Fantastic Four: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine
Title: [amazon_link id=”0785156070″ target=”_blank” locale=”US” container=”” container_class=”” ]Fantastic Four: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine[/amazon_link]
Creators: Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Bruce Timm, Jeph Loeb, Ron Frenz, Keith Giffen, Jorge Lucas, George Purcell
Page Count: 280
Cover Price: $34.99
Release Date: September 21, 2011
Collects: Fantastic Four: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine #1-12.
Review: This story originally came out for the Fantastic Four’s 40th anniversary in 2001. At the time, my interest in comics was dwindling, and I was just buying issues and putting them away unread, because it was just habit. This series suffered that fate. I’ve had the single issues since day one, but true to form, I bought the hardcover release and read that. I’m a sucker, I know.
Seeing as how Marvel didn’t do anything special for the FF’s 50th anniversary, they decided to package the 40th’s special 12-issue series into a hardcover book and call it a day. (Unless you consider a triple-sized 600th issue a true way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of your company’s original flagship title. I don’t.)
As for the story itself, it was what it tried to be, a typical story set during the end of the Lee/Kirby run. It was fun while reading it, but I can already feel myself losing most of the details just a couple days after finishing the story.
It’s a fast read, with lots of full page panels, and, for the most part, little dialog. Each issue tries to squeeze in at least one guest appearance by characters in the Marvel Universe at the time. The Avengers play a prominent role in the last few issues, as do the Inhumans, Thor, the X-Men, Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer, Black Panther, and others. Most appearances feel forced, and sometimes the characterization is way off.
The story is about Dr. Doom trying to take over the world. It doesn’t sound original because it’s not – but that’s what the creators were going for. They wanted to produce a story worthy of Lee and Kirby, had they stayed on the title for another year. The only problem is, even Lee and Kirby had passed their prime on the FF by over 30 issues by the time they called it quits.
For the most part, the art really tries to imitate Jack Kirby’s style, and it does in places, and fails miserably in others. There were several illustrators taking part in this and the difference in art is jarring. Sometimes there a several different artists in the same issue!!
As for the writing, the dialog did feel like Stan Lee. In fact, the only time that I stopped and was actually taken out of the story at the beginning of the last issue. Reed said to Ben, “How about clamming up before I forget you’re my partner”. And the next panel where Ben says to Sue, “Sheeesh Susie, Can’tcha even let a guy enjoy makin’ a jackass of himself? Hell, Girl — I got nothin’ else to t’do.” I immediatly looked up from the book and thought to myself, there is no way that Reed would ever say such a thing to Ben or Ben would use the words Jackass or Hell. Who scripted this issue? I went to the front of the book and lo and behold, Stan Lee himself added the dialog for the final issue. Wow. I was so disappointed. Here you have all of these creators trying to imitate Stan Lee, and Stan himself comes along and messes everything up. Oh well, live and learn.
The book as a package is typical Marvel – excellent. The pages open flat with no gutter loss whatsoever. Outstanding paper quality and top-notch printing and production.
Summary: Fun read, but don’t expect to take anything memorable away from it.
Overall: 2.5 out of 5.