Marvel Masterworks Presents the Fantastic Four: Nos. 1-10 (Marvel Masterworks, V. 2 <21)

Rating:
Summary: The beginning of the "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine"
Review: Marvel Comics really begins when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby come up with the first issue of "The Fantastic Four." You have to admit it is a rather strange quartet: Reed Richards is probably the smartest guy on the planet and now he can stretch his limbs, his fiancée Sue Richards can turn invisible (and do force fields), while her kid brother Johnny Storm becomes the Silver Age Human Torch. But it is Ben Grimm a.k.a. The Thing who makes up for the shortcomings of the other members of the FF. It was always the man who was the monster who gave the group its depth. The origin is rather lame; not the idea of Gamma Rays inducing super powers, but the idea that the smartest guy on earth would take his fiancée and her kid brother into space. In these first ten issues the FF first meet the Mole Man (#1), the Skrulls (#2), the Sub-Mariner (#4), Doctor Doom (#5) and the Puppet-Master (#8). At this point in the comic the stories are not up to the characters, but clearly Lee and Kirby recognize what they have with Namor and Victor Von Doom, who appear in half the episodes. There are better stories to come, along with gloriously dramatic improvements in Kirby's artwork, but this is how it all started.

Rating:
Summary: The beginning of the "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine"
Review: Marvel Comics really begins when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby come up with the first issue of "The Fantastic Four." You have to admit it is a rather strange quartet: Reed Richards is probably the smartest guy on the planet and now he can stretch his limbs, his fiancée Sue Richards can turn invisible (and do force fields), while her kid brother Johnny Storm becomes the Silver Age Human Torch. But it is Ben Grimm a.k.a. The Thing who makes up for the shortcomings of the other members of the FF. It was always the man who was the monster who gave the group its depth. The origin is rather lame; not the idea of Gamma Rays inducing super powers, but the idea that the smartest guy on earth would take his fiancée and her kid brother into space. In these first ten issues the FF first meet the Mole Man (#1), the Skrulls (#2), the Sub-Mariner (#4), Doctor Doom (#5) and the Puppet-Master (#8). At this point in the comic the stories are not up to the characters, but clearly Lee and Kirby recognize what they have with Namor and Victor Von Doom, who appear in half the episodes. There are better stories to come, along with gloriously dramatic improvements in Kirby's artwork, but this is how it all started.