Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes

The Fantastic Four won't rest until they find whoever tagged The Thing (Pssst: It was Johnny!)

A 2006 animated adaptation of Marvel's First Family: The Fantastic Four, meant to market the team to a new audience who were coming off the 2005 movie and heading into its 2007 sequel (which probably ended up working against the show during its initial broadcast). Produced by French Animation Company "Moonscoop". The name "World's Greatest Heroes" refers to the comics' original tagline, "Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine".

The series as a whole was Lighter and Softer, focusing much more on the Fantastic Four as a sitcom family who happened to go on adventures rather than a team of superheroes who were also a family.

It was story edited by Christopher Yost.

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Tropes that come in play with this series in particular:

• Animated Adaptation
• All Your Powers Combined: Iron Doom in Shell Games. Johnny even lampshades it "Double armor, dude isn't that heavy?"
  • Done also with Super Skrull who has all the powers of the FF.
• Anime Hair: Johnny suffers the most
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Giant monsters were many in this series.
• Badass Longcoat: Doom's green longcoat.
• Big Sister Instinct: In "Trial By Fire" Johnny gets captured by the Kree and a very angry Susan demands that Reed find him. She refuses to listen to his reason and Techno Babble. She just wants to find her brother and who's ass to kick.
• Blue and Orange Morality: What the Impossible Man runs on.
• Bluff the Impostor: To a ludicrous extreme when Skrulls impersonate everyone in the Baxter Building; Reed asks questions like "How was it we first met? Five hundred years ago...it was on the moon, wasn't it?"
• But for Me It Was Tuesday: The Kree Accuser is disgraced and exiled thanks to Johnny in the first episode, 14 later when the Super Skull appears it turns out he allied with this Kree to become a Super Skull, Johnny's reaction even while he and the Kree fight, "You'd be surprised how many blue guys we fight." He NEVER recognizes him.
• Butt Monkey: HERBIE
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Johnny in "Johnny Storm And The Potion Of Fire"
• Bratty Half-Pint: A popular child star hangs out at the Baxter Building for an episode.
• Conspicuous CG: The holographic "4", The Fantasticar and other vehicles
• The Cameo: Several in "The Cure", Squirrel Girl even makes an appearance!
  • In one episode, Johnny hires a photographer to improve the FF's image; he's never named, but it's obviously Peter Parker.
  • Another episode features a very good-looking Tony Stark.
  • And yet another one has Hank Pym
• Chest Insignia: Ben is the only one who doesn't have one. So Johnny painted one on his chest.
• Cool Car: Johnny has many flame-decaled cars, plus the Fantasticar.
• Cool Old Lady: Ms. Monet, who fights Negative Zone bugs with bug spray and thinks steering through space in an apartment building is fun.
• Cranky Landlady/Cranky Neighbor: Courtney "Cory" Bonner-Davis, who never stops complaining about the Four. Perhaps justified as superheroes can be difficult to live near.

Courtney: (to renegade agents taking aim outside her window) They live. UP. STAIRS.

• Cuteness Proximity: In "World's Tiniest Heroes" Sue's wrath is completely diffused by the timely appearance of a dog.

Susan: PUPPY!

• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Certain supervillians, including Doom, Trapper and the Wizard could be making a lot of money with the technology they created, which includes antigravity, various glues and energy blasts.
• Dark-Skinned Redhead: Alicia
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: The frikkin Mole-Man, who did you think?
• The Dragon: Lucia von Bardas.
• Dumb Blonde: Johnny.
• Expy: Cory is much like Ms. Lavinia Forbes from the '90s cartoon, being a bespectacled old woman living with the Fantastic Four who can't stand them.
• Precious Puppies
• Fan Nickname: EmoDoom because of his tendency to brood (well, moreso than usual), and because his design kind of looks like a skinny kid in a hoodie.
• Flying Firepower: Johnny, what with the flying and the fire balling.
• Foreshadowing: While the show never got another season, the Impossible Man's hope about what would happen to Earth is an obvious allusion to a big part of the Fantastic Four's Rogues Gallery, what does he say?

Impossible Man: I hope your planet gets eaten!

• Freaky Friday Flip: Reed and Doom in "Doomed"
• Fridge Logic/Expy: Captain Ultra has flight, super strength, and eye beams. He seems like a good replacement for Ben now that he is cured except he has a crippling fear of fire, so much so a single lit thumbs up for Johnny gives him a panic attack. The Expy should be obvious, the Fridge...the Human Torch is the one who set up the auditions. Somehow I doubt that Ultra put his fear of fire on his resume. As for why he auditioned for a team with a guy that sets himself on fire, thats another problem entirerly...
  • Captain Ultra is a real original Marvel character, who originally tried to get a job with the evil FF, the Fearful Four, back in the late 60's. And yes, he would faint at the sight of fire then too.
• Gainaxing: In "Worlds Tiniest Heroes", when one of the monsters jump at Susan, if you look close enough, you can see a bit of a bounce.
• Great Gazoo: Impossible Man.
• He's Big in Japan Quoted in-universe by the Human Torch in "Frightful".

I'm moving to Japan, I'm big in Japan.

• Hair of Gold: Interesting example as the French animators had designed Sue with pink hair in an attempt to be "current". The higher ups vetoed it, and are quoted as saying "Sue Storm is an American woman, and American women have blond hair."
• Harmless Villain: Mole Man, to the point of being the Butt Monkey.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: David Kaye as Tony Stark/Iron Man.
  • All three of the Dobson brothers do voices on the show. Brian's the Thing, Paul's Doctor Doom and Mole Man, and Michael's Ronan the Accuser.
  • HERBIE shares a voice actor with Sidoh.
• Hulk Speak There's the obvious gamma giant himself but also the Torch, and Thing. Reed also gets one when trying to simplify his Tech Talk to the others.

Human Torch Hungry! Thing Smash!

• Hypocritical Heartwarming:

Mole Man: (to Reed) Must you prattle on? Ben': Hey! Only we get to say stuff like that.

• I Am a Monster: Thing as usual considers himself this. In "Hard Knocks," Bruce Banner says otherwise - calling the Hulk "a force of nature," but the Thing a hero to be looked up to.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Variations of the "4" logo
• Instant AI, Just Add Water: Bruiser in "Doom's Word Is Law." Reed insists that HERBIE isn't sentient, but it's hard to believe when HERBIE is doing things like going on strike because he feels insulted..
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Johnny to Ben, sure he punks him daily but if anyone dares question Ben isn't a hero The Torch will set you straight...with fireballs.
• Large Ham: In a truly stunning departure from traditional portrayals of the character, Dr. Doom is played like this. Who'da thunk it?
  • Johnny believes in going big or going home, from his dialogue to his sports cars.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In one episode Reed finds a way to turn Ben back to normal, but at the cost of erasing his memories of everything that happened since he became the Thing.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Johnny hires a freelance photographer and cuts him off before he can introduce himself. he bares a certain resemblence to a certain freelance photographer of superheroes Marvel was not allowed to use because of a contract with Sony at the time.
• Logic Bomb: Destroys Doom's Robots.
  • Memorably subverted in one episode. Doom tells them not to obey any orders given to them by anyone, not even him. When Reed is Freaky Friday Flipped into Doom's body, he tells them to self-terminate. They immediately comply because "Doom's word is law".
• Magic Versus Science: Reed vs. Diablo in "Johnny Storm and the Potion of Fire".

Reed Richards: HA! Take that, MAGIC! Hem. It was all scientifically explained.

• Ms. Fanservice: Susan' uniform is very tight and very form-fitting, which makes it perfect for the occasional close-up of her shapely buns.
• Mythology Gag: The show's title, and a few other references.
  • "Strings" has a beautiful one, with a brief gag involving several Skrulls masquerading as cows, homaging the Skrulls' very first appearance where Reed hypnotized them into believing they were cows.
• Neck Lift: More like Chin Lift, as She-Hulk did with Johnny after she transformed in front of him in "The Cure".
• Nerds Are Sexy: SEXIEST. REED RICHARDS. EVER.
• Nosy Neighbor: Many.
• No Indoor Voice: HERBIE!
• The Notable Numeral: Guess.
• Not So Above It All: Reed at the end of "Frightful"

Reed: "Smartest man on earth." Please!

• Out of Character Alert: In "My Neighbor Was a Skull", Cory is suddenly acting nice and like to spend time with Susan. It's revealed that she's actually a Skrull.
• Powers as Programs: In "Bait and Switch", the characters' powers all get swapped, with a mild dose of Personality Swap into the bargain.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: At best, it's more accurate than the movie.
• Race Lift: Alicia (and by extension, the Puppet Master.)
• Robotic Reveal: Von Bardas.
• Scary Black Man: Puppet Master.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Johnny
  • And HERBIE.
• Ship Tease: One of the few FF adaptations where Reed and Sue aren't a couple... quite yet.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Puppet Master.
• Split Screen: Used frequently and cleverly.
• Tastes Like Chicken: In the first Skrull episode, one of the clues that something is wrong is that everything tastes like chicken. Even the soda.
• There Was a Door: After Johnny burns through the window of Tony Stark's office:

Tony: You know, this is a very high-tech building. We have things called doors.

• Tsundere: Sue.
• Timm Style. Not Animesque
• Unmoving Plaid: The Thing's rocky skin is created with this technique.
• Wasn't That Fun?: In one episode, Dr. Doom sends the Baxter Building into space. Reed has to fly it like a spaceship, using Doombots as thrusters, before crashing it into the Latverian Embasssy. Most of the building's residents are terrified by all this, but one dotty old lady wants to do it again.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Johnny once lampshaded the fact that Susan used to only be able to turn invisible.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: "Bruiser"
• Worst Whatever Ever

Sue: "I know, I know: we're the Worst. Neighbors. Ever. Right?"