"A brilliant scientist -- his best friend -- the woman he loves -- and her fiery-tempered kid brother! Together they braved the unknown terrors of outer space, and were changed by cosmic rays into something more than merely human! ...And the world will never again be the same!"

Back to other GN and TPB reviews

The Fantastic Four is published by Marvel Comics

The Essential Fantastic Four Volume 2 1999 (SC TPB) 528 pgs.

Written by Stan Lee, Pencils by Jack Kirby. Inks by George Roussos (a.k.a. George Bell), Chic Stone, with Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta, Steve Ditko

Reprinting: The Fantastic Four (1st series) #21-40, Annual #2, plus the Spider-Man/Human Torch story from Strange Tales Annual #2

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Continuing Marvel's shockingly economical "Essential" books, we have the second Fantastic Four volume presenting roughly two years of '60s FF continuity published in order, minus the original colors.

Lee and Kirby are still feeling their way as they create the self-labelled "Marvel Age" of comics, marrying the traditional juvenile fun of superheroes brawling with villains who have nothing better to do than expend all their energy trying to avenge themselves on our heroes, with more ambitious elements aimed at winning over older readers. The characters are a little more human, given to foibles and failings, the wisecracks are a little more knowing, and the adventures are a little more elaborate. And at one point villains Dr. Doom and Rama-Tut get into a metaphysical discussion about time travel and cause and effect that'll leave your head spinning.

I went into this half-thinking these early stories would be a tad too, um, kiddie-oriented for me. Maybe it's the kid in me that responded to it, but I enjoyed it much more than I expected.

Perhaps the most fun is in the humour -- the banter is genuinely funny. If the action seems a little too unbelievable, if the villain spouts lines that seem a little too cliched, Lee and Kirby cover themselves by having the Fantastic Four agree with you with some choice wisecracks. There's also a surprising elaborateness to some of the tales: complete stories with beginnings, middles and ends are crammed into 22 page adventures, and still make time for the characters to just kick back and hang out for a page or two. There are plenty of villains like Dr. Doom, the Mole Man, the Skrulls, and many others, as well as nasties first introduced in these stories: Diablo, The Frightful Four (with Medusa as a member, though it's unclear how she would evolve into the heroine who is part of the Inhumans), and others. There are guest stars like the Avengers, the X-Men, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, the Watcher and probably a few others I've forgotten.

Ironically, as often happens, some of the more memorable tales involve characters outside the usual black hat super-villain mold, like an alien infant with super powers, or a megalomaniacal business tycoon who learns the error of his ways when his schemes jeopardize his own son. Continuity-wise, in these stories Sue Storm first develops her force shield (apparently in the earliest issues her sole ability was her invisibility) and Reed and Sue become engaged. And we have what is (I assume) the first use of Nick Fury outside of a World War II setting (working for the CIA and sans an eye patch).

As noted earlier, Lee and Kirby were still working their way to the period that would see them create the Inhumans, The Black Panther, and Galactus (the latter a story collected in Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus), and deliver such semi-classic tales as "This Man...This Monster". All that's still to come (in  Essential FF #3). But you can see them heading there. And even here there are flashes of thoughtful characterization and even social commentary, like in a story featuring the aptly-named Hate-Monger. The down-side to the evolving techniques is that, after spending most of the book with fairly self-contained adventures, the final stories start employing the kind of on-going narrative technique that Lee and Kirby would use more and more (and comics to this day often employ), with otherwise unconnected tales bleeding into one another. The result is that the collection ends kind of inconclusively with a semi-cliffhanger as the Thing quits the team!

The inking is a bit problematic, too. The early issues are inked by George Roussos (billed as George Bell) whose rough style is maybe a little too coarse. He's followed by Chic Stone whose style is maybe a little too clean and flat for Kirby. Like the fable of "Godilocks and the Three Inkers" (they teach that in kindergarten, right?) maybe what was needed is someone in between...like Giacoia, who only inks one issue here.

Not, perhaps, sophisticated, but an imaginative and fun -- and funny -- book to chase the bllues away.

Cover price: $21.95 CDN./$14.95 USA.

Pocket Book Reprint / Marvel Illustrated Book The Fantastic Four Published in 1982 by Marvel Comics - Black & White Reprinting: The Fantastic Four (1st series) #55, 66, 67  Written by Stan Lee. Art by Jack Kirby. Inked by Joe Sinnott; Letters: Sammy Rosen, Artie Simek. Editor: Stan Lee. Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Many comics have a writer-artist team against which all others are measured, and for the F.F., it's Lee and Kirby, particularly from this later period, when the mix of wisecracks and human pathos, drama and bigger-than-life heroics, really came together. The F.F. have never seemed more real and human, with human foibles (including Reed's over-protective sexism), than they did in Lee and Kirby's hands.  The first story here (reprinted from, I believe, F.F. #55), "When Strikes the Silver Surfer" (erroneously refered to as "The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer" on the cover), is an O.K. if unexceptional two-heroes-have-a-misunderstanding-and-slug-it- out-for-a-few-pages-until-they-realize-their-mistake story. But Lee probably wrote them better than anyone, actually making you almost believe the characters' motivation. Throw in the source of the misunderstanding being the Thing's jealousy, fearing the Silver Surfer is trying to "beat his time" with Alicia, and there's an added element of character depth.  But the real treat is the two part story that has Alicia vanishing from her apartment and the F.F. tracking her to a remote scientific project where mad scientists have created a new life form...a life form they fear will destroy them. It's a strong tale, mixing suspense and character drama, with some quips and flashy action. It's a wonderful illustration of Lee and Kirby's skills that there's little action in the first half...but you don't notice the lack of fisticuffs, the drama is so compelling. For continuity buffs, the "Him" refered to in the story would subsequently evolve into superhero, Adam Warlock.  A nice little read.

Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus
This could've just as easily been called Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus, but it wasn't, so it's reviewed in my Silver Surfer section.

The Fantastic Four: Nobody Gets Out Alive 1994 (SC TPB) 134 pages

Written by Tom DeFalco (with Mike Lackey). Pencils by Paul Ryan. Inks by Dan Bulandi.
Colours: John Kalisz, with Lia Pelosi. Letters: Steve Dutro, with Dave Sharpe. Editor: Ralph Macchio.

Reprinting: The Fantastic Four (1st series) #387-392 (1994)

Rating: * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

For a while, Nobody Gets Out Alive was one of the few FF TPBs around. And when I came upon the original issues in a back issue bin, I thought: why not? Knowing issues were collected means I might pick them up, on the theory if they were collected, they must tell a story (as opposed to picking up a run of old issues and finding they still end on a cliff hanger). During this period, Reed Richards is dead (or at least, is presumed so) and Sue, Ben and Johnny are struggling with the repercussions. The Sub-Mariner and Ant-Man (II) are hanging around, Johnny's married to the Skrull woman, Lyja, who recently gave birth to an egg, and young Franklin has become an other-dimensional teenager, working for the possibly sinister Nathaniel Richards (Reed's dad), and Franklin has an evil psychic entity living in his head, and so on. Told ya there was lots of continuity going on.

The basic plot here begins when the FF (or those left) see an apparition of Sue bemoaning the deaths of Ben and Johnny. Combined with the recent demise of Reed, this instills in them a certain fatalism which is maybe one of the first ways these issues fail to really hit their marks. Because you never really get a genuine sense of doom, despite characters remarking that they don't expect to survive this adventure.

Anyway, the various plot threads collide, as Franklin steals the FF's time sled in his on going conflict with the mysterious Dark Raider -- the FF pursue and find themselves meeting an alternate reality version of themselves, and learn the Dark Raider is going around killing Reed Richards throughout the multiverse. Then the Watcher crops up -- that largely omniscient alien who is supposed to just observe events but has occasionally helped the FF in the past -- and he guides the team to yet another alternate reality where earth was destroyed because the FF failed to stop the world eater, Galactus, years before as they had in their own reality. The Watcher wants our FF to try and change that history and save this other earth. Along the way there are appearances from The Avengers (circa the 1960s), the Black Panther (the contemporary one), and more -- even a minor sub-plot that seems as though they were trying to create a new super hero.

Ultimately the collection builds to a conclusion -- the Dark Raider is defeated, the Johnny-Lyja stuff comes to a head. But a lot of other things are still left dangling...including ending with the team disbanding (yes -- again!)

And it mostly didn't work for me.

Paul Ryan's art (inked by Danny Bulandi) is nice and detailed, affecting a clean, realist style. But it also tends to be a bit undynamic, told with a lot of run-of-the-mill angles and medium shots that don't really enhance the drama much. Of course, one has to recognize the material he's dealing with. Despite a big concept story of multiverses and a restaging of the FF's classic battle with Galactus...the execution of the story can be a bit bland. It's an interesting idea that somehow lost steam in the execution. Super hero comics about alternate realities can often be quite gripping. But here it seems a bit...banal. Partly it's because no real effort is made in fleshing out these other realities, or the alternate FF, beyond the immediate needs of a scene.

DeFalco also indulges in the hubris of a lot of later generation comics scribes, throwing in a few digs at the old comics as the characters remark how naive and simple life was back then, and how much more sophisticated their modern adventures are -- I don't know if he's trying to convince the readers...or himself.

With so much backstory and sub-plots, it's a talky script as characters spend a lot of time just explaining what's gone before. There's one issue in particular where we cut back and forth between three scenes of characters...basically just explaining things to other characters. Despite all the exposition...a lot of it still seemed vague, where I was unsure of motivation (such as Lyja's, or even the Dark Raider in the climax when he threatens the entire planet with destruction). Characters suggest the Watcher has a hidden agenda -- so we are left not even sure why these events were set in motion by him. When at one point a character asks the Watcher if he's their Watcher or an alternate reality Watcher, and are told: "Does it truly matter?", it smacks a little of even DeFalco having no idea -- and not really caring. The story is full of characters snapping at each other, then apologizing, then snapping again...often within a panel or two.

The biggest stumbling block for me was simply the dialogue. It's actually quite awful in spots. I'm okay with characters referring to each other by name (so new readers know who they are) or awkwardly recapping last issues events. But the clumsiness of the dialogue goes way beyond the needs of clarity. When in the middle of a battle The Thing exclaims: "It's that (guy) we briefly ran across" -- uh, "briefly"? "ran across"? Or Johnny, in another battle scene, says they might be "inadvertently" blown off the roof? I can't imagine Johnny using inadvertently on a term paper, let alone in the heat of battle. And the awkwardness of some of the phrasing might explain why the word balloons are sometimes pointing at the wrong people, as if even the letterer wasn't sure who was speaking, or why.

Ben and Johnny's bickering is more rude than teasing; Ben's wisecracks are flippant but not really funny (and DeFalco frequently has other characters commenting on his quips). And if you're not enjoying -- or believing -- the interpersonal interplay...well, that's half the point of an FF comic, ain't it?

Of course, without Reed, maybe the dynamics are just off. I know writers like to shake up the FF membership from time to time. But I don't think it works for anything more than a short term, and then usually with the replaced member still hanging around. The FF isn't like the Avengers or the X-Men where you can play around with the membership. The team's not defined by their quantity -- they are defined by the characters: Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny.

This is a review of the story as it originally appeared in Fantastic Four comics.

Cover price: $__ CDN./ __ USA. 

NEXT FF PAGE
 

Back to