MOVIE (1994) MOVIE (2005) MOVIE (2007) COMIC MINI SERIES SINGLE EDITIONS CARTOON #1 CARTOON #2 CARTOON #3 CARTOON #4 CARTOON #5 RESERVOIR DOGS	What If: Spider-Man Joined The Fantastic Four? Year: 1977 Writer: Roy Thomas Penciller/Inker: Jim Craig/Pablo Marcos Rating: Availability: Currently Unavailable The first issue of a Marvel series that the cynical might call "So What?" stories. In the first volume of What If? the Fantastic Four actually appeared eight times. Roy Thomas kicked the whole thing off here, and proved that even he could have mild off days with "What If the Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers?" in #6 (). The group would finish off with "What if The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become The Fantastic Four?" (q.v., #11), an appearance in a Nova story (#15, ), Sub-Mariner marrying the Invisible Girl (#21, ), the FF not gaining their powers (q.v., #36), the Thing continuing to mutate (#37, ) and a questionable taste story of Sue dying during childbirth (#42, ). The story here is probably the best of the bunch, though its lofty rating here doesn't take into account the scrappy artwork and the fact that, for a writer capable of depth, Roy's story here is so shallow. He openly admits to reusing stock situations in his editorial, though with What If? being a third longer than normal Marvel comics, surprisingly there's too much of a good (or so-so) thing. What If: The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become The Fantastic Four? Year: 1978 Writer: Jack Kirby Penciller/Inker: Jack Kirby Rating: Availability: Currently Unavailable The highlighted issue here is the FF's third appearance on the title with #11, "What if The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become The Fantastic Four?" Most notable for being the first time Jack had drawn the FF (of a kind) since 1970, this was produced during his brief return to Marvel in the mid 70s. Working from an idea initiated by Roy Thomas - who was too busy to work on it himself - Jack wrote, drew and inked what emerges as an affectionate story with him and Stan Lee as the Thing and Mr. Fantastic. What's strange is that the story opts not for self-indulgence or parody, but - a few gags aside - a straightforward reimagining of the FF's origin. It's actually pretty good, even if at 34 pages long it drags past its natural lifespan for such a skittish story. Reading this comicbook can easily lead you to believe that Jack harboured no real resentment towards his ex-colleagues... yet we must remember that while at DC in the early 70s he created embittered Lee/Thomas parodies Funky Flashman and Houseroy. What If: The Fantastic Four Had Not Gained Their Super-Powers? Year: 1982 Writer: John Byrne Penciller/Inker: John Byrne Rating: Availability: Currently Unavailable The Fantastic Four's sixth appearance in What If?, and if the truth be told, there were never any really daring What Ifs? being asked. DC would never have a "What if Superman was ugly and Lex Luthor was really good looking?" just as Marvel would never do "What if Spider-Man was gay?" or "What if the Hulk was disabled?" So it is that a 20-page story with the Fantastic Four with no powers ranks up there with "What if Peter Parker had stayed as Peter Parker?" or "What if the Hulk had never done anything interesting?" The end result is that, well… what would happen would be a pretty tedious story. Despite homaging the first issue cover (which is lazy rather than witty) Bryne's slightly overwritten descriptive passages and the Watcher's "moral of the story" do this one no favours at all. A secondary 18 page feature by Bill Mantlo has Nova not giving up his powers. Though scrappily drawn and inked by Mike Vosburg, it's the better of the two stories, though none of the "What If?" line is really notable in terms of Marvel talent. Fantastic Four Roast Year: 1982 Writer: Fred Hembeck Penciller/Inker: "Almost Everybody" Rating: Availability: Currently unavailable Having not reached my teens when I first read "When Titans Chuckle!" I was somewhat perplexed to buy a FF comic with an array of silly gags and send-up. Most of the US references to people like Jimmy Hoffa, Richard Nixon and Don Rickles went over my head, and I could never work out why the party host was drawn in such a cartoonish way. Add to this some adult humour, a couple of Jewish gags and mild profanity ("Watch that 'caped crusader' crap, plastic guy!") and it was a mind-blowing experience for a young boy. Now I'm older and actually get the topical references and cheeky digs at Marvel's own characters I can appreciate this title a lot more. In fact, its self-referential subtext is a lot cleverer than some of the silly gags would attest, and it's almost worth an extra mark. The book apparently sold well, with Hembeck doing the layouts for a score of Marvel artists, including John Byrne, Frank Miller, Mike Zeck, Sal Buscema and Marshall Rogers. Fred Hembeck Destroys The Marvel Universe Year: 1989 Writer/Penciller: Fred Hembeck Inker: Vince Colletta/Joe Staton Rating: Availability: Currently unavailable Delayed for six years due to internal Marvel politics, by the time this special saw print in July 1989 most of the topical gags were then long out of date, a fact referenced in the new bookending segments featuring Fred himself and the Punisher. However, reading it for the very first time in 2005, such jokes are long in the past anyway, so it's an issue that scarcely matters at all anymore. On Fred's Official Website he presents alternate, unused pages and details of all the events that led to a one-off joke shot being commissioned and completed in 1983 and then repeatedly held back from publication. With the title being part of such an upsetting experience, it's perhaps to be expected that Fred's a little down on his own work here, but I disagree strongly: now two decades away from topicality and scheduling debates, it's possible to fully appreciate Fred Hembeck Destroys..., a book that fully revels in its own glorious stupidity. The plot? Well, there isn't one, as Death is assigned to bump off all of Marvel's headlining stars in a variety of inventive ways, including Ant Man in a microwave and the Sub-Mariner sticking his fingers in a plug socket. As with Roast, there's a little bit more behind the surface to keep you thinking, with lots of musing on the nature of death, but there's also plenty of belly laughs at the sheer dumbness of some of the gags. My personal favourite is the farewell to Juggernaut and Kingpin (after they've both drowned, Death asking them to give his regards to Davy Jones) "... not to mention Peter Tork and the rest of the Monkees." It may have only ended up as a 34-pager, and not the 48 pages it was slated to be, but there's still plenty to enjoy in this "All-Death Issue!" Fantastic Four: The Legend Year: 1996 Writer: Various Penciller/Inker: Various Rating: Availability: Currently Unavailable It seems strange to release a tribute issue to a group that you've (then) just killed off, but this "Special Tribute Issue" was a heartfelt look back at the history of the group's first volume. Sadly, it focuses more on art than words, so while we get an introduction` by Stan Lee and a foreward by Tom DeFalco, this special doesn't really tell you anything about the team it's praising. What might have been nice would have been to reprint Stan's original synopsis for the group, or an interview with the writers and artists. A nicely designed "FF Cover Gallery" gives a date rundown of significant happenings in the FF universe, and the layout of the magazine resurrects a lot of archive Jack Kirby art, along with some fine new creations by Nghia Lam and William DeMott. However, a five-page FF quiz just seems to fill space, and the final page points to how good this could have been: Mark Gruenwald's "The FF's Lamest Foes!" When I first came on the 'net there was a sadly defunct site known as The Fantastic Four Adventure Trail. One of the features was the ten worst issues of the FF, a feature that avoided negativity in favour of good-natured wit, and was very amusing as a result. It would perhaps have been nice to have included something like this, and the alternative, rather than a somewhat hurried content. As it is, The Legend runs to 52 pages and barely tells you anything new in any of them. The Fantastic 4th Voyage of Sinbad Year: 2001 Writer: Chris Claremont Penciller/Inker: Pascual Ferry/Scott Hanna Rating: Availability: Currently Unavailable An extremely slight indulgence from Chris Claremont, linking the FF with some Sinbad adventures. Typically for Claremont, it's woefully overwritten at times, with would-be meaningful descriptive passages coming over as laughably pretentious. The group go from scene to scene verbalising their characterisation, telling rather than showing how brave, loyal and humanistic they are. As a storytelling shorthand, it's shortchanging readers and forcing the group into two dimensions. No narrative tension exists throughout the piece, as the FF go from easily-defeated menace to easily-defeated menace with ease. None of the flair or sense of exotic adventures transfers its way to the book, and a clumsy coda sees Ben deliberating over the moral of the story. On sale for $5.99, this largely pointless addition to the Fantastic Four canon sold poorly, and for a graphic novel to have a villain called Jihad and reference the World Trade Center, then being released in September 2001 was perhaps the worst case of unfortunate timing ever seen. Gen 13 Fantastic Four Year: 2001 Writer: Kevin Maguire Penciller/Inker: Kevin Maguire/Karl Story Rating: Availability: currently unavailable. A crossover between Marvel's premier group and Gen 13, a teen group from DC's Wildstorm offprint. Whether you're familiar with either team - I personally had no prior knowledge of Gen 13 at all before reading - the likeable narrative soon involves the reader. MacGuire has a quip-a-panel style that makes the issue lively and funny ("I really hate that it's come to this, Mr. Grimm. Truth is, I'm a pretty big fan!" "So, whudda ya want from me? An autograph?") and takes away the need for any genuine slug match between both teams, with the FF largely being represented by Ben and Johnny anyway. For a convert of the old illustrations on a white background comic books, then the modern form of art is also highly rewarding. Particular note must be drawn to Myplan Animaion's subtle, toned colourings. On the downside, such a glib writing stance and light-hearted plot do make this feel inconsequential at times, a diverting curio that also remains completely inessential. Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four Year: 2004 Writer: Kit Kiefer/Jeff Christiansen Rating: Availability: Try Amazon I'll be honest... I was disappointed. I don't know what I expected, but when picking up the self-proclaimed "ultimate guide to The Fantastic Four!" I wanted something a little more than a simple A-Z of all the characters that had appeared in the comics. This dry section by Christiansen is good for what it is, and does at least provoke a bit of debate by rating each character on a six-part scoring system. (Is the Thing really stronger than Thundra? Is Ben really only average intelligence?) However, there are omissions (no entry for Hydro-Man, for example) and small errors (Icemaster before Hyperstorm), but maybe my only real moan is that this section takes up 221 pages of a 240 page book. The inner sleeve promises "a sneak peek behind the scenes of [the 2005 FF movie]" yet no such thing appears. Maybe I wanted fan-pleasing skits like "the 10 greatest FF issues" or "The best of the Thing" or something. Even a list of the spin-off comics (such as those Marvel Two-In-One issues) or an episode guide to the cartoon would have been nice. Yet even worse are the three chapters pre-A to Z. Written by Kiefer, he adopts a flip, shallow style that owes more to a self-conscious straining at youth and post-modernism than it does good journalism. Lines like "great stories and characters come tumbling out one after another, like clowns out of a Fiat" have to be read more than once just to get over how bad they are. Extremely Lee-Kirby centric, it suggests that all of their issues were solid gold (What, even Tomazooma, the living totem pole?) and doesn't even mention later greats like Thomas, Buscema or Simonson. This is actually justifiable, in that it argues for the FF's place in the canon not by their sales figures (this is the sixth volume in the "Encyclopedia" series, following on from the Marvel Universe, The X-Men, The Hulk, Spider-Man and Marvel Knights) but by their innovation. Though it does take pains to remind us that for years the FF was Marvel's flagship title. In all, The Encyclopedia is a good book, a useful book and a nicely laid-out book. But Kiefer's writing irritates, and you'd really be better off spending your money on some classic issues instead. Stan Lee Meets... Year: 2006 Writer: Stan Lee Rating: To celebrate Stan's 65th year in comics, Marvel got him to write five one-shots illustrated by modern talent whereby he meets one of his creations. The five self-contained issues were: Spider-Man (Olivier Coipel), The Thing (Lee Weeks), Dr. Doom (Salvador Larroca), Dr. Strange (Alan Davis) and the Silver Surfer (Mike Wieringo). At just ten pages each, the stories were likeable and amusing, though hardly essential, as the "superheroes don't like Stan" theme was overplayed. Best of the bunch was a non-FF book, with Dr. Strange reimagined as a penny-pinching miser, though the Silver Surfer penned as a verbose preacher was also entertaining. However, the high rating comes because each issue also featured a reprint of a classic comic featuring Stan writing for the said characters, with The Thing's issue containing a reprint of Fantastic Four #79 and Dr. Doom's Fantastic Four #87. A final addition were the inclusion of humorous back up strips by other writers, many of which had the unfortunate effect of upstaging Stan's own contemporary work. In particular, Brian Michael Bendis giving us an Impossible Man who complains that modern Marvel is "raping my youth" is a strikingly bold tale, though, like nearly all the back up strips, strictly not for children. Finally, each issue also featured a second two-page back-up strip drawn in a "cartoon" style, the stand out being Chris Giarrusso's "Principle Stanley". Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure Year: 2008 Writer: Stan Lee Penciller/Inker: Jack Kirby/Joe Sinnott Rating: Now this is an interesting experiment - the rejected original FF #102 (parts of which were used for #108 - see 1971) is reconstructed by Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott for publication nearly 40 years after it was first begun. Described by John Byrne in his customarily forthright manner as "grave robbing", the special is actually approved by the Kirby Estate and uses Jack's original pencils and the existing completed pages. In terms of genuine recreation then it's passable if not wonderful: Stan manages to give us 1970-style dialogue, though the additional pencils and missing panels completed by Ron Frenz stick out like a sore thumb in places, and Chris Sotomayor's rather bland, flaccid colours are no match for the vibrant house style of the period; a fact made doubly clear by having a reprint of #108 in this special. But the real question is - is it any good? Well, by late Lee/Kirby standards it's better than average, but the completely ethereal "mega power" (changed to Nega Power for #108), undramatic flashback framing sequence and passive conclusion means that it's rather inconsequential. But this isn't a rarity from the peak years of Stan and Jack - it's a mini 19 pager from the end of their partnership that Stan declined to print. Take the issue in the spirit that it was meant and you'll enjoy it for what it is.