed joins them. (Ben hadn't expected Reed; he'd had a light crush on Sue when she was a teenager, and the attraction is stronger with the grownup Sue.) Reed remarks on how Sue’s changed, and it’s clear he’s attracted as well. The conversation reaches an impasse when none of them can discuss their respective work. Reed and Ben both are curious about how Sue got assigned as Stark's personal pilot, but Sue is unable to share classified details. Reed says his own work takes him out of London, implying it’s lots of paperwork and numbers, and he doesn’t know when they’ll all be able to get together again. Sue: “Someday I’m sure we’ll be able to share fantastic stories.”

When Ben and Reed leave the restaurant together, Ben speaks up. "The bit about you being a paper-pusher was bullshit, wasn't it? I can tell you've been in some kind of combat. It shows up in the eyes." Reed, clearly uncomfortable, denies it.

NEXT DAY, INTELLIGENCE HQ, LONDON

Reed reports for assignment. He’s not a paper-pusher; he’s a covert operative, veteran of several missions parachuting into Europe to contact and work with Resistance organizations, lending his scientific knowledge to help them create bombs and other weaponry.

But the new mission is urgent: A critical member of the Resistance in Latveria has been captured. Reed and a team including an operative “with special skills” are being sent in to try and bust him out. Reed is introduced to a man named John Hammond; it is the pale-eyed man. Howard Stark is there as well.

“How’s your Latverian, Reed?” “Rusty, but it will come back. A college roomate was Latverian; I picked it up from him.”

Objections to Hammond’s involvement as a civilian. “What is your specialty, Mr. Hammond?” “I make pretty things to distract people.” “What?” “I’m a… what’s the word?... an arsonist.” (Hammond is pretty creepy & mysterious.)

Transport problems: long distances over enemy territory to reach Latveria. Stark Special can make the trip, treetop level, mountain passes, but the only trained pilots for the plane are Sue Storm and Stark. Stark is too valuable a resource to risk. Grumble, grumble, acquiesce. (Reed is concerned about endangering Sue.) Fig leaf: documents will only refer to her as “S. Storm”. “Tut, tut, i say, this is highly irregular.” “Okay, we’ll put another pilot on board as cover.”

HOW WE GET BEN GRIMM PICKED TO FILL THAT CO-PILOT’S SEAT: Intelligence is afraid too much was said at the London dinner and Ben may have figured out too much. Making him co-pilot keeps the knowledge contained.

After the general meeting is completed, the head of Intelligence speaks privately to Reed. The captured Resistance leader, known as "the Iron Prince", is more important than can be revealed. Reed's secret orders are not just to rescue him, but to bring him out of Latveria and back to Allied territory, willing or not. "The Germans are losing the war," Reed is told. "And we expect the Soviets to take Latveria for themselves in the end. The Prince is a scientist, like yourself, and the Allies don't want the Soviets to have him. If you can't bring him out with you...your orders are to make certain no one else has him. Do you understand?"

AIRFIELD, GETTING READY

Sue is startled to see Reed in military gear, with weapons & parachute. Ben, almost shanghied into taking part in this secret mission, also feels disregarded when he finds he's only the titular co-pilot. Hammond, smoking, just watches people coolly. Reed has crates of explosives and weapons that will be dropped with him. “Where are your supplies, Hammond?” “I do things on the fly, Richards.”

Stark gives Reed a folder with info on Hammond. Reed’s eyes widen as he reads. “Is this real? What kind of world are we making, Stark?” “He’s a weapon. Use him.”

Sue chides Hammond for his standoffish attitude, citing teamship. HAMMOND: “I’m not a team player. I’m not like you. I wasn’t given a choice.” SUE: “This is a war. We give up most of our choice, in the hope that when it ends, choice will be there again, for us and for others, to live better lives.” “A life? I haven’t had an opportunity to have one yet.”

THE DROP

Reed and Hammond jump from the plane successfully. Sue circles back around at low speed to drop Reed's crates of supplies, but suddenly an enemy plane of unknown type engages with the Stark Special. Surprisingly, it’s able to keep up with the Stark Special as Sue tries to accelerate away. Stark’s plane gets hit and goes down.

In a “successful” crash landing, Sue and Ben walk away, but they’re in enemy territory and Stark’s plane can’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Nazi squad approaches and holds Sue and Ben at gunpoint. The jig is up.

But the Nazis are ambushed in turn by Latverian Resistance fighters, the Raadsalk ((Ben: "The Red Sox?"), who wear iron masks over their faces. Running gun battle. In the midst of this another Iron Mask arrives driving a motorcycle & sidecar; Hammond is riding behind the Iron Mask driver, with Reed in the sidecar.

Ben & Sue escape from the Nazis and join the Resistance group; Sue asks Reed if there’s any way he can blow up Stark’s plane to keep it’s tech out of Nazi hands. Reed can’t see how in the middle of a firefight, with his supplies still in the crashed plane.

Hammond, unnaturally calm, offers to destroy the plane. “Can you do that?” “Destroying things is the only thing I’m good for.”

Hammond stands up in plain sight and walks forward. Bullets fly toward him, but explode in small clouds of superheated air. Hammond’s eyes are glowing bright red. His overcoat begins to smoke. He tears it off and tosses it aside. His clothes burst into flame and fall from him in burning shreds. Under his regular clothing lies a skintight red uniform with yellow belt, the uniform seen in that brief glimpse in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.

Hammond transforms as he moves forward, breaks into a run. He becomes flame itself, a burning pillar only vaguely humanoid in shape. He throws himself forward and now he is flying, a missile speeding towards the terrified Nazis. [BECAUSE THE HUMAN TORCH IS THE SCARIEST MOFO ON THE ENTIRE PLANET, THAT’S WHY.]

The Nazis screams last only seconds before they are immolated. Hammond turns his attention to the downed plane. A stream of white-hot fire sets the plane’s fuel tanks off; then detonate Reed's explosives in a spectacular explosion.

The leader of the group approaches Ben and Sue and Reed, removes the mask, revealing herself as a woman. “So much for stealth. We need to move quickly. Your friend’s bonfire will be visible for miles. What in God’s name is he?”

Hammond’s flame shrinks, vanishes; he appears human again. He staggers and falls to his knees. No one seems willing to go near him. Finally Sue goes to him, hesitates, then helps him to his feet. Hammond shrugs back into his scorched overcoat, barely able to stand.

A truck appears and the Americans are piled into the back, partially filled with crates. Iron Masks scatter, some into the woods, several on the motorcycle and other conveyances.

Ben to Reed: “Reed, ya gotta fill me in on some of what’s going on here. That guy’s not human, he’s a walking flamethrower. What is he?”

Reed: “He’s an android. An artificial human, created from raw materials. The fire-transformation was an unexpected side-effect, apparently.”

“Jeezus. We could build an army of… hey, wait a minnit. If the Germans got their hands on him, figured out how he was made… Christ, why did they send him… it… on this mission? Why take that risk?”

“I’m right here, you know,” Hammond interjects. “Do you think anyone could hold me captive for long?”

“Keep your voices down,” the Iron Mask woman says. “We’re almost to town. There’ll be a checkpoint. Everyone lie on the floor and stay silent until I give an all clear.”

They do so. The Iron Mask woman flips open a concealed switch at the front end of the cargo compartment and turns it on. Suddenly the entire cargo hold seems filled with crates matching the previous, real ones. Iron Mask Woman joins them on the floor. From the view of the people on the floor, the “crates” are ghostly, semi-transparent rather than solid.

Reed stares analytically, muttering soflty. “Some kind of light refraction? But how does it…?”

Iron Mask Woman shushes Reed. “Quiet! One of the Iron Prince’s toys. Ask for details when you rescue him. If you can rescue him.”

The truck makes it thru the checkpoint and to a safe house, an office building attached to a warehouse. The truck pulls into the warehouse. A very large shrouded object shares the space.

Iron Mask Woman to Sue and Ben: “You’re an extra complication we didn’t need. We’ll have to hide you away until we can slip you out of Latveria and back to Allied-controlled territory.”

Sue: “Can we help?”

Iron Mask Woman: “You could make coffee. If we had coffee.”

Sue, riled: “I flew that plane across hundreds of miles of enemy territory to bring you those two.” She gestures towards Reed & Hammond. “I can field-strip and reassemble a rifle, in the dark, in less than sixty seconds, and then put a bullet in the center of a target a hundred yards away. And I can probably kick your behind for dessert.”

Ben: “Damn, Sue, what’s Stark been training you for?”

Sue: “Anything.”

Iron Mask Woman smiles slightly. “Perhaps we’ll see, someday after the war.”

SUE AND HAMMOND TALK

Sue: “Are you feeling all right? The… burning… must be a terrible drain on you.”

Hammond: “It’s not the fire. The fire is part of me. It’s what I am. Being fire, being flame, it feels natural. It feels free. It’s the destruction, the deaths I cause, that drive me to my knees.”

“They were enemy soldiers, and they were trying to kill us.”

“I know that. I can rationalize it, just like a human. But every death at my hands feels like a cold knife to my heart. Those soldiers weren’t the first men I’ve killed. My fath--- my creator, Professor Horton, died in a fire. Not one of my making. But I was the fire that killed the enemy agents who set that fire. And still I felt their deaths. And… and others even more.” Hammond’s face is haunted.

“Others?”

“I was newly born. I didn’t...didn’t have control over my fire. It spread. It spread and….” He falls silent for a moment, whispers. “Thirty-three innocent lives. Men. Women. Children.”

Sue gasps. “The big tenement fire in New York last year? That was you?”

Hammond nods toward the others, his face bleak. “They are right to call me a weapon. They are right to call me ‘it.’ I look like a human being, but I’m not. I don’t deserve to be.

Sue hesitates, then speaks as she touches him gently. “Regretting the death of others, especially when you’ve had a hand in it, that’s a very human thing to feel. There are people who never feel that, who only see themselves and no others as human. A big part of this war is to stop those people.”

Hammond, after a moment: “Thank you.”

REED AND IRON MASK WOMAN TALK

Reed and Iron Mask Woman have a map and floor plans spread out on a table. The Von Doom castle is HQ for the occupying Nazis. The ancient dungeon is where the captured Iron Prince is being held.

(In the background, Ben and several Iron Masks are talking beside the shrouded object. One of the Iron Masks takes a small flashlight, gestures and lifts a corner of the shroud; Ben and the Iron Mask duck beneath it and vanish.)

“The dungeon is under the main keep, here.” IMW points. “But it’s the walls and battlements around the castle that are the real obstacle. Very thick, almost impenetrable, short of a direct hit by a blockbuster bomb.I don’t suppose you brought one in your bag?”

“No, but I could build one with the appropriate equipment and supplies. I don’t suppose you have an industrial bomb factory handy?”

“Ha. Even if we were able to blow a hole in the walls or portcullis, there are several hundred German soldiers guarding the castle, all heavily armed. They’d cut down any strike force trying to gain entry into the actual castle.”

“Do you have anyone on the inside?”

“We have, but they've had to lay low for weeks. The Nazis have been brutal towards anyone they even suspect of helping the Resistance. No one wants their entire families hanged.”

“You said the Germans in the castle are heavily armed. Are ammunition stores kept in the castle?”

“No. That information we do have. Ammo stores are kept in these buildings at the far side of the castle compound.”

Hammond joins in the conversation. “You’re thinking of a diversion, Richards?”

“If we can set off an ammunition explosion, it may draw troops away from the castle wall to fight the fire. At a minimum, other shifts will be too busy to reinforce the gate guards. But that still leaves the problem of how to get through the gate.”

“Hey, Reed.” Ben is out and standing by the shrouded object. “This might help.”

Ben draws aside the tarp, revealing a massive vehicle, heavily armored and oddly designed, sitting high on large wheels patterned after tank treads. There are multiple gun-slits on the upper corners. A large iron cylinder projects partway out from underneath, held by machinery under the tall-standing chassis.

“What is it? A homemade tank?”

IMW: “Of a sort. One of Vi--- the Iron Prince’s unfinished projects.”

“It’s a 20th Century battering ram, Reed. Pretty damn impressive, too, considering what they’ve had to work with. Fydor here told me about it.” Ben indicates the man he’d gone under the tarp with. Fydor and IMW exchange several words in Latverian; IMW’s tone is annoyed.

“I didn’t know you’d picked up some Latverian, Ben.”

“Not a word. But turns out Fydor and I both know enough Yiddish to get by. C’mon, take a look at this thing.”

Reed looks to IMW for permission. “Okay?”

She nods. “Take a look. But construction isn’t complete, and our fuel factory was discovered. We were able to destroy the equipment before the Nazis confiscated it, but lost the completed fuel we were stockpiling. And that's where the Iron Prince was captured.”

“You made your own fuel?”

“Another of the Iron Prince’s inventions. He came up with a way to distill fuel from vegetable oil and animal fats. Not alcohol, something close to diesel. We couldn’t let the Nazis seize that process and use it themselves.”

Reed has his head under the ram-tank’s hood. “Ah, that must be why this carburetor looks strange..” He pauses. “Wait, no. It doesn’t look strange. It looks familiar.” He pokes his head back out. “The Iron Prince. Is his name...Victor? Victor von Doom?”

IMW is startled. “You know my… you know Victor?”

“We were students together in America. I remember seeing one of his notebooks left lying open. It had sketches similar to this machine’s mechanisms. He was furious when he saw me looking at it.”

IMW laughs. “That sounds like Victor.”

“He never said anything about being a prince. I’m glad to know he’s still alive.”

“He’s not a prince, technically. The von Dooms were Dukes, but most of Latverian royalty has been executed or... disappeared. Only a handful are left, and Victor probably has the most right to rule Latveria, if only the Nazis can be expelled. But he was captured last week, and won’t be alive long if we can’t rescue him.”

“We were sent to help. How much do you know about his current situation?”

DUNGEON, VON DOOM CASTLE

VICTOR is bound ankles and arms to a wooden chair in the middle of a rough stone floor. A bright light spotlights him. He is bare chested, his face grim but determined. There are bruises on his body, and small burn marks on his upper chest.

A Nazi officer, COMMANDANT HOCH, steps into the edge of the circle of light.

“Good day...Prince von Doom.” His voice is sarcastic. “How are you today?”

Victor stares back at him, wordless.

“Still silent? How admirable. But really, von Doom, we’ve gone easy on you until now. You have a visitor.”

Victor reacts to that last, but stifles it quickly.

Another person steps into the light, another Nazi officer. The uniform is spotless, and the new Nazi wears it with evident pride and bearing. But his head and face are misshapen and twisted, skull-like in appearance, and scarlet like an intense sunburn on the knife edge of blistering. He is the RED SKULL.

Victor takes a breath at the sight.

“Do you know who this is?” Hoch asks.

Victor finally speaks. “I’ve heard of this monster.” He addresses Red Skull directly. “Take off that mask if you want to face me, you coward.”

Red Skull steps forward slowly, moves behind Victor, places his gloved hands on Victor’s shoulders. Victor can’t conceal a small flinch at the touch.

Red Skull leans forward, puts his mouth close to Victor’s ear. He whispers.

“My...mask?” He brings his face forward several inches, and slowly kisses Victor’s cheek. Victor looks startled. “Did that feel like a mask?” Red Skull runs a tongue up the side of Victor’s face and caresses his features with one hand. “Such a pretty, handsome fellow. It will be such a shame, making you tell everything. But so much fun, as well.”

Walking towards Hoch's office, Red Skull tells Captain Hoch he will be taking Doom back to Berlin for "effective questioning" in the morning. Hoch replies he will have a truck and military escort ready at dawn. They are overheard by a charwoman cleaning the hallway. She looks up with a significant glance after the two men pass by.

LATER, BACK AT THE WAREHOUSE

The charwoman, apprehensive at the risk, shows up and informs Iron Mask Woman about the planned transfer. Time has become of the essence; if Doom is to be rescued, it has to be before morining. But the transfer from castle to airstrip provides a window of opportunity.

With most of Reed's supplies lost, a rescue attempt will need to be by more conventional means. Hammond is asked to hold himself back; his powers are too destructive for this mission. Iron Mask Woman gathers her Raadsalk and makes plans to ambush the transfer vehicles on the road to the airfield.

When the mission goes down, it is chaos. The truck holding Doom is blockaded, and the Raadsalk are able to kill or drive off the German troops and rescue Doom. But before they can escape, the Germans regroup and counterattack. Doom and the surviving Raadsalk escape, but Irom Mask Woman, Victor's sister Ilsa, is captured in his stead.

The Germans first attempt to reach the airfield. That's when Hammond steps into action. "I have this." Bursting into flame and flight, he races to the airfield and torches it, including the Red Skull's plane. The Germans turn and retreat quickly back to the protection of the castle walls.

The Iron Squad retreats back to their warehouse hideout. Victor demands Ilsa be rescued. But the Nazis are on high alert now, safe behind thick stone walls. Victor's ram-tank was designed to break through such barriers, but it won't move without a fresh supply of fuel.

Victor and Reed spend sleepless hours to kluge together new fuel-extraction machinery. One of the things that comes up while they work is Reed's suggestion Victor relocate to Allied territory. Victor responds with some anger; Latveria's Resistance has received little in the way of support until now. Doom has been operating in hostile territory, with limited resources and supplies, since late 1939. If he'd had access to his country's full resources, the Nazis would have fled Latveria within weeks. His genius is kneecapped by circumstance. Annoyed & outraged he hasn’t gotten more support from Allies until now. When Reed mentions the Soviet troops making advances in the East, Doom replies, "The Germans took Latveria by surprise. That won't happen again. I promise you, Richards, once the Germans are gone and our country is ours again, the Soviet Union will never gain a foothold here."

Barrels of lard are "borrowed" from a meat-packing plant to serve as a fuel base. (Ben, manhandling a barrel of lard: "Not gonna mention this to my rabbi.") But Victor's extraction process requires an intense heat-source to initiate the process.

They need Hammond. But where is he?

Hammond, spiritually exhausted by his attack on the airfield and the new deaths it caused, had been taken by Sue to a private room to rest and recover. Her solace of the bereft android turns into something more, and it turns out John Hammond has more of the human about him than even he suspected.

The two barely avoid exposure when Reed and Doom come knocking on the room's door. Hammond accompanies them back to the machinery, where his intense flame is able to jump-start the extraction process.

When Hammond is asked to join the new rescue effort, he begs off. "Too much death. Too much. I am sickened by it."

"What if we just want you to make a distraction? No direct killing?" he is asked.

ATTACK ON THE CASTLE

Ram-tank fueled, Raadsalk ammoed back up, the new rescue mission is ready to go. The tank bursts thru the warehouse doors and rushes thru the streets of Latveria's capital. Guards on the castle walls open fire at the tank, to no effect. The steel-reinforced castle gates shudder at the tank's impact, but hold, Then the tank's huge mechanical ran is activated, crashing repeatedly at the obstacle. In less than a minute, the gates are smashed open, flying wide. The tank advances into the sprawling courtyard. Inner guards open fire as iron-masked Raadsalk follow behind the tank, with Reed, Ben and Sue among them. The ram-tank turns and aims for the Germans, scattering them and sending them fleeing, before sputtering as its limited fuel-supply runs out. Doom climbs out of the tank, a sub-machine gun in his hands, and rallies his men to move forward. He heads for the castle's courtyard entrance, followed by Reed, Ben, and several Raadsalk.

There is still heavy fire from the Germans atop the walls. Sue joins a group of Raadsalk trying to climb a staircase to the top of the walls, but Germans have a clear view and the Resistance fighters are pushed back by withering fire. Pinned down, the Raadsalk squad leader tells Sue, "We need your friend's distraction. Now." Sues pulls a flare pistol from beneath her jacket and fires it into the air.

CHURCH SPIRE

Blocks away, Hammond is perched on the steeple of a medieval church, watching intently towards the castle. Distant sounds of gunfire in the air. Then a red flare blossoms in the air above the castle. Hammonds stares for a long second, then dives from the steeple's height. In mid-air he transforms into flame, becoming a fiery arrow that speeds toward the castle.

CASTLE INTERIOR

Victor's group moves thru the castle. Victor grew up here; he knows all the passages and stairways intimately. The Germans in the castle are largely administrative personnel, not infantry, and offer less resistance than the troops outside. Victor captures one and holds a gun to the German's head. "Tell me where the female prisoner is, and I will let you live." "She's...she's on the second floor, in the Commandant's office." Victor knocks the German out with a swipe of his gunstock to the man's head, and leads his small group upstairs

COMMANDANT'S OFFICE

In Hoch's office, Ilsa is restrained to a chair. Hoch is at one side of a window, looking carefully out at what he can see of the firefight taking place outside; he has a phone in one hand, barking orders into the mouthpiece. ("Keep them away from the munitions bunker! At all costs!") The Red Skull stands before Ilsa, looking down at her.

SKULL: "A rescue attempt. How brave. How pathetic."

Ilsa spits in reply. Red Skull raises a hand to strike her across the face, but pauses, looking up at the sound of boots in the hallway outside.

The door crashes open from Victor's kick. Victor enters, raising the sub-machine gun, but Red Skull has already pulled his sidearm and has it pressed against Ilsa's head. "Pull that trigger, and I'll kill your woman with my dying breath."

Reed and Ben enter behind Victor. Behind them we see several Raadsalk guarding the hallway in both directions. Reed keeps his rifle aimed at Hoch, who has turned toward them with a stunned expression. Ben's rifle moves back and forth between both Nazis, backup for Victor and Reed.

"Kill him, Victor," Ilsa says. "Take the shot. Kill this monster."

Victor hesitates. The Red Skull's grotesque face smiles. "You think I'm bluffing, von Doom?"

In the window behind Hoch, a flaming spear appears in the sky, speeding down towards a squat building towards the rear of the castle grounds.

And Hell breaks loose.

The explosion of the munitions bunker is immense, a sudden, instantaneous ball of destructive fury, lashing out with deadly force. The window behind Hoch explodes inwards, hundreds of sharp glass shards penetrating his back as he is flung across the room by the explosion's pressure wave.

The castle walls, steady for centuries, shake and shift. The sound is overwhelming. Everyone is knocked to the floor, even Ilsa still tied to her chair. Everyone is momentarily stunned. The Red Skull stirs weakly, lifts himself partway up and reaches for his pistol lying nearby.

"No you don't." Ben rushes Red Skull, smashes into him like they're on a football field together. Red Skull staggers back, then strikes back with a high kick that barely misses Ben's head. Ben bobs and weaves, but Red Skull has training Ben doesn't, and Ben can't get near the Nazi, barely dodging being hit himself. But then Reed grabs Red Skull from behind, wrapping his arms around him, pulling him back, off his feet. Ben finally has his opening, coming in close to punch Red Skull's face with a powerful right hook. Red Skull jerks out of Reed's arms, but he's woozy and vulnerable.Ben goes close for another punch, and another. "I'm gonna punch you all the way past ugly and back around to handsome! Then round to ugly again!" Red Skull goes down, slipping to the floor, barely conscious. "Tell 'em it was a dirty Jew who beat your ass!" Ben adds to the groaning Nazi..

Meanwhile, with the castle making ominous creaking and tearing noises around them, Victor approaches Hoch, who is lying on the floor, groaning, bleeding from a thousand cuts, gasping for breath with a bubbling sound. Through the shattered window, dozens of pieces of flaming debris are still falling down from the sky, setting fires everywhere. "What did you do?" Victor asks, "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Hock gasps out. "We...found some of your old notebooks. Used the ideas. An...experimental explosive. High...high explosive. Very...high." Hoch laughs weakly, blood bubbling from his mouth; his head sinks to the floor and he is still.

The castle's creaking and groaning increases in volume. "This place is going to come down," Reed says. "We have to get out." Victor looks around at what has been his ancestral home, now on the verge of collapse. "Now, Victor!" They all move for the door, but Victor pauses to pick up Red Skull's pistol. He puts two bullets into Skull's chest, then whirls and runs out of the room after Ben and Reed.

In the corridor, a section of ceiling collapses as heavy timbers snap and stone walls sag and lean ominously, blocking the way to downstairs. "This way!" Victor shouts. "We need to go up, out onto a roof!"

Back in Hoch's office, the Red Skull stirs, claws open the front of his uniform. There is body armor underneath, two bullets lodged there. He gasps for breath; the bullets still hit hard enough to feel like a blow from a mallet, even with the armor. He crawls to the window, looks out at the destruction and fires. The castle groans around him, and part of the ceiling collapses. Red Skull heaves himself over the edge of the window and lets himself fall.

Victor and his men, with Reed and Ben and Ilsa, work their way up another flight, to a room whose window opens onto a rooftop for a side-tower of the castle. The rooftop is warped and uneven, with a steep slope, and flaming debris has smashed thru the roof in several spots, setting the interior alight. But it's the only feasible escape route. Quickly, the men cut and tear the room's curtains into long strips and tie them into a long rope. One of the Raadskal men goes first and checks over the roof's edge. He shouts back "Hurry! There's flames starting from the building's front. No telling how long the rope will last before catching." Victor directs him to go, and he quickly drops out of sight over the roof's edge. Victor sends Ilsa next, then the other Raadskal. "Go," he tells Ben and Reed. When Reed starts to object, Victor shoves to the rope. "Go! I have a duty!"

The three men climb down the roof. Smoke and flames are risng from the holes in the roof; the men have only minutes to climb from the roof and save themselves.

Suddenly, the tiles beneath Victor collapse. Victor falls into the opening with a cry. Reed and Ben quickly climb back to the hole's edge, try to peer down past the thick smoke and heated air rising.

Victor is barely visible, clutching at a cross-beam of the roof timbers. Far below, the floor is aflame. He looks up at the two men above.

"Hang on!" Reed shouts. "Ben, it's too far to reach from here. Can you hold on to my legs?"

Ben hesitates before answering."Yeah." Ben wraps a section of the curtain-rope around himself and takes a tight grip on Reed's ankles. Reed moves over the edge until half his body is hanging over the edge. He reaches down but it's still short by inches as Victor tries to reach out with one hand while retaining a grip on the cross-beam; Victor clutches the beam with both hands again, tells Reed to go.

"Victor, you have to jump for my hand. I'll catch you."

Victor coughs. "Will you? I'm not leaving Latveria, Richards."

"Take my hand."

Victor jumps..Their hands meet, grasp, but it's not a fully firm catch. "Ben, pull us up!" Reed shouts. Ben is groaning and straining at the sudden addition of Victor's weight. "Hurry!"

"Working...on...it," Ben replies, voice strained. He pulls, but it's a slow process, an inch at a time.

Reed and Victor are both straining, trying to keep their grasp on each other, arm and hand muscles standing out in sharp relief.

It's not enough. Their grip slips a fraction, then more, then suddenly completely.

"RICHARDS-S-S-S!" Victor screams as he falls, vanishing into the smoke and flames below.

Ben pulls Reed back onto the roof. Reed curses, beats a fist against the tiles. "We have to go, Reed. We have to go."

INTERIOR BURNING TOWER

Victor von Doom is still alive. The tower, a barn-like storage area fixed to the castles side, is filled with flames and smoke, but none of them flames have yet touched Victor. He snaps back to consciousness, coughing at the smoke. He clutches at a leg that is clearly broken. He looks around, trying to see thru the smoke, trying to see any possible escape.

What he sees is a section of flaming debris falling towards him, straight towards the metal mask covering his face. He screams as the burning end falls across the mask, the remainder pinning his arms. The screams continue as Victor's body spasms in pain.

In a burning section of the tower floor, there is motion. Hammond rises unsteadily to his feet, shoving burning debris off of himself. He had himself been one of the pieces of burning debris thrown off by the explosion, and had crashed thru the tower's roof, stunned. He moves toward Victor as the man's screams stop. Hammond pulls the burning material off Victor, picks up the thankfully unconscious man, and walks swiftly through the flames towards the outside.

RESISTANCE SANCTUARY, SEVERAL DAYS LATER

The Latverian mission is wrapping up. Victor has survived, but will be severely disfigured the rest of his life. He refuses to see the Americans again. The disaster of the explosion and subsequent widespread fires has motivated the Nazis to move their forces out of Latveria's capital. They remain in other parts of the country, but the huge loss of men and material has them in disarray. Ilsa tells the Americans the Raadskal will be able to strike effectively now and drive the Nazis fully out of Latveria.

The ruins of the castle failed to disclose the Red Skull's body. His death remains uncertain.

After Hammond brought Victor out of the burning tower, he looked around at the widespread destruction and declared himself done with humanity's wars and brutality. Bursting into flame a final time, he had flown off to parts unknown.

It's war, and war doesn't always end happily or with a clear resolution. Reed, Ben and Sue are sent along the Raadskal's underground network to return them to Allied territory. (Might include a cameo appearance by Nick Fury & the Howling Commandos.)

EPILOGUE (POST-CREDITS SCENE?), MAY 1945

Several months after Latveria, Sue is on leave back home with her parents. News radio is reporting on the recent cessation of hostilities in Europe. The family is rapt on the newscaster's words, when Sue suddenly leaps up and runs for the bathroom to vomit. Her parents follow, concerned.

Sue is pregnant from her unplanned fling with John Hammond. Pregnancy will end her military service and deny her an honorable discharge. "Does anyone else know?" her mother asks.

"Howard Stark guessed, a few days before I came here. He said he could make...arrangements...if that's what I wanted. Or he could pull strings and arrange matters to keep the pregnancy hidden, and me out of sight, until the baby comes and I could return to full duty. But it would mean giving the baby away. I can't...I don't think I can do that either."

The elder Storms give each other a long look, nod. "Do you remember the Slade family, Sue?"

"The Slades? Yes, why?"

"Remember when the family went to Central America for Mr. Slade's contruction project, and Martha Slade came back with a late-life baby when she was almost forty?"

"Yes...."

"That wasn't Martha's child. It was her grandchild. Their daughter Sarah became pregnant by a young man who died in an accident before they could be married. The Slades hid Sarah's pregnancy with the move to Central America and pretended the baby was their own."

"Are you saying...that you...?"

"Yes. We'll do something similar. Perhaps Mr. Stark could help arrange things."

Sue cries in relief. "I'll be as much a mother to him as I can. And...if it's a boy...I'll name him Johnny."

END

A FEW NOTES ON CHANGES TO CANON:

Ben Grimm – I’ve tried to give Ben a bit more credit for intelligence and talent in his pre-Thing days than was evident in those early issues of Fantastic Four, which mentioned little more than pilot skills and a talent for sports. While nowhere near the level of Reed or von Doom, I figure Ben must be pretty intelligent overall for Reed to still have him as a friend in the early 1960s.

An aviation engineering degree seemed a reasonable goal for Ben to seek in college, and making him an air racer gives him an early start on those hot-shot pilot skills. But that intelligence tends to be overlooked due to Ben’s poor anger management skills, rough manner of speaking, and that, even before cosmic rays gave him that nasty skin condition, he was a big, brawny guy who looked like he might clobber your clock if he wanted to.

(Also note that in the modern comics, Ben frequently helps Reed move around and, presumably, setup and install massive and probably very expensive equipment for Reed's experiments. So my own headcanon is that Ben's a pretty smart cookie who knows his way around a lab.)

The Human Torch – The original Torch’s human identity from the 1940’s was Jim Hammond. In this version, I’ve changed it to John Hammond to more strongly tie it into the post-credit scene’s twist. I’ve also tried to give his personality more texture and angst. (Because the guy’s a freakin’ android, “born” full-blown and with little to no idea how to interact or fit in with normal humanity, and the possessor of one of the most terrifying superpowers there is.)

Also, unless I shoehorned in a time machine (which I didn’t want to do), there was no way for a story set in 1945 to feature Johnny Storm, who hadn’t even been born yet. (He was, I think, sixteen in the first Fantastic Four comic in 1962, so his birth year was probably 1946, which felt important.)

Reed Richards – Still kinda boring. Sorry. (On the other hand, "boring" and "dependable" might be more attractive to Sue as a potential mate once she assumes a sisterly/motherly role in raising Johnny. At least up until Reed needs to kluge up a crew for his experimental, untested space rocket....)

Sue Storm -- Sue, in the earliest issues of Fantastic Four, was presented as a very demure, conservatively dressed and behaved woman, who was fairly "invisible" (*ahem*) as a character until they added her force-field powers in later issues. For this story, she needed to be more than that, someone who might reasonably be in the middle of dangerous and exciting situations. So I decided she was actually a bit of a "wild child" as a teenager, open to adventure and risk, and whip-smart, who could hold her own with Professor Storm's genius-level students like Reed and Victor, held back largely by societal misognyny and prejudice against women.

But how did that adventurous character become the more demure Sue of the early issues? That's a big reason I included her unexpected pregnancy via the original Human Torch. Even presenting as Johnny's "sister" after his birth, she'd still be a major "motherly" presence in his life, particularly after her own mother's death. That responsibility and duty would lead her to repress her wilder ways, in order to care for the raising of her considerably-younger "brother".

(The mention of the Slade neighbors is a shout-out to 1961 movie SUSAN SLADE, which used that exact "sister-is-the-real-mother" scenario. It was pretty damn common in the bad old days to try and hide unwed pregnancies by various means and deceptions.)

Franklin Storm -- In original canon, Sue's father Franklin was a doctor. I changed him to a professor heading an advanced-student program that would let all four major characters meet and interact at an earlier stage. I also tied in Howard Stark as someone who would be a major player in pre-war and WW2 covert programs, and be instrumental in letting Sue, Reed, and Ben get together for the main plotline.

Victor Von Doom -- Biggest change here was to have him leave college earlier, and undisfigured, to fight against Nazis invading his native Latveria. And to give him a kick-ass sister to help in that fight. And justifying his later animosity towards Reed and Ben by a bitter (if undeserved) resentment that they failed to save him from excruciating injuries and a hideous disfigurement.

So, that's my version of a Fantastic Four movie that won't flop. I actually started noodling away on the concept around 2015 or 2016, when the concept came up in the midst of some comics discussion in the comments section of Mike Glyer's File770. It got expanded and revised in fits and starts over the years. Actually a pretty good story, I think. Hope you enjoyed it.