Erik Larsen, Paul Ryan & Al Milgrom — Fantastic Encore
Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Comics Magazine #2, March 2001
Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Comics Magazine isn’t like a sequel to Lee and Kirby’s original run—it is one. Same premise, same mission: pick up the world’s greatest comic right after issue #100 and keep the engine humming.
This mini-series exists because a generation of creators grew up fluent in Kirby’s visual language and wanted to continue it, not reinterpret it. No grim updating. No clever winks. Just more Fantastic Four.
This page nails that idea perfectly. Erik Larsen provides the layouts, setting up classic, confident storytelling. Paul Ryan delivers clean, readable draftsmanship. Al Milgrom locks it all together with classic Marvel authority. You get the full team, Crystal, and Namor battling the Sentry—all in one terrific page of original art.
Across the series, the creative roster reads like a roll call of die-hard Kirby believers. Other contributors included Bruce Timm, Ron Frenz, Keith Giffen, and Rick Veitch—artists who didn’t just admire Kirby, they revered him and understood what made the Fantastic Four tick.
What makes World’s Greatest Comics Magazine special is its confidence. It doesn’t explain itself. It assumes the Fantastic Four never stopped being the future. In that sense, it isn’t nostalgia—it’s continuity of imagination. And that’s about as Fantastic Four as it gets.
