They know because they solicited fan mail and received it by the truckload. They had feet of clay and they stumbled individually, but picked themselves up together as a family.īy the tenth issue, Lee and Kirby would have already reused several concepts and villains because the fans loved it. He made a cast of characters more interesting and real than a man of steel or caped crusader.

Instead he had a family, who constantly bickered with each other. He conceptualized a team that was most unlike an alliance of super powered titans. But Lee already had his Marvel superhero formula by issue one. These first ten issues had Lee and Kirby making it up as they a long, so they were trying everything and throwing it to the wall and see what stuck. They seemed unfocused as Lee squeezed as much science fiction concepts as he can in twenty pages. These ten issues have a sort of manic energy that one can rarely see in comics nowadays. But these are essential reading for any fan of Marvel Comics, since these are the issue that begat their Silver Age. This is not the format I would have preferred to have this collection of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s seminal first ten issues of Fantastic Four I’d rather have it in as a Marvel Masterwork hardcover, with heavy stock archival paper and a larger page size. Good start to a long run of the Fantastic Four, but not without its stumbles. Stan Lee was also pretty wordy here, but Jack Kirby's art, and panel design are without peer. Doom are brought to bear and Stan Lee's hyperbolic 'the World's Greatest Comic!!!' was pretty ballsy when trying to distinguish the comic book from others in the marketplace. On the positive side, the origins of new original, iconic villains such as: Mole Man, the Skrulls, Puppet Master, the Sub-Mariner, and my personal favorite Dr.

I don't do spoilers and let's be honest, the Fantastic Four have existed for 60 years so check it out for yourself. All three of the other members not named Fantastic, walked out after tantrums over the course of the first ten issues. This bombastic group infuriates me for various reasons, not the least of which is the fact that they are constantly at each other's throats, whining like a bunch of babies while Papa Richards has to play the referee/only adult in the room. Fantastic (Reed Richards), Sue Storm (Invisible Girl), Johnny Storm (Human Torch), and Ben Grimm (Ever-Loving Blue-Eyed Thing). The book features Marvel's First Family: Mr. It is written by Stan Lee, drawn by Jack Kirby, and lettered by Art Simek.

Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four, Volume 1 is actually the second book in the Masterworks series.

Marvel masterworks fantastic four vol 2