Former Wrestling Promoter, Manager, And Modern-Day Podcast Sensation Jim Cornette Isn’t Sold On Either ‘Superman’ Or ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’, Dunks On Female Silver Surfer
Jim Cornette is a pivotal figure in professional wrestling, a sport and business he spent decades in. He is also one of the most controversial and outspoken personalities to step through a curtain, and his notoriety has only grown in the last few decades through his “shoot” (i.e., behind-the-scenes) interviews and his eponymous podcast.
Cornette and his co-host Brian Last discuss WWE, AEW, and wrestling history on The Jim Cornette Experience and its sister program, Cornette’s Drive-Thru. However, they make time for other topics, including Cornette’s enemies list, fast food, the Diddy trial, and comic books.
Before he got his start in the business that became his life as a ringside photographer, the mouthpiece for The Midnight Express grew up a comic fan. He was the stereotypical Silver Age reader who preferred Marvel over DC because the former was edgy, mature, and more intellectual for its time.
Cornette would likely never deny what an icon Superman is, but as he said on a recent episode of his podcast, the Man of Steel “has been done to death” unlike The Fantastic Four, who haven’t had an accurate or properly reverent film adaptation (save for the Roger Corman version we were never meant to see).
The FF were the First Family of Marvel for little Jimmy Cornette as much as they were for most readers in 1968. Back then, they were “The thing, no pun intended,” he says, and he prefers them the way they were presented and normally are in all media.
That goes for The Silver Surfer, too, but as we know, Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios decided to go in a different direction in First Steps by making Shalla Bal the metallic herald of Galactus. Cornette wasn’t aware of this until now, and his reaction was priceless.
“What? No…” he said. “I have never heard of that. The Silver Surfer to me has always been that silver bald-headed dude… and it’s not being misogynistic or sexist (to say that). No! I don’t want Little Orphan Annie to be Little Orphan F–kin’ Dick.” He also doesn’t want Wonder Woman to be “Wonder Willie” because of the Multiverse.
Cornette added they should leave something the way it is when “it gets over” (or becomes popular). He also hopes they get The Thing right because, “He’s my guy anyway – Ben Grimm!” The Thing’s new beard in the film did not come up.
As for Superman, Cornette admits he would be more impressed with the character if he were played by someone “jacked” like a young Schwarzenegger or Stallone. Continuing, he says the Man of Tomorrow keeps resembling a “milksop AEW guy” the more they update and modernize him. Cornette is notoriously no fan of AEW.
NEXT: Final ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Trailer Reveals The Thing’s New Beard
