FANTASTIC FOUR Almost Invented BB-8

Weeks ago I reported to you that the orginal script for Fantastic Four included many unused elements, like the Mole Man, Latveria, Galactus and... H.E.R.B.I.E. A robot assistant introduced in the 70s Fantastic Four cartoon, H.E.R.B.I.E. was to be Reed's little buddy after the team got powers and he ran off trying to cure everybody. This is what H.E.R.B.I.E. could have looked like: 

or

Yes, H.E.R.B.I.E. was going to be a droid on a ball. Yes, H.E.R.B.I.E. would have looked like BB-8, the new Star Wars droid that has taken over geek imaginations since debuting in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. 

This feels like a summation of what Fox missed about this movie; they had a design that would have beat another popular robot to the punch but they didn't see the value in it. And H.E.R.B.I.E. didn't have a roll-on roll, either - he was instrumental in the final battle against Doom. 

These images comes from concept artist Fausto De Martini, who shared these on his Facebook page. If you go there you can also see early concept art for the FantastiCar.