Once Upon A Time, Fabio Was 'Thor'
Filed under: Animation, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek
You kids today, with your Marvel Studios and your top-notch directors. Many of you are too young to remember just what ugly treatments comic books received in the 1980s and 1990s. Oh sure, there was Tim Burton's Batman, but treatments like David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD were the norm. When a Thor movie was kicked around, the only requirement was muscles and blonde hair. In the 1990s, there was one man that fit that description: Fabio.A funny little flashback has surfaced on Colleen Doran's blog, which has prompted a delightful trip back in time at Mania. In 1997, Fabio decided that he wanted to play Thor, so he approached animation director Seth Kearsley, and they cooked up a storyline with the help of Henry Gilroy. As Mania points out, this was not a Marvel movie , but it casually borrowed a few elements. The result, pictured to your right, was an unholy blend of Marvel's Thor and Captain Marvel / Shazam where Thor was punished for his arrogance by being shoved into the powerless body of a young boy. Despite its cheese and lack of Hollywood backing, it managed to recruit a lot of comic book talent for its designs, including Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. They were also desperately seeking Charlton Heston to voice Odin, and were in negotiations with Pamela Anderson to voice the Valkyrie Brunhild. But it died off, never to be seen again ... until the Internet could laugh about it.
What's not clear to me from the dusty days of 1997 is whether Fabio was ever considered for a live-action Marvel Thor. I remember rumors of such a thing (possibly just a vision created from a few minutes browsing his official website), and I certainly can't imagine Fabio saying "No no, I would really be suited for an animated Thor." Whatever the rumors and plans, it's good to look back and remember just how far we've come. Right, geeks?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-15-2009 @ 8:20PM
seth kearsley said...
How random of you to bash a 12 year old project. Even more random that I recently found an old firewire drive with the promo piece we did for the project. Now you can see the entire thing as I'm sure you're basing your entire opinion on the one image that was out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUl2FisjVtk
Bash Fabio all you want, I'm sure you're breaking new ground there, but he put up the money for a project he believed in. Two minutes of traditional animation digitally painted with original score and a full mix doesn't come cheap. A project that delivered a message to kids that he believed in.
At any rate, I'll thank you for the random bashing and dancing on the grave of a project that's been dead for years because there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe for a second you could take the geek blinders off and realize that a lot of talented people put a lot of hard work into the project and I think it stands up against stuff on TV even now, 12 years later.
Seth Kearsley
ps - Heston was signed. We had a lovely meeting at his home. He showed us a pistol that used to belong to Benjamin Franklin along with the original handwritten note. That meeting alone was worth all the blood, sweat and tears that went into a project you whose remains you're digging up to bash again 12 years later.
I look forward to your review of Howard the Duck.
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