Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars (12 issues)
Year: 1984/1985
Writer: Jim Shooter
Penciller/Inker: Michael Zeck/John Beatty*
Rating:
Availability: Amazon

* Bob Layton did the pencils for issues #4-#5, while Jack Abel and Mike Esposito did inks with Beatty on #8
At the time the whole concept of the Secret Wars (omnipotent force from another universe known as the Beyonder encourages multi-crossover story arc) seemed to place a blight over the whole Marvel range, with every major hero referencing him every other issue. Okay, the success of the series may have led Marvel to doing crossovers again, with Atlantis Attacks as a nadir, but twenty years past the ubiquity of the Beyonder and it really doesn't seem all so bad. Yeah, it's pulpy and trashy, but it's kind of fun for a series that writer (and Marvel editor-in-chief) Jim Shooter admits was devised in order to sell toys. Of the various parties involved, then Spider-Man had arguably the biggest change, gaining a new black and white costume that eventually turned out to be an alien symbiote that became his phenomenally popular foe, Venom. But for the FF changes were also apparent, with Ben - who found he could change to and from the Thing at will on the Beyonder's world - staying behind, leaving She-Hulk to take his place on the team. From July 1983 - June 1986 The Thing had his own mini-series, which lasted for 36 issues. #10-#22 took place on the world, chronicling his exploits and his falling in love with a native, Tariana. But back to the Secret Wars, and while Ben is portrayed reasonably well, Reed less so, (Sue, pregnant at the time, was left on Earth) Johnny is written as a total jerk. Never before has he been so obnoxious, so moronic or so emotionally immature. Doctor Doom actually gets a very good part to play, being arguably the most dominant character of all, but in terms of overall quality then the artwork to this was scrappy. Not only that, but with Jim Shooter as writer, then his blending apochryphal lines like "It's no wonder that the name Mister Fantastic is reknowned for compassion as well as courage! You give added meaning to the word hero, Richards!" with horrifically bad exposition means that you'd be hard pushed to find a Marvel comic as badly-written as this in all their years of publishing. It truly is dire from a scripting point of view, inane and amateurish. Even more surprisingly, for such a childishly written and plotted series then it also has a worrying obsession with bodily mutilation. Proving that the buying public don't always know quality, the series sold phenomenally well, and three months after the 12-issue limited series had finished, the inevitable sequel followed...


Fantastic Four versus the X-Men (4 issues)
Year: 1987
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller/Inker: Jon Bogdanove/Terry Austin
Rating:
Availability: Amazon

An entertaining if ultimately unsatisfying four-part series that was published in 1987 and grouped together as a collection in 1990. While the core idea of Reed's inner doubts is a decent one, what perhaps would have worked better as a mindless action piece instead labours under pretension (individual titles include "By The Soul's Darkest Light") and clumsy, overwritten lines ("An' that doubt'll eat up his soul like a cancer, killin' him as surely as any bullet."). With the once-cancelled X-Men long since grown into a major cash cow for Marvel, they naturally get the better of things, with the Human Torch a virtual punch bag throughout. Also of concern are the blatant attempts at misguided titillation, with Kitty's transient form somehow shedding its clothes between issues #2 and #3; especially disturbing given that she's only fourteen years old. Certainly not awful, ..vs. The X-Men merely undercuts its own merits by existing as a lower-grade, pulpy comic book… but having delusions that it's high art.




Fantastic Four 2099 (8 issues)
Year: 1996
Writer: Karl Kesel/Ben Raab*
Penciller/Inker: Matt Ryan/Al Williamson – Pascual Ferry/Thibert & Mendoza**
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

* Scripting the fifth book from Kesel’s plot was Joe Kelly. Raab took over the scripting from the sixth issue, and worked out his plots with Terry Kavanagh.
** Rick Leonardi pencilled the first book, with John Buscema the second. Meanwhile, Art Thibert inked alone on the sixth issue.
As with Fantastic Five this wasn’t, strictly speaking, a mini-series, but an intended regular series that got pulled. Trivia-wise, then the title header seemed to change according to the creative team. The largely Kesel/Ryan partnership had “The World’s Greatest 2099 Comic Magazine!”, while the last three, Raab/Ferry/Thibert & Mendoza books opted for “The Future’s Coolest Comic Book!”

The FF were so far from Marvel’s first line by this stage that they followed many, many other characters in the line: Spider-Man, Ravage, The Punisher and even Doctor Doom had their own comics from way back in 1992. It’s perhaps a telling indictment of the FF’s 90s popularity that their own nemesis had a book four years before them – even Ghost Rider got the up on them by over eighteen months. Yet one interesting quirk to the title was that the FF involved weren’t future versions of the group (as with most of the line), but the real FF via time anomally. The book itself? Well, the art is a little too abstract for my personal taste, with a glance at the second issue revealing how even John Buscema’s inks can be perverted by a determined inker. Yet while I expected this to be something of a cynical gimmick, the issues themselves, particularly the ones written by Kesel, are actually quite entertaining. Yes, they’re a little glib, dialogue-wise, and the characterisation is formulaic (Ben particularly) but placing the Fantastic Four into a technological future sees them under genuine threat, where groups like Total Recall and The New York Dolls (not as silly as they sound!) have a genuine chance at picking them off. Sadly, the entire project was pulled owing to Marvel’s financial problems of ’96, and many subplots were discarded, with Chimera being shunted off as all the 2099 characters were concluded in a series titled 2099: World of Tomorrow. Sadly, that too folded after eight issues, with a 1998 coda, 2099: Manifest Destiny attempting to wrap things up. Since then a few authors have tried to recreate this future, though the resurrection of the title in 2004 was for the Marvel Knights series, which is separate from the regular Marvel universe.


Fantastic Five (5 issues)
Year: 1999/2000
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Penciller/Inker: Paul Ryan/Al Milgrom
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

Okay, strictly speaking this wasn't a mini-series, but an intended ongoing series that got pulled after five issues due to poor sales. While you can read this title as a stand-alone, it incorporates a "possible future" set around fifteen years ahead in the Marvel Universe. After Marvel's original What If? series was cancelled in 1984, there was a one-off special in June '88 and then a second volume running from 1989-1998. It was in this second run of 114 issues that we first got the daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (#105, Feb 1998), and Spider-Girl became the only really successful exponent of this experiment, being launched into her own comic book that still runs to this day.

That's not to say that the future FF (The Thing, The Human Torch, Franklin as Psilord, Lyja the Skrull as Ms. Fantastic and Reed's brain in a robot as "Big Brain") can't be understood without knowing all the excess continuity, but then it isn't exactly the "pick it up anywhere in the run" series that Tom DeFalco intended either, with healthy references to his run on the main FF title. As for the quality of the book, then to be fair it isn't half bad. Naturally there's the problems with DeFalco's dialogue and Ryan's art that occured during their run on the series, not to mention the day-glo coloring. But with the fate of Reed and Sue (and, more obviously, what Ben's kids look like and who the final issue's mystery villain is) are plot developments that keep you reading. In essence, it's throwaway trash with glib, shallow dialogue that wouldn't challenge any reader other than the least discerning child. Yet by having its run curtailed it allows Fantastic Five (sub headed "The Millennium's Greatest Comic Magazine!") to hold a half-hearted dignity before the inevitable soulless battles with derivative villains had time to take over...


Domination Factor: Fantastic Four (4 issues)
Year: 1999/2000
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Penciller/Inker: Dan Jurgens/Bob McLeod
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

Two things that always harm the credibility of the Marvel range (and seemed completely lost on the editorial, particularly in the mid to late 90s) are crossovers and recreating old stories. It wasn't that long ago that the comic itself had once and for all turned around and started swallowing itself, and so here we have a four-part quest story that involves recreations of four Lee/Kirby stories. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, for Jurgens is a reasonable writer (though a bit of a sloppy artist) and the "back to the past" plotline only takes up the middle two books. Sadly, the last one sees a tie-in with the Avengers mini-series of the same name, so unless you buy Domination Factor: The Avengers the entire conclusion will remain a mystery. While these four books are adequate, maybe you'd be better off saving your money and leaving the entire eight-book series unexplored…


Unstable Molecules (4 issues)
Year: 2000
Writer: James Sturm
Penciller/Inker: Guy Davis
Rating:
Availability: Amazon

A superb, virtually first-rate imagining of what the Fantastic Four would have been like if they had been real people. It's the kind of serious, adult treatment the group should always have received in a limited, spin-off series (originally published in four issues, it was collected together for a graphic novel in 2003) yet sadly the reports of low sales indicate that fans didn't really take to this powers-free format. Comic action is adhered to with cut-aways to clips from the original Lee/Kirby strip, and the fictional "Vapor Girl", while the main focus sees embittered, disfunctional versions of the "real" FF. Johnny's a disaffected youth full of hatred for everything outside of his comic books, while Ben is a lecherous drunk who screams "whore" at women. In the most rewarding characterisation, Sue yearns to break free of her 1950s trappings by embracing female equality, trapped by domination of the clinical Reed. The end of the book sees all the disparate elements tie together in a series that might not be to all tastes, but remains, from this site at least, highly recommended.


Before The Fantastic 4: Ben Grimm and Logan (3 issues)
Year: 2000
Writer: Larry Hama
Penciller/Inker: Kaare Andrews/Walden Wong
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

By accident, not by design, I've recieved and reviewed the "Before The Fantastic 4" series in the opposite order to which they were released. Coming out in a staggered release pattern (Jul 2000 - Sep 2000/Sep 2000 - Dec 2000/Dec 2000 - Feb 2001) the first instalment was conceived as an extended battle between Ben and Logan (who would go on to be Wolverine, for those few who don't know) in the midst of a cold war. To be fair to Larry Hama - most famous as the original writer of G.I. Joe - this extremely limited set-up was actually suggested by Editor Bobbie Chase rather than his own idea, though we must be thankful the other two collections in this mini-mini-series didn't follow the same cash-hungry route by having Peter Parker team up with the Storms. So Hama does okay with the script, even though Ben isn't really recogniseable as the Ben we know, and Logan's tendency to quote from Shane goes beyond parody. But what really detracts from this opening story for me is the heavily stylised artwork. I admit that this is entirely subjective, as technically it's quite good, but having Anime-influenced art in so rigidly a Western take on the format clashes badly, and the regulars tend to look cartoonesque rather than the proto-realism that Marvel usually strives for. Still, the whole thing achieves a level of basic competency which means it manages to keep its head above a two-star rating. But I still don't actually get the entire concept of this "before" trilogy, and this one is a case in point: Marvel are always using Wolverine as a lazy way to prop up sales... but why would anyone be interested in the character before he was Wolverine? See also: The Thing, The Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible...


Before The Fantastic 4: Reed Richards (3 issues)
Year: 2000
Writer: Peter David
Penciller/Inker: Duncan Fegredo
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

I've been a little hard with that rating, as this is clearly the best-written out of the "Before The..." range. Sadly, though, while David is a competent writer, this series doesn't really go anywhere or tell anything new (Victor Von Doom appears, blaming Reed for his scarring, yet again...) that can't be ignored by the get-out that chronologically this is the first time such events have happened. Similarly, attempting to elevate the narrative above the inherent clichés within it by pointing them out is a tired attempt at postmodernism shorthand rather than genuine inspired wit. Yes, Franklin compares it all to Indiana Jones and Reed breaks the fourth comic book wall, but "ironic" was all the rage at the time and it doesn't make for strong stories. An unusual homage to Doctor Who appears in the final instalment, where Reed "reverses the polarity of the neutron flow". The whole endeavour is also undermined by Fegredo, who produces such scrappy, unfocussed artwork that Reed doesn't even appear to have eyes for many of the panels, and only about two expressions. I've focussed almost solely on the negatives for this review, which is misleading as it is nicely put together. But having reviewed The Storms first, my final conclusion must be the same as that review's final sentence...


Before The Fantastic 4: The Storms (3 issues)
Year: 2000/2001
Writer: Terry Kavanagh
Penciller/Inker: Charlie Adlard
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable

So now instead of being two innocent youngsters unwittingly taken into a lifetime of extraordinary adventures, the young Sue and Johnny were proactive youths who fought zombies and battled with Dracula himself. In truth, there's nothing much wrong with this form of retroactive continuity, as - other than Sue being a much more assertive figure than the one originally devised by Stan Lee in the 60s - it doesn't really change anything. There's the odd heavy-handed reference to future events ("By turning invisible, sis. You might want to try it sometime.") and another example of Johnny admiring his sister's figure when he doesn't realise it's hers, as with FF #280. But such distractions are minor, and the three-part series isn't particularly bad at all. It's decently written, if a little repetitive, and the artwork is pleasant enough. The only question I have is…. what was the point?


Fantastic Four: Big Town (4 issues)
Year: 2001
Writer: Steve Englehart
Penciller/Inker: Mike McKone/Mark McKenna
Rating:
Availability: currently unavailable


* Credited as helping McKenna with inking on #1 Eduardo Alpuente, Randy Elliott, Ray Kryssing, Cam Smith and Kevin Yates. Alpuente and Yates are also credited for their help on #4.
It seems the harshest thing in the world to damn a project because of its comparisons with peers, but while Englehart’s revised take on the FF (complete with villainous X-Men and a barren Sue Richards) is a nice work, it’s not helped by coming in between the superlative Unstable Molecules and 1234. There’s some good stuff in there, even if the colours are a little too bright for what the series is trying to achieve, and the final instalment does rather crumble down into “spot the cameo” territory. It’s also worth noting that the issues were longer than an average comic book, though of varying lengths: 38pp (#1), 24pp (#2/#3) and 40pp (#4).

Yet ultimately, Big Town suffers from lacking the complexity to do its potential justice. The Wasp and Henry Pym are in an open marriage, with Tony Stark openly sleeping with her... yet the rest of the arcs are often just of the “super powered brawls” variety. It’s established as an alternate tooling of the traditional Marvel universe... yet pretty much the same things happen within it (Sue and Namor, etc.). A nice enough read, though lacking the full groundbreaking stance that such a project really requires...


Fantastic Four 1234 (4 issues)
Year: 2001
Writer: Grant Morrison
Penciller/Inker: Jae Lee
Rating:
Availability: Amazon

Absolutely magnificent work that sees Morrison (New X-Men, JLA: New World Order, The Invisibles) reimagine the FF for their 40th anniversary. Repackaged as a graphic novel collection just the following year, the four-issue series was nominated for Eisner Awards with Best Writer, Best Cover Artist and Best Colorist. It's a pity Lee wasn't also nominated for his superb art, as he works with Morrison's script to craft a supremely downbeat take on a real-life Fantastic Four. If there's any complaint it's that the second half of the series doesn't quite match up to the first, with Johnny, as ever, the shallowest character for his highlights in 3, and the plot in 4 giving an explanation for the slightly off-centre characters of the FF, rather than just letting them remain reimagined takes. But such detractions are minor, and 1234 is an essential entry into the FF canon.


Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks (4 issues)
Year: 2004
Writer: Bruce Jones
Penciller/Inker: Jae Lee
Rating:
Availability: Amazon

The graphic novel mentality has produced some beautiful pieces of comic art, and is much to be praised for. However, while all the angst and silent, mood-enhancing panels are wonderful innovations, the "dark" take on superheroes is now so familiar that it threatens to become cliché. Lee again produces sensational art just like he did for 1234, yet Bruce Jones is no Grant Morrison. That's not to say that Hard Knocks is awful - far from it - just that it doesn't have enough to say to justify the moody ambience, mature visuals and $3.50 an issue treatment. Come to that, it doesn't have enough to say to justify yet another Hulk/Thing match-up, two old rivals/enemies that have been round the blocks so many times it borders on passé. On notes of trivia, then #2 repeats the urban myth that schizophrenia is a split personality disorder and the FF's earliest clash with Doctor Doom is said to have taken place fifteen years before this story, significantly longer than it does in the regular FF universe. Hard Knocks reads better on second viewing, and isn't helped by the episodic format, but with the quirky, gag-laden ending you do come to question why you've spent over £10 on this thing...