The Fantastic Four!

Oh, just talk about the Fantastic Four if you like.

If I wasn't doing Popular I would really like to do a page where I read every FF comic and write stuff about them.

Jel, if you like the start of Byrne's run (which you just read), you should be totally enamored w/ everything up to #260 (w/ a mini-renaissance from #286-292). And, of course, it'd behoove you to grab a copy of Essential FF #3 for the peak of the Lee / Kirby FF.

I swear we had an FF thread in the past, but I can't find it (unless I'm just remembering the FF bits of the Byrne & Claremont C/D threads).

In the 90s (maybe early 00s) -- Claremont's FF, which was brief but had very good, classic-compatible moments -- his only good work I can think of post-X-Men, and a bright spot in the post-Byrne FF (which dragged through DeFalco and Heroes Reborn, and for a hundred issues or more was one of the most prominent examples of Comics Which Are Published Because We're Used To Publishing Them). Simonson's What The FF -- Ghost Rider, Hulk, Spidey, and Wolverine as "the FF but not really" for two issues -- was funny; I don't remember if Simonson had a longer run (I assume he must have) or if it was any good (I assume it was better than DeFalco's).

I reviewed Englehart's FF: Big Town on doctorpop and was disappointed despite being a huge fan of Englehart at his peak.

Has no one mentioned the current Waid run yet? I'm not really looking forward to the JMS run in the future -- the unevenness of his Spidey and my general dislike of his public persona have tainted my appreciation of his better work -- but the Galactus arc of the Waid run is fantastic (ha). And it's probably the arc closest to Byrne's in style and substance.

PAD definitely saved the Hulk from the DeFalco era. Nothing else is jumping to mind, except maybe the tail end (did Deadpool and Black Panther begin in the DeFalco era or is my chronology muddled?). No wonder I was reading so much Vertigo stuff.

Also -- candidate for grim-n-gritty FF: Extra-mutated-super-rocky Thing and SHE-THING.

The Poker Game, with participants including Ben Grimm, Dr Strange, Willie Lumpkin, Luke Cage, etc.

Thing/Hulk fights

The Replacement Member, but only pre-300 (with She-Hulk as probably the best of them). It got out of control later, with the Thing-SheThing-Torch-Crystal Double Dating FF crap.

I'm tempted to say the W/W run is like a DC Silver Age version of the FF, from the types of adventures they've had to the way stuff seems to be reset after any harrowing cataclysm occurs (assuming, of course, that the final W/W issue reverts things to a superficial status quo). If anything, Waid's FF is like the "old school fantastical sci-fi" answer to Ellis' Ultimate FF "modern hi-tech sci-fi" take. This is a gross simplification, of course.

Simonson's run was good, I think. Englehart's had good ideas which didn't realise their potential. DeFalco's had awful ideas which didn't realise their potential (even their bad comedy potential). What I'm interested in is that weird hinterland of 70s FF between Kirby leaving and Byrne arriving - Roy The Boy did a long run, did he not? I've only read one issue which was the Surfer and Doom trotting through the motions and was called, oddly, "Zugzwang!". Who zugs wang? You may well ask.

I'm not sure that was by Roy Thomas. Gerry Conway may be to blame.

My learnings from that story:

i) It wasn't very good.
ii) Is Gorr Marvel's only gorilla character? They certainly seem very rare.
iii) There are very very few Marvel writers who have ever known what to do with the 'cosmic' stuff, and very very many who think they do.

Hey jel - get the VERY NEXT Byrne Visionaries FF collection (if such a thing exists). It should cover #241-250, and it features a fantastic 3-part Galactus story (w/ oodles of guest stars), as well as probably my favorite FF story of all time (if not my favorite comic of all time), #250, a double-sized issue featuring Spidey and the FF fighting the X-Men!

I think the one thing the Lee / Kirby & Byrne runs shared in common (& why they're so loved by fans) is that they're so COLORFUL - not only in the types of adventures (covering every single sci-fi trope I can think of - interstellar travel, time travel, Fantastic Voyage shrinkidinks, etc etc etc.), but just the multitude of folks the FF ran with, always in bright colorful costumes w/ these remarkable powers from these exotic locales.

The Marvel Universe ran THROUGH the Fantastic Four, and rightfully so - they were the most flexible (har) in terms of the types of stories they could inhabit, and the team's mix of intellectual know-how and brute strength and fantastical gifts and humanity and financial success and public popularity and, of course, the Silver Age pathos (since their greatness was thrust upon them) made them the perfect nexus for any & every damn thing Marvel.

The Fantastic Four was The World's Greatest Comic Magazine because, in essence, it WAS comics, effortlessly bridging the gaps between Golden Age war heroics, sci-fi and horror shenanigans, and the wiser but still bright & shiny Silver Age. Lee & Kirby (veterans of bold the Golden Age and the non-hero age) made it so, and Byrne just went back to the way it was & tapped that rich vein (which, of course, is easier said than done, as latter Byrne FF work will attest).

Of course, it says something that nothing of any lasting significance has come of any post-Lee/Kirby FF - what they created is pretty much what's played with today, and attempts to create something that's not already part of that body of work (like a new Galactus herald) seem to go horribly awry. I can't recall anything NEW Byrne added to the FF mythos that was really worth a damn - Terminus?

I think #200 was drawn by Kirby, actually - dunno who wrote it, but the cover (A TRIPLE-SIZED ADVENTURE!) featured Doom & Mr. F involved in fisticuffs. (This must've been during that time where Kirby made an ever-so-brief return to Marvel - he did a few issues of Captain America around then, too.) I also recall that Byrne did a 10-issue run as artist a few years before he hopped on as writer / artist. Also an FF artist right before Byrne's real run began - BILL SIENKIEWICZ. Inked by Joe Sinnott! Guess who won that FITE?

I liked the recentish Grant Morrison mini-series too - it has some fantastically strong moments in it, where he manages to give the biggest charge to, for instance, the sentence "I've been thinking."

The original Byrne run I thought was a mess. There are some really good issues, and they all look nice, but he was a huge star then, and too powerful, so whoever the editor was couldn't say "What the fuck are you thinking about tossing away Maximus dying off-panel? And this tall alien woman is rubbish - don't even think of spreading her out across two issues!" There's a really good Dr Doom story, which may have been an annual or anniversary ish, I don't remember.

There's quite a good Wein/Perez, I think, run, in the late 100s. I haven't read it regularly in many years. How is Ultimate FF?

I shall definetely check out the Essential FF collections, though maybe I'll invest in the Masterworks (as I kinda like things to be in colour, and plus I'd be tempted to colour it in myself)...and I there is a volume 2 to the JB Visionaries.

When does Galactus first appear??

Oh yeah, I think a Popular style run down of all the FF on Popular would be great, you should do it!

Galactus rocks up again around #75 or so and then goes off to bother Thor so doesn't show up in the Lee/Kirby run after that I don't think.

I read a couple issues of Ultimate FF, and I hated them with a real burning intensity. Everything I loved about Reed Richards was stripped away, and I just have no time for that.

I'll stick around for JMS' FF, but I doubt I'll like it. Dan Slott's new Thing series would probably be a lot more fun, even though he's my least favorite member of the team.

But then again, I think that even as good as the Waid run has been, the FF only REALLY makes sense in the context of the 60s.

*this goes for several of the 'Ultimate' characters, though several more are terrific.

When I was a kid, I loved the Byrne issues. That old 3-part Galactus storyline was released in a trade about a decade ago, maybe more - "The Trial Of Galactus". Great stuff.

do you mind if i steal this idea, tom? i think i'd really like to do this!

the Moon.

Ha ha - I read the Byrne run back then, but I started at #268 and stopped after #283 - I missed the good stuff!

On Boomerang (Cartoon Network's adjunct network, showing nothing but old school cartoons) broadcasts episodes of the Fantastic Four cartoon @ 11:30 PM EST on Sunday. Wooo boy. I caught snippets of episodes featuring the Red Ghost & Galactus (& the Watcher, of course, because he's always there). Notes:

1) Theme music - sub-Brubeck (ha - almost typed Brubaker) wordless jazz hoohah, showing off the FF in action (against Galactus, and giants with spears, and round opaque balls).

2) Galactus is PURPLE AND GREEN

3) Johnny Storm sounds like the Kirby idea of a kid - I was expecting him to show up wearing a bowtie and a plaid blazer (w/ elbow pads).

4) GALACTUS IS PURPLE AND GREEN and talks like THE HULK. What, they didn't have reverb back in 1967?

5) The Ultimate Nullifier looks like a perfume bottle.

6) They quote big chunks of dialogue (and plot) verbatim (cf. Reed's "face-off" against Galactus w/ the Ultimate Chanel in hand), which doesn't always work. (The POWER and GRANDEUR of STAN LEE and his OTHERWORLDLY WORDSMITHERY doesn't TRANSLATE too well when you actually have actors SAY THE WORDS!) Also, if you're going to show the Human Torch's journey to fetch the Ultimate Nullifier, SHOW THE DAMN JOURNEY! Don't just go "here's Johnny flying into Galactus' Mobius strip" / scene w/ Surfer & Galactus playing tiddlywinks while the FF waits / "here's Johnny leaving Galactus' ship".

7) Instead of punishing the Silver Surfer to an eternity of wandering the Earth ... ALONE ... Galactus just up & leaves, saying, "ha ha ha, until next time, SURFER" as if they're cosmic sparring partners.

8) Best voice work = The Thing (nice, gruff, groovy) & the Red Ghost (proper evil "accent").

9) Best animation = the Red Ghost's monkeys, because they're monkeys.

10) One glaring omission from the opening credits = WHERE'S DOCTOR DOOM?!?!?! No, no, no - kids want to see the FF go up against boring giants w/ spears and Superballs, not their #1 arch-nemesis. That would SUCK.

.. xpost, I don't know if Silver Woody is otm

I bought the most FF tPB, the one where Johnny Storm is the herald of Galactus, looks promising.

Anyway, it'll just be another dose of Jessica Alba, that's good enough for me!

I doubt if I'll be able to stop myself from making loud tutting noises during the film.

It was the Mark Waid trade, Rising Storm, I think we are a bit behind!

I think Jordan & jel are confusing the Ultimate FF (by Ellis) w/ the 616 FF (by Waid).

The plot arc with the kids on a camping trip has probably been my favourite.

REED TO SUE: Wives should be kissed and not heard!

Kind of weird how the FF have been pushed to the margins of the Marvel U.

Hickman's doing a great job with them after the mediocre and plainly dumb Millar run. Feels like the Big Science Adventure it should be.

u mad doggie, millar's run was the best since john byrne!

ff is becoming marvel's superman or mickey mouse - ie foundational characters that don't really excite the kids any more.

im impressed by the way that bendis has made the avengers THE marvel superhero team these days

The FF were seen as a bit white bread amongst my contemporaries when I was a kid, certainly not as sexy and dangerous as The X-Men. I got dissed for liking them a few times.

Millar didn't get the characters or what made FF so good in the hands of Kirby/Lee and Byrne - science adventure thrillpower. Lame-ass alt future FF's and dopey uber-Doom were bad ideas drawn out into big hot messes. I did kind of like the Lovecraftian town story, but I still don't think the characters were done well. I think Hickson had to reset Reed Richards after years of abuse and did a good job of it.

I don't think the FF were ever really central characters in the Marvel U.--it just happened to be the series that Lee & Kirby clicked (together) best on, and nearly everybody since then has just made it a mash note to Lee/Kirby. (Also, you can't put the FF in any story to make it more interesting the way you can with, say, Spider-Man.)

That said, I'm curious to read both the Millar/Hitch and Hickman/Eaglesham versions.

I don't think the FF were ever really central characters in the Marvel U.-

Hmm, I disagree with this pretty strenuously, Douglas. I agree that Spider-Man was the x-over guest star of choice for decades (until Wolverine maybe?), but I'm thinking a little more meta. The Marvel U always struck me as an FF-centric concept -- they were the first superhumans (except for special dispensations given to the ur-supers Cap and Namor, and then gradually the rest of Timely), Reed Richards always had the rep of Smartest Man Alive (Stark's elevation seems like a relatively recent phenomenon), Reed was kind of pompous in his status as The Most Moral Man Alive. They (and Thor) opened up the Marvel U to more cosmic plots and characters. When Reed and Sue got married, the obvious move was to have every super on the planet go and either pay their respects or try to kill them.

And then the recent history...Reed and Stark disgraced for their attempts at godplaying/social engineering. The differences between how Stark's fall (criminal on the lam) and Reed's fall (semiseclusion, semi-exile) have played out in the last year or two have been pretty interesting. I would be amazed if Quesada and Bendis hadn't worked this all out in great detail at Marvel editorial retreats.

I read the first trade of Millar's FF run. It was kind of entertaining, but... there was something oddly hollow about it. Have to agree that the alternate future FF didn't really strike me as good. It felt like an Exiles or Ultimate FF story, the way the consequences felt more trivial than the story was trying to achieve, despite the epic scale of it. I don't think I'm explaining this correctly, but does someone else get what I'm saying? Maybe I'm just tired of the epic widescreen action of Millar and Hitch.

Has any of the Byrne run been Essentialised yet?