Back in August 1961 Marvel revolutionised the comic industry with Fantastic Four #1. It was the first in a massive line of superhero titles that changed the way people perceived costumed adventurers. While relatively unsophisticated in the age of the graphic novel, it was Stan Lee and his colleagues that first gave us the idea of heroes with lives, anxieties and character quirks of their own. True, when you take the early stories and put them against the works of, say, Frank Miller or Alan Moore, they're lighter, frothier takes on the format. But these were pioneering, groundbreaking works for a family audience, and a legion of heroes were created: Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Avengers, The Hulk… The FF paved the way by breaking away from the square-jawed, wholesome world of rivals DC (the title was allegedly born as an answer to the popular Justice League of America) and gave us the first ugly superhero with The Thing. The Human Torch had worries about high school more than his hero life, and Reed and Sue's relationship was rocky.

One sad indictment is that many of the other Marvel characters gradually overtook The Fantastic Four in popularity and threw Stan's modest title of "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!" (A variation of which was first tried on the cover of #3, the headlining title used proper for #4) into doubt. Come the mid 90s and sales were falling, as creatively and commercially the book had begun to lose its way. It was scrapped for an alternate volume - Jim Lee and Brandon Choi recreated most of their early adventures over thirteen issues from Novembers '96 - '97 (Though James Robinson wrote the last one) - and they returned from a parallel universe in January 1998, a third volume that continues to this day.

What struck me about the series - issues in 2003 included clear parallels of the war in Iraq - is that a historical guide could be written to the comic book, looking at how political ideology and sexual dynamics helped shape the series through five decades. Just how many overt and subvert influences were the children of the 60s really being subjected to in the name of comic book entertainment? Were the 70s behind the times and reactionary in terms of their representation of female equality? Were the 80s a Liberal side step from the normal viewpoint of the group, which was normally as malleable as their very own Mr. Fantastic?

No doubt you're thinking that such a history would be incredibly dull, and no doubt you'd be right. Which is why, alongside such musings, I've tried to mix in a healthy amount of reviews - just how good are The Fantastic Four? - and observations. To make it even more digestible, each issue gets its own rating out of five FF stars. More important than anything else, I grew up with the group, and their sense of humanity and loyalty to one another is what makes them arguably the most loveable characters in comics. If you enjoy reading the site a fraction as much as I have rereading all these great comics in order to compile it, then you'll have a great time indeed - click on the menu options above for a year-by-year look at the series, from way back in the 60s all the way through to the present day...