Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comics Magazine

Issue 1

"The Baxter Building Besieged"

Co-plotters: Erik Larsen & Eric Stephenson

Layouts: Erik Larsen

Script: Eric Stephenson

Pencil & Ink: Bruce Timm, Keith Giffen & Al Gordon, Jorge Lucas, Erik Larsen & Joe Sinnott

              Now here's a cool tribute and an even cooler idea: Erik Larsen looked back and wondered what we might have seen from the team of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby had they decided to put in one knock-down, drag-out final year on the title. Setting it between issues 100 & 101 of the original run (you know, the numbering they should still be following ::grumble grumble::) this 12-issue series kicks off with a bang, and then the bangs just tend to get bigger. No, that's not a knock, it's just the way things are.

              The story so far is, well, it's too early to tell. There are many possibilities presented, and I do like that someone's finally noted something I've mentioned to others for a long while, that Reed took and built on several of Dr. Doom's discoveries. I'm still a little confused as to why what looks like the scientists from the Hive (the group responsible for creating Him, who would eventually become Adam Warlock) show up working for Doom... but maybe that's a case of mistaken identity on my part. As it's their intention to cover as much of the Marvel Universe as it existed at the time over the course of this series, with 11 parts left to go they have plenty of time to bring it together.

              Graphically it's interesting to watch the various artists and art teams try to ape the Kirby style. Larsen himself handled all the layouts, which was dually a good move as he not only has a solid feeling for the sweep of Kirby's storytelling, but it provides a much-needed consistency that would be lost if each of the artists was just given a free hand to lay out the panels as they wished. As it is each of the artists has little problems here and there. Timm finds it hard to avoid the DC animation cartoony style, especially by giving the female characters that pixie-ish look. Giffen and Gordon manage a style that oddly varies from looking like the Kirby/... Rousseau? team circa issue 25 of the original series and Kirby's style just after this numbering in the original series, when I tended to think he didn't give much of a damn about it anyway. Jorge Lucas seemed to be having a problem with the iconically simple and powerful renderings Kirby used for their faces, obviously wanting to put more lines in to fill up those broad, clean faces. He does appear to get much closer to the mark with his final two pages, though. The Larsen/Sinnott work has some odd shifts in it, too. Sinnott worked with Kirby for a long time at Marvel, and as the years rolled by his inks became stronger and more overpowering with those thick outlines. Still, the Thing seems to keep shifting into the way he looked after Kirby left, with John Buscema pencils. Again, I'm not complaining, it's good stuff.

              Admittedly, this probably won't have the same kick for newer fans as it does for a long-time fan like myself, who was buying comics back when these theoretical issues would have come out. So, I'll only speak for me when I say that I'm on this ride till the end.

                                                              MJN

Any comments?