By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-307-5
I love a bit of controversy so I’m going start off by saying that Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important American comicbook of the Silver Age and ever since, ranking just behind Showcase #4, which introduced the Flash and The Brave and the Bold #28, which brought superhero teams back via the creation of the Justice League of America. I’m just saying…
After a troubled period at DC Comics (National Periodicals as it then was) and a creatively productive but disheartening time on the poisoned chalice of the Sky Masters newspaper strip Jack Kirby settled into his job at the small outfit that used to be the publishing powerhouse Timely/Atlas, churning out mystery, monster, romance and western material in a market he suspected to be ultimately doomed.
But his fertile imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the JLA caught the public’s massed imagination it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity which changed the industry forever.
Depending upon who you believe a golfing afternoon led publisher Martin Goodman to order his nephew Stan to try a series about super-characters like the JLA, and the resulting team quickly took the industry and the fans by storm. It wasn’t the powers: they’d all been seen since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the costumes: they didn’t even have any until the third issue.
It was Kirby’s compelling art and the fact that these characters weren’t anodyne cardboard cut-outs. In a real and recognizable location, (New York City from #3 onwards) imperfect, rather touchy people banded together out of tragedy and disaster to face the incredible.
In many ways The Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby’s prototype quartet whose escapades are available in two wonderful DC Archives as well as a single economical, black and white Showcase Presents volume) laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but the staid, almost hide-bound editorial strictures of National would never have allowed the, undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but unregulated.
This glorious and lavish hardcover compilation reprints the first ten trend-setting, empire-building issues beginning with Fantastic Four #1 (bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, by Lee, Kirby and an uncredited inker whose identity remains a topic of much debate to this day) – a raw, rough, passionate and uncontrolled blend of traditional monster adventure and sci-fi saga. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on it.
‘The Fantastic Four’ saw maverick scientist Reed Richards summon his fiancé Sue Storm, their friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. In a flashback we discover that they are driven survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong when Cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding. They crashed back to Earth and found that they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks.
Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben turned into a shambling, rocky freak. Shaken but unbowed they vow to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting mankind.
In ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ they foil a plan by another outcast who controls monsters and slave humanoids from far beneath the Earth. This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue – we really have no grasp today of just how different in tone, how shocking it all was.
“Different†doesn’t mean “better†even here, but the FF was like no other comic on the market at the time and buyers responded to it hungrily. The brash experiment continued with another old plot in #2. ‘The Skrulls from Outer Space’ were shape-changing aliens who framed the FF and made them hunted outlaws (a fruitful theme often returned to in those early days) before the genius of Mister Fantastic bluffed their entire invasion fleet into abandoning their plans for conquering Earth.
Issue #3 (inked by Sol Brodsky) featured ‘The Menace of the Miracle Man’ whose omnipotent powers had a simple secret, but is more notable for the first appearance of their uniforms and a shocking line-up change, which led directly into the next issue. Continued stories were an innovation in themselves, but the revival of a Golden Age Great instantly added depth and weight to the six month old and still un-named Marvel Universe.
‘The Coming of the Sub-Mariner’ reintroduced the all-powerful amphibian Prince of Atlantis, who had been lost for decades, a victim of amnesia. Recovering his memory thanks to the Human Torch, Namor returned to his sub-sea home only to find it destroyed by atomic testing. A monarch without subjects, he swore vengeance on humanity and attacked New York City with a gigantic monster. This saga is when the series truly kicked into high-gear…
Until now the creative team, who had been in the business since it began, had been hedging their bets. Despite the innovations of a contemporary superhero experiment their antagonists had relied heavily on the trappings of popular trends in the media – and as reflected in their other titles. Aliens and monsters played a major role in the earlier tales but Fantastic Four #5 took a full-bite out of the fight n’ tights apple and introduced the first full-blown super-villain to the budding Marvel Universe.
I’m not discounting Mole Man, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his plans of world conquest, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in #22.
‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom’ (July 1962, inked by the subtly slick Joe Sinnott) has it all. An attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed’s past, magic and super-science, lost treasure, time-travel – even pirates. Ha-haar, me ‘earties! One brief aside for collectors here: the 1987 first printing of this Marvel Masterworks has a number of the pages in this tale wrongly sequenced – an error rectified in later releases – so if this is a problem, buy a different edition.
Sheer magic, and the so on-form creators knew they were on to a winner since the deadly Doctor returned the very next issue, teamed with a reluctant but gullible Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes in #6’s ‘Captives of the Deadly Duo!’ inked by new regular embellisher Dick Ayers.
In this first super-villain team up Prince Namor’s growing affection for Sue Storm forced the sub-sea stalwart to save his foes from dire death in outer space – but only after Doom tried to kill him too…
The first inklings of the rough-and-tumble humour and familial byplay smoothed the raw edginess from now on and Alien abductors were the motivating force when the team became ‘Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X’, a dark and grandiose off-world thriller in FF#7 (the first monthly issue) whilst a new villain and the introduction of a love-interest for the monstrous Ben Grimm were the breakthrough high-points in the action-packed ‘Prisoners of the Puppet Master!’
The December issue, #9, trumpeted ‘The End of the Fantastic Four’ as Sub-Mariner returned to exploit another brilliant innovation in comic storytelling. When had a super-genius, superhero ever messed up so much that the team had to declare bankruptcy? When had costumed crime-fighters ever had money troubles at all? The eerily prescient solution was to “sell out†and make a blockbuster movie – giving Kirby a rare chance to demonstrate his talent for caricature…
1963 was a pivotal year in the development of Marvel. Lee and Kirby had proved that their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that concept to a new pantheon of heroes. Here is where the second innovation would come to the fore.
Previously, super-heroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Here, however was a universe where characters often tripped over each other, sometimes even fighting each other’s enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic! Fantastic Four #10, which rounds out this deluxe box of delights, featured ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ wherein the arch villain used Stan and Jack to lure Reed Richards into a trap where his mind was switched with the Iron Dictator’s until hubris, arrogance and valiant heroism inevitably saved the day…
These immortal epics are available in numerous formats (including softcover editions of the luxurious and enticing hardback under review here), but for a selection that will survive the continual re-readings of the serious, incurable fan there’s nothing to beat the substantial full-colour feel of these Marvellous Masterwork editions.
If you’re going to read the World’ Greatest Comics Magazine’s finest moments, surely you’ll be wanting to do it in style?
© 1961, 1962, 1963, 1987, 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.