"Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine" by Stan Lee

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Fantastic Four: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” as presented in Marvel Epic Collection format, written by Stan Lee.

            Reed Richards is a brilliant scientist. Susan Storm is the woman he loves. Johnathan Storm is Susan’s young brother. Benjamin Grimm is Reed’s best friend. At the height of the “Space Race,” Reed invented a ship that could travel to space in order to study cosmic rays. Reed, Sue Johnny and Ben ventured to space, but Reed had not properly reinforced the shielding of the ship and the rays bombarded the four travelers. After crashing to earth, the four realized that they had been imbued with super human powers. Reed could stretch his body to great lengths and became Mister Fantastic. Sue could turn invisible and became the Invisible Girl. Johnny could fly and create and control fire and became the Human Torch. Ben’s body became stone and he gained super strength and became the Thing. The four as a team became known as the Fantastic Four. The team soon discovered that there were now such things as super villains and the Fantastic Four became a team of super heroes to stop those who wished to inflict evil upon the Earth.

            The Mole Man, who lived deep under Monster Isle, decided to destabilize the surface world by destroying atomic facilities to ensure his rise to new ruler of earth.

            The race of intergalactic aliens, the shape-shifting Skrulls, traveled to Earth and impersonated the Fantastic Four, the only beings who could prevent a Skrull invasion of Earth.

            The mysterious Miracle Man wished to prove himself better than the Fantastic Four with his amazing feats of magic.

            Namor, the Sub-Mariner, having gotten over a case of amnesia, returned to his underwater kingdom, only to find it destroyed, and swore vengeance against the surface world, whom he blamed for the devastation of his home.

            Reed’s college rival, Doctor Victor von Doom, abducted the Fantastic Four, and forced Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, and Thing to travel to the time of Blackbeard in order to spare the life of the Invisible Girl.

            The Invisible Girl struggled with her romantic feelings for both Mister Fantastic and Sub-Mariner. When Doctor Doom and Sub-Mariner teamed up, it was the mutual attraction between Invisible Girl and Sub-Mariner caused the alliance between Doctor Doom and Sub-Mariner to fail and bring Sub-Mariner to the aid the Fantastic Four against Doctor Doom.

            Kurrgo, the Master of Planet X, mentally turned Earth against the Fantastic Four in order to enlist the Fantastic Four to prevent the destruction of Planet X.

            The Fantastic Four met the blind sculptress, Alicia Masters. There was an immediate attraction between Alicia and Thing. Alicia’s stepfather became the Puppet Master and used radioactive clay to create figures that he could mentally control.

            As the imminent threat of bankruptcy descended upon the Fantastic Four, the team reluctantly accepted parts in a Fantastic Four action film put out by S.M. Studios to save their home, the Baxter Building.

            Doctor Doom invented a device that swapped his body with Mister Fantastic’s body, and Mister Fantastic had to both convince the Fantastic Four of the swap and return Doctor Doom and Mister Fantastic back to their proper bodies.

            Mister Fantastic continually tried to cure the Thing from his rocklike body, always to only temporary results. The Fantastic Four also found themselves as media darlings swamped with fan mail. The fun-loving Impossible Man from the planet Poppup arrived on Earth and caused chaos that only the Fantastic Four could bring to an end.

            The Fantastic Four were summoned by General “Thunderbolt” Ross to attempt to defeat Ross’ most pressing problem: the Incredible Hulk, a rampaging monstrous being. Mister Fantastic was paired with scientist Bruce Banner, who secretly under times of great anger, fear or stress, transformed into the Hulk.

            The Fantastic Four traveled to the moon to defeat the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes.

            The Puppet Master took control of the Sub-Mariner in his revenge against the Fantastic Four.

            The Mad Thinker, a man capable of calculating any situation before it happened to the instant, used his Awesome Android in his attempt to defeat the Fantastic Four.

            Doctor Doom used his shrink ray to send the Fantastic Four to the Micro-World, a quantum realm that he had taken over. The Fantastic Four then had a team-up with the size changing Ant-Man to defeat Doom and return to their proper sizes.

            Doctor Doom then unleashed his “Followers” to disrupt the Fantastic Four at inopportune moments.

             The Skrulls genetically enhanced a Skrull Warrior to become the Super-Skrull, an agent with all the powers of the Fantastic Four at a higher strength level.

 

            I personally highly enjoyed this graphic novel. Stan Lee is my absolute idol and the artwork of Jack Kirby has always thrilled me ever since I started regularly reading Marvel Comics, having gotten a collection of classic X-Men issues written by Lee and illustrated by Kirby, and I always thought they were an excellent team. This graphic novel contained “Fantastic Four” #1-18, originally published between the years 1961-1963. Some current readers might say that this was too corny. Yes, I can admit to the level of cheesiness. Some of the inventions did sound kind of lame or dumb, like “The Pogo Plane” or “The Fantasti-car,” just to name a few. Some of the jokes were not actually funny. Some of the comments might be considered offensive were they published today. Take into consideration this was the time of the Cold War and the “Space Race.” For that reason, the technology that the Fantastic Four used for space travel and other details about space and space travel has modernly been debunked. And yet, I was mostly able to overlook these flaws. I also have to discuss the art. This artwork is iconic for comics of the time period. I’ve said this in a lot of my reviews that every time period of comics has basic standards in artwork. I felt like Kirby epitomized the art of the time. But, it is just that: art of the time. It’s the same as old horror movies; kids these days might see a monster in a classic horror movie and laugh at the absurdity of the monster. Kirby’s drawings of Thing and the Human Torch’s “flame on” design were pretty wonky. And Doctor Doom’s face plate mouth did have different expressions, which realistically should not happen. But I honestly did my best to ignore all these things, and succeeded pretty well at it.

            I make it a point with my review posts to explain accessibility, or to say what readers may need to know to fully enjoy the story content. “Fantastic Four” #1 was the start of the “Marvel-Age of Comics” and is very classic, so honestly, it’s a gateway book for Marvel Comics. A reader could have never picked up a Marvel comic book or watched a Marvel comic book movie or TV show or played a video game based off of a Marvel comic and still completely will have no difficulty with picking up on the storylines and understand the book.

            Now, I’ve got to get to the moment of truth: my numeric score. I score on a system of 1 to 10. 1 is my lowest score, 10 is my highest score. Now, when I score a graphic novel, I take everything into consideration, the art and the story. So, all considered, I give it an 8. It’s as high as I can go with the corniness of the story and the wonkiness of the art. I really enjoyed it anyway, but there were flaws which had to be addressed that prevent me from scoring any higher.

            Well, I do have just one more thing to address in this paragraph, then next paragraph I’ll wrap it up: Do I recommend this book and to whom do I recommend it to? If you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before and are considering starting to read comics, whether because of movies and television shows that interest you, or have no Marvel knowledge whatsoever, then this is the perfect book for you. If you’re a Fantastic Four fan but have never read the issues in this book, I totally recommend this to you. I’ve been reading Marvel Comics for over twenty years and never knew how it all started, so this was very informative and enjoyable for me. I totally recommend this book to pretty much anyone who wants to start reading Marvel comics or is a current reader who never experienced the classics. So, basically, if this review interested you, then read this graphic novel.

            So, a few more notes before the torture ends. (If you’re still here after all my blathering, you are THE BEST!) I’ve been away from this blog for a while, but now I’ve got things sorted out and I am officially back. I have literally written dozens of Marvel reviews and other reviews, so if you liked this post, there are dozens more like this, so feel free to keep checking them out. I also write short fiction, short nonfiction, poems, editorials (particularly my B’ings series that will be returning in the next few weeks, if you don’t know what it is, check it out), essays and several other forms of writing, so feel free to keep perusing those. I will also be posting on a fairly regular basis, so you can keep checking for my if you like my posts. So, until next time, as always, Tim Cubbin… out!