On Tuesday, August 8, 1961, Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands.
The rest, as they say, is history.
As promised back in January, we’re adding a few more Fantastic Four posts to continue the 60th celebration of “The Marvel Age Of Comics.”
And yes, we’re cheating a bit by re-running this great page by Jack from the beginning of the FF’s peak period.
But… no Stan Lee AND Jack Kirby… no Fantastic Four… likely no Marvel Age, period. So, in our mind, worth a repeat.
See you on Sunday.
1980: Jack had left Marvel, again, this time for the world of animation and independent creator-owned comic book projects. Stan was busy in Hollywood woking tirelessly (and mostly unsuccessfully) to make Marvel a brand in entertainment. I never take sides in the endless Lee-Kirby debate, so I say to the photographer who captured this pic (quoting from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance): “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
It all starts here: Cover and opening page for FF#1.
Doug Hazelwood has been doing some great re-creations of Jack Kirby Marvel Silver Age covers, and Fantastic Four #69 is a terrific example of Doug’s work on these.
Typically, I don’t collect exact cover re-creations illustrated by anyone other than the original artist, but I made an exception here, because, well, its one of my favorite covers from that era.
And a nice way to close out our first tribute to the 6oth anniversary of the Fantastic Four.
The published cover To FF#69 along with a fun retro portrait of Jack by by Brendan Tobin.
The masterful Ken Steacy transforms an important scene from the one-shot story “This Man… This Monster!” (Fantastic Four #51) into a dramatic painting for the inventive Marvel Portraits mini-series in 1995.
That’s not actually Ben Grimm, but rather a villain who ends his own life with this heroic act near the end of the offbeat tale.
Peter David wrote the excellent commentaries for these re-creations of classic Marvel moments in this specific issue, so I think will let him finish telling the story below.
Continuing our multi-part tribute to the 60thanniversary of the Fantastic Four — and the “Marvel Age of Comics.”Â
Hulk vs. Thing? Think about it. The Thing can give the Hulk a run for his money, I suppose, but in the end Hulk wins. No contest, really.
The “shock ending” here is that after quite a few matches during the years, The Thing takes pity on Hulk and joins forces with him to fight the army and the Fantastic Four (or more accurately, three), and anyone else who might be persecuting the Hulk at that moment.
George Perez, aided by the amazing Joe Sinnott, delivers a great looking action page featuring both characters. Pages from this issue rarely turn up and I’m fortunate that I found one. This is one of my favorite issues from the late bronze era, and it doesn’t hurt that it features a terrific cover by Jack Kirby, one of his earliest from his “return” to Marvel a few months prior.
That said, about the scale accuracy of the Gateway Arch Monument (St. Louis) vs. the occupants as depicted here? The less said, the better.
The Thing vs. The Hulk, becomes the Thing AND The Hulk — vs. everyone — at the end of FF #166.
Continuing our multi-part tribute to the 60thanniversary of the Fantastic Four — and the “Marvel Age of Comics.”Â
Hardly any fans I know are aware of this three-issue Marvel series featuring shorter-form stories by top creators. All of them are in black and white (hence the series title) and some, like this one by the very-talented Mr. Weeks, use wash-tone to add depth to the art.
Lee brought this page (and a few others) from this Fantastic Four story to a convention years back, and, even though it had a price tag on it, I could tell he was a bit reluctant to part with it. (I believe it’s the very first published story he wrote in addition to drawing, so I understood.) But, ultimately, I think he knew it would be in good hands and he let me pry it away from him.
I’m happy and grateful that he did. And I’d love to see more Weeks art employing gray-tone. It’s beautifully rendered.
The Human Torch and Thing buddy comedies of the early 60s come to an end in this cool penultimate page by Bob Powell and Wallace Wood.
Torch solo stories started in Strange Tales #101 (hey, it worked in the Golden Age) and within a few years, the Thing was added to the strip as well. An ever-changing group of creators, and frankly, some second-rate stories and villains, didn’t apparently do much for sales, and our Fantastic two get bumped by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. in the very next issue.
Meanwhile, this amusing story features time travel, The Watcher, Merlin the Magician, and Kang the Conqueror, who is apparently about to play an important role in the MCU. (It’s only his third appearance as “Kang” at this point, following two run-ins with the Avengers.)
Because I love time travel stories I can forgive all of it — except maybe Powell and Wood’s execution of the Thing. They are not alone though in rocky renditions of Ben Grimm. Flipping through these old Strange Tales stories, very few artists other than Jack Kirby seemed to figure out how to successfully make anatomic sense of a character made from rocks.
It’s clobberin’ time, indeed.
The Silver Age gets retro-golden very quickly in these early Torch Strange Tales stories. (Although, for the record, that’s an imposter pretending to be Captain America. But you wouldn’t know it until you bought the issue, or stood around reading it at Dave’s Luncheonette until he kicked you out.)
Stan Lee, nearly 85 years old at the time, returns to the Fantastic Four for one last tale.
It’s not a groundbreaking story by any means. And it’s not meant to be. Is the dialogue corny in places? Certainly. Is the plot surprising? Nope. An all-powerful big bad (The “Adjudicator”) comes to destroy Earth and pretty much everyone is helpless to stop him. Its up to Reed Richards to figure something out, which ultimately involves the previous almost all-powerful big bad, Galactus.
The entire issue could definitely be an unused story from Lee and Kirby’s FF heyday in the 60s.
Who cares? Not me. Great art from John Romita Jr. (inks by Scott Hanna) make this a fun tribute to the “old days.” Stan works in most of the great supporting characters from the original run, including Doctor Doom and the Silver Surfer.Â
This page of course features both of them, along with the entire FF. Plus, it’s signed by the entire creative team, because, for once, I had the presence of mind to remember to get that done.
As discussed previously here, John Byrne does (or did?) some amazing commissions. The reason I’m not confident on my verb tense here is that I hear John stopped creating them when he put his artistic efforts behind his X-Men “fan-fiction” project.
One of most interseting facts about these commissions is that John has done them as large as 30×40. That’s slightly bigger than a movie poster!
This terrific one here is 20×30. I’m the second owner, as the first one sold his entire collection all at once. Right place, right time for me; I’m a big fan (no pun intended) of the Super-Skrull.
I commissioned Len O’Grady to color the piece for me, and he did a terrific job. If I recall correctly, we sent it over to JB, who approved it as well.
(And if my recollection were incorrect about that, it would not surprise me to hear about it. John is not shy about offering his opinion.)
Some of the many additional Byrne Fantastic Four commissions in the hands of fans and collectors.
The first appearance of the Super-Skull, followed by an issue of Thor where I first encountered him as a young Marvel reader.
Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Comics Magazine#8, September 2001
“What if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby concluded their historic run on FF with one last wild adventure?”
Bruce Timm and other all-star creators showcase their love and admiration for Jack Kirby in this fun 2001 mini-series.
And when we say “other,” we mean it. This terrific title page features layouts by Erik Larsen, pencils by Ron Frenz and Inks by Timm. Other creators in this issue alone include Bill Wray, Rick Veitch and Terry Beatty. Others in the full series include Keith Giffen, Al Williamson, Joe Sinnott, and Paul Ryan, to name just some of the cast.
The story itself takes between issues #100 and #101 of the original Fantastic Four run. It took Marvel 10 years before they finally collected it, and its now available in both hardcover and trade paperback. If you’re a fan of that amazing Lee Kirby FF run, this series is a must-own.
And if you’re not a fan of that classic, my sympathies.
The Larsen/Frenz/Timm splash immediately called to mind the classic opening to FF #49.
Domination Factor: Fantastic Four #1and #2, December 1999
Dan Jurgens has some fun with time travel in this clever interlocking mini-series featuring the FF and The Avengers.
The part of the story that takes place in the contemporary era (1999) sees Dan storytelling in his traditional artistic style. But when time travel is involved, Dan and inker Bob McLeod purposely ape Jack Kirby. (And Joe Sinnot.) As you can see from the pages below, Dan and Bob re-do the top panel from FF 94, 30 years prior. And then the story takes a turn — literally — as The Thing realizes that Dr. Strange’s time spell has worked.
Bonus points: The pages are hand-lettered by the talented John Costanza. Although John came on board at Marvel too late to work on the original Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four run, he did in fact letter the Lee and Kirby “reunion” Silver Surfer graphic novel. Close enough in my book to at least earn a no-prize.
