the fantastic four

but, but but...

oh, alright.

i'd always wondered what an alan moore take on the ff would be, esp. with a galactus/silver surfer plot. (then again, i'd pretty much like to see what alan moore would do with any set of characters...) it would be drawn by art adams, who is woefully underrated for the type of space cosmicity and giant monster fun the ff specialize in.

be very careful how you use the abreviation ff amonst us deviats.

B-but Geoff, Mr Fantastic would be SO good at it!

The anniversary series is great.

I hated that fucking robot on the TV series

Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby.

The FF are great because they triumph over adversity. Adversity in this case = consisting of four fairly dislikable characters (Mr F is fine in boffin mode) but still many of their stories being cool. Their villains are often terrific - Dr Doom and Galactus are probably the best villains Marvel ever came up with. However all Frightful Four and Inhumans stories are boring. Also there are v.few actual FF plots - right this time I really AM leaving sez Thing or Torch and you must get a no-mark into the team to replace me, zzzzzz cry readers. Franklin is DREADFUL.

Good FF stories - the really early stuff is all much better than you think it is, off they go to Planet X etc. etc. The Battle Of The Baxter Building or whatever that one is called where they have no powers and must rely on Daredevil. First Galactus story nuff said. The story of Kirby's later years on the book is a story of lots of brilliant names and concepts getting bogged down in not v.interesting actual plots. The one where they are trapped in Latveria and hunted by Doombots is ace though.

Afterwards many really really duff 70s stories all written by comics cancer Roy Thomas. One involving a golden gorilla comes to mind as a possible nadir though I've not read many. John Byrne did his best stuff on the FF - his early issues are boring but the last 20 or so he did involving loads of dodgy S&M stuff with the Invisible Woman and also a let's-go-back-in-time-and-kill-Hitler story (always good) are fine. Walt Simonson's shortish run was funny and fun.

The FF ever since have been terrible and I can't think of any way to do them right now apart from having really good ideas, which plainly no recent writer has done.

Terrible FF foes: Occulus, lord of the Inniverse ("universe" discovered by Reed within a plank of wood). Fasaud The Living Television (needs to come back to grab anti-Arab readership).

one of the panels in battle of the baxter building, where the invisible woman is about to get trapped under debris and daredevil is helping her, is possibly my earliest memory of art.

John Byrne's BEST FF was his early stuff - Diablo, the fake Doom world, Nova, Galactus going hungry, Gladiator & Skrulls as fake X- Men, some Negative Zone shenanigans (Anhillius!). Turning point is #260 - "killing" Doom. (Oh, duh, it's so OBVIOUS, John.) And then bringing in She-Hulk due to that Secret Wars nonsense.

Making the Invisble Girl the Invisible Woman = OK. Making the Invisible Woman the Psycho Man's play-thing (AKA Malice) (AKA Tom's S&M dreamgirl) = CLASSIC, until you think about the Psycho-Man & Ms. Richards getting jiggy. Bringing back Blastaar was a nice surprise, but downhill until he left, and FURTHER downhill after that (Walt Simonson notwithstanding). Tom DeFalco & Paul Ryan = DEATH! Like DP7, but REALLY bad.

Have any of you read Warren Ellis' "Planetary"? He casts thinly disguised FF ripoffs as his main villains - the sinister secret rulers of the world.

Oh, shit, FASAUD! With the turban & digital purple shawl thing! And the MOUSTACHE! I remember they brought him back once during the days of the ersatz FF (Crystal, the fancy geodesic-looking Thing, some Ms. Marvel wrasslin' lady w/ Thing-like skin, and Quicksilver)! It involved the Black Panther, too.

That Steve Englehart is so wacky. (Some of those ishuesh featured John Buscema & Joe Sinnott, tho, so they looked purty. Then they brought in Marvel-everyman Rich Buckler, I think - ooink.) (Ishueshs being referenced - #304-310ish.)

I think Dr. Doom was my first role model ever.

that's pretty scary, alex.

i found some FF's in my closet while packing. the walt simonson/art adams "new" ff trilogy with ghost rider, spiderman, hulk, and wolverine. i can't decide if it's any good or not.