Making Marvel Mine: Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 1 (#1-20 and Annual #1)

It’s not exactly a secret that I’ve been into comic books basically forever. If you haven’t seen the collection, it takes up four bookcases and is in need of a fifth, and that’s just the stuff on display. I’ve always been a big Spider-Man and Batman fan, and I’ve dabbled in just about every major team or hero over the years. The Avengers, The JLA, X-Men, the Flash has the most fun group of villains outside Bats and Spidey- but I’ve never been a big FF fan. Oh, sure, I loved Grant Morrison’s “1234”, every comic book fan did, but a few particular FF stories aside… Meh. I didn’t really care. They were the Fantastic Four, they went on cosmic adventures and fought Dr. Doom, two things that SHOULD have been awesome, but somehow it always rang hollow for me. The FF was always a cooler idea then their actual stories were, it seemed.

But no one can argue about the historical importance of Fantastic Four #1, a book pretty much unanimously considered the beginning of the silver age renaissance of Marvel Comics. And so when I decided to start reading the Marvel Universe from the beginning on up- basically as an excuse to keep buying Essential Marvel trade paperbacks and to keep putting my favorite comic book storeowner’s children through college- I dutifully started with Essential Fantastic Four volume 1, promising to give it an honest go of it.

And holy crap, I get it now. The Lee-Kirby FF were friggin’ awesome! I wasn’t completely sure at first, but by the end of the third issue, I was sold. There’s an energy and enthusiasm even in these early stories that is often missing from comics today. One of the things I love about silver age comics is the pacing of the stories- it usually doesn’t feel rushed, but something is ALWAYS happening! (Screw you, comics decompression) And that’s definitely the case here. Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s FF is part pop art, part science adventure, part soap opera- all without ever spending way too much time on any of it or getting boring.

All of this, and Ben Grimm hasn’t even called out “It’s clobberin’ time!” yet.

Obviously, the book begins with the creation of the Fantastic Four: Dr. Reed Richards, his girlfriend Sue Storm, his best friend and test pilot Ben Grimm, and Sue’s teenage brother, Johnny. The four of them board a secret untested rocket ship, clearly not with NASA’s blessing, and attempt to be the first humans in space, winning the space race for America! This was 1961, remember. But when the rocket enters what I assume to be the Van Allen radiation belt (Wikipedia it), it’s bombarded by strange cosmic rays- something Ben had warned Reed about, but hey, Reed’s got to impress his hot little blonde somehow, right? Luckily, instead of killing them outright or giving them all cancer, the cosmic radiation gives our team superpowers. Reed gains Plastic Man-like elastic skin, Johnny becomes able to control fire in all sorts of ways, Sue gains the ability to become invisible, and Ben gains super strength and invulnerability with a rocky exterior.

Along the way in this book, Lee and Kirby introduce a host of villains, many of whom are still around today, fifty years later. The Mole Man, the Silver Age rebirth of Namor, the shape changing Skrulls, the I-still-don’t-understand-how-his-powers-work-but-whatever Puppet Master, the time travelling dictator Rama Tut (and boy, what a back-story he’ll develop as I read more of these books), the all-powerful Molecule Man, and of course the greatest supervillain in the entire Marvel Universe: Dr. Doom.

It’s amazing to see how quickly refined this series became, especially since they were just making it up as they went. The only real complaints I have with the book all basically stem from the attitudes of the times it was written in. Having the only female character in the book given the ability to literally turn invisible… well, there’s a subtext to it that’s undeniable. I’m rather thankful that her powers have been expanded since these early days so that she can generate force fields and other semi-telekinetic powers, arguably making her the most powerful member of the team. But while lines like “I’ve never heard a dame go so long without talking” are undeniably sexist, at the same time it seems obvious that Lee and Kirby very much felt that Sue’s character was one of, perhaps the most important character in the book. In issue 11, the Fantastic Four read and respond to some fan mail they’ve seen, including letters asking why Sue’s even on the team. Reed and Ben become considerably upset, and remind readers how often the team has only won the day thanks to the Sue’s help.

Particular highlights of the book for me… Well, Fantastic Four #5 is awesome, but not because it’s the first appearance of Dr. Doom (though that’s cool too). After capturing Sue, Doom makes a demand of the other three members of the team- travel back in time and steal the pirate Blackbeard’s treasure for him, or the girl gets it. Over the course of the adventure (SPOILER ALERT), we discover that in the Marvel Universe, Blackbeard is Ben Grimm, thanks to the miracles of time travel! I totally want to see a comic now where Ben goes on a time travel vacation to have other adventures in the past as Blackbeard. (Dear Marvel Comics: If you like this brilliant idea and want more, feel free to call me and offer me a job any time)

Also, FF #10 has Dr. Doom visiting the Marvel offices and meeting Stan and Jack, which is great fun. Issue 13 introduces the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, they’re an evil Communist team that also gets its powers from the same cosmic rays as the FF, only three out of the four of them are monkeys! It’s a well known law of comic books that monkeys make any book better. Also in that issue, we meet the Watcher, a nigh-omniscient being who lives on the moon, and, well, watches the Earth. He never interferes with history, though… except for all the times he does. For an omniscient dude, you’d think he would have heard of the Observer Effect…

For me, though, my favorite issue in the book is issue 17, “Defeated by Doctor Doom”. More than any other story here, the team feels not like a group of misfits, but a real family. Admittingly, Dr. Doom’s plot involving floating Michelin Man lookalike robot things is, well, downright bizarre, but fuck it man, it gets results! Because those robot things allow Dr. Doom to trap the Fantastic Four in a… well, I won’t spoil this one for you. But the team really gels so well here, you really need to go out and read it for yourself.

So yeah, this book rocks, and I’m stoked that I’ve got another 82 issues of Lee and Kirby’s run to go (I think it’s 82. It might be a little more than that). So if you want some fun 60s comic books, go buy this. Its 15 bucks for 20 issues and an annual. How are you going to beat that?