Marvel Essentials: Fantastic Four Volume 1

One of the best ideas Marvel has had in say, the last ten years, is to realease collections of both their more popular and less known franchises starting with issue one. The Marvel Essentials collection does just that collecting, in varying volumes, the Silver Age classics like Spider-Man, the X-Men, Dr. Strange, and the Fantastic Four (as well as many others).

I've always been a fan of the FF. I've never seen any of the film adaptations, but I did love the 1960's animated cartoon occassionally shown on Cartoon Network in the mid 90's. Though the animation was slight, it basically transcribed stories directly from comic page to tv screen (see below).



Wanting to know more about the origins of the FF I purchased Marvel Essentials: Fantastic Four Volume 1. The trade collects Fantastic Four issues #1-20 as well as the first Fantastic Four Annual.

Obviously the first issue is the infamous origin story. In a panic Reed Richards assembles his fiancee Sue Storm, her kid brother Johnny Storm and Richards' irascible friend Ben Grimm at his apartment. It's the mid 1960's and the Cold War is hotter than ever! Reed makes a snap decision to fly to space to beat the Russians. Not to land on the moon, not to orbit the Earth. Simply to fly into space. Been Grimm brings up the preposterousness of this and Sue replies "Ben we've got to...Unless we want the Commies to beat us to it!"

So they launch themselves into space, get bombarded with "cosmic rays" and crash back to Earth only to find they've gained superhuman abilities from being exposed to the radiation.

Reed Richards "And I'll call myself...MISTER FANTASTIC!!" gets the ability to stretch his form to any shape or size.
Sue Storm "Same goes for me...THE INVISIBLE GIRL!" has the ability to become transparent.
Johnny Storm "I'm calling myself THE HUMAN TORCH--" can become living flame and control fire and heat.
Ben Grimm "I ain't Ben anymore--I'm what Sue called me--THE THING!!" has had his flesh turned to a sort of organic rock and has exponentially increased his strength and durability.

The FF's first adventure shows that maybe Stan Lee gets much more credit due to him than deserved. But hell, he's Stan "The Man" Lee. So it's all good. The FF square off agains the dreaded Mole Man. The Mole Man was once a normal human who was socially shunned for his squat "mole-like" appearance. He set off on his own to find a new civilazation to join. He eventually washed up on Moster Isle (not joking) and fell through a cavern to the center of the Earth where he learned to see in the dark and command an army of subterannean monsters.

Anyways the Mole Man's big plot to destory the Earth and subsequently rule it involves having his giant tunneling creatures dig a tunnel to every major city on the globe. They will then destory power plants and the such, leaving the Earth defenseless. The FF go to attack the Mole Man and, after battling a cadre of monsters, trap the Mole Man in the ground by imploding the opening they escaped from thus leaving him trapped. Well, basically this solves nothing as the Mole Man LIVES UNDERGROUND and the millions of other tunnels connected to major cities still exist as do the Mole Man and his monsters. So basically the FF plugged one hole. And not an important one. The Mole Man's plans haven't been hindered at all (but Reed Richards will tell you otherwise).

The rest of the book (I won't go through issue by issue) is more or less spent fighting two nemesis'. Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner. There are also battles with the who's who of FF bad guys: The Puppet Master, Skrulls, The Super Skrull, The Miracle Man, The Pharaoh, and the Red Ghost.

Issue three is the presentation of the FF's infamous blue garb and their Fantasticar. It also has some interesting schematics of the FF's apartment headquarters. Issue eight starts Ben Grimm's love affair with Alicia, daughter of the Puppet Master.

There is a love triangle played through the entire series with Sue Storm finding feelings for Namor, and Reed being jealous (I mean she is his fiancee and she refuses to marry him until she 'sorts her feelings out').

Most of the outright silliness of the series can be overlooked with such amazing artwork by legendary Jack Kirby. And this is what irks me. Stan Lee created the FF, the X-Men, the Hulk, ect ect ect. But in name only. He came up with the idea but no imagery. And people don't look at The Thing and say 'hey that's Ben Grimm who was iradiated in space and became the Thing.' They say 'the THING!"

Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, The Hulk..none of these characters wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't for the visual representations of the characters made by Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby and Gene Colan and John Romita Sr. So as much as Stan Lee 'created' the FF. Jack Kirby has just as much if not more or a role in their success. Because even though the stories left much to be desired, the art kept bringing readers back.

Is this worth the $14.95? Definitely. Whether you are a fan of the FF or just want some classic Silver Age reading.