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Essential Fantastic Four
Essential Fantastic Four, Vol. 6
Re-live more of the FF's classic exploits as they stand united against Dr. Doom, Annihilus and Galactus Featuring the first appearances of the Kree and the microversal Psycho-Man Guest starring Spider-Man, Daredevil, Thor and the Warlock formerly known as Him Lee and Kirby were the ones who started it all, and they keep it going in these cosmic tales COLLECTING: FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 64-83, ANNUAL 5-6
592 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1973
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About the author
Stan Lee
7,565 books2,335 followersStan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was an American writer, editor, creator of comic book superheroes, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.
With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 19, 2021
Stan drops some great stories covered by this volume, including the almost mental breakdown of The Thing! Huge highlight was Stan Lee's satire on Apartheid with the Human Torch and The Thing off to rescue the Black Leopard (AKA the Black Panther) from a White racist run African country!
The weakest story was a Thing vs Thundra match-up! I read the Fantastic Four comic books and annuals covered by this volume. 7 out of 12 sees a slight uptick in quality from the previous volume, and the end of Stan Lee's amazing run!
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The weakest story was a Thing vs Thundra match-up! I read the Fantastic Four comic books and annuals covered by this volume. 7 out of 12 sees a slight uptick in quality from the previous volume, and the end of Stan Lee's amazing run!
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January 1, 2019
Dropped by the library today, saw it on the shelf, read it in one sitting. Which was easy to do since, let's face it, if it ain't Lee & Kirby, then it ain't the FF. It's not like the art is bad, it just isn't wild like Kirby. Roy Thomas tries, and he has some ideas, but he's not a good scripter. He should have contributed plots and let someone else do the writing. I know RT is highly respected, but he never quite did it for me.
[I went and changed my 'date finished' from 12-31-18 to 1-1-19 because wasn't registering on my books read in 2018.]
[I went and changed my 'date finished' from 12-31-18 to 1-1-19 because wasn't registering on my books read in 2018.]
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June 22, 2020From beyond the stars shall come the Overmind and he shall crush the universe.’ So goes an ancient prophecy steeped in Stan Lee hyperbole. Super-heroes used to save America, then the world and later the galaxy from some terrible menace. Now it’s the universe. This shows that Stan didn’t know how big the universe is. A large chap with a strong brain isn’t going to conquer all of it. He wouldn’t have time.
Never mind. The overlong ‘Overmind Saga’ is preceded by a couple of issues in which the Thing goes amok and then fights the Hulk, who is always amok anyway. No sooner is Ben Grimm returned to normal than the Watcher arrives to warn our heroes about the Overmind. He takes up four issues of their time, some of it scripted nicely by Archie Goodwin. Then Roy Thomas delivers an interesting tale in which the Thing and the Human Torch go to an African country which practices apartheid to rescue the Black Leopard, formerly the Black Panther. He changed his name (briefly) to avoid association with certain other people. The story makes its point without preaching.
Stan Lee returns to drag out another Galactus story for four issues, bits of which were perhaps used in the film ‘Rise Of The Silver Surfer‘. It was okay really but the sense of old yarns being rehashed is hard to dispel. The creature from the black lagoon – no, the monster from the lost lagoon, sorry – returns for another go and then Stan hands the scripting chores over to ‘Rascally’ Roy Thomas. The writing phase of Mister Lee’s fantastic, industry-changing career was coming to an end as he moved on to the promotions and marketing department. He didn’t end with a whimper by any means but a fresh viewpoint was welcome.
Roy Thomas did a sort of re-launch by retelling the origin of the Fantastic Four, using the slightly contrived method of having the Thing reminiscing while wearing Reed’s new thought projector helmet so there are visuals to go with his words. Remembering the team’s first villain, Mole Man, sets Ben Grimm to thinking. His girlfriend Alicia is blind. Moles are blind. Perhaps Mole Man has a cure for Alicia! I’m being facetious. The rationale is better than that and leads into a great underground adventure which revives a couple of long-forgotten subterranean villains. As a fan of early Marvel, before he joined the team, Roy Thomas had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the old stuff which he often put to good use.
He’s also a liberal. Having raised the race issue, he now dallies with feminism by having Sue argue with Reed about her role and introducing a domineering lady super-villain called Thundra. From parts unknown, she has come to Earth to fight the world’s strongest man, which she believes to be the Thing. To accomplish this, she joins the Frightful Four, a team of bad guys with a name that reeks of Noel Coward to English ears. (‘Simply frightful, darling!’) or perhaps of older works by Agatha Christie. The Fantastics survive the Frightfuls and after a dalliance with the Inhumans, written by Gerry Conway, go on to face a rich man who has it in for them again. This is followed by a great two-parter in which the whole of the USA becomes a distorted vision of the fifties with Marlon Brando bikers against crew-cut jingoistic patriots. ‘Rascally’ Roy was firing on all cylinders back then, though Gerry Conway scripted the second half, to give credit where it’s due.
Apart from a couple of issues by Ross Andru and one by Ramona Fradon the art is all by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott and is therefore beautiful. Not startling, not genre changing, not especially clever, stylish, daring or anything like that; just simple, competent and lovely. This kind of illustration is too often undervalued, methinks.
All in all, this is another fine collection of stories to add to your collection of collections. Together with the first five volumes, this makes thirteen years of yarns from ‘The world’s greatest comic magazine’ and although they take up a lot of space on the bookshelf they really are frightfully good; almost, dare I say it, essential.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
Never mind. The overlong ‘Overmind Saga’ is preceded by a couple of issues in which the Thing goes amok and then fights the Hulk, who is always amok anyway. No sooner is Ben Grimm returned to normal than the Watcher arrives to warn our heroes about the Overmind. He takes up four issues of their time, some of it scripted nicely by Archie Goodwin. Then Roy Thomas delivers an interesting tale in which the Thing and the Human Torch go to an African country which practices apartheid to rescue the Black Leopard, formerly the Black Panther. He changed his name (briefly) to avoid association with certain other people. The story makes its point without preaching.
Stan Lee returns to drag out another Galactus story for four issues, bits of which were perhaps used in the film ‘Rise Of The Silver Surfer‘. It was okay really but the sense of old yarns being rehashed is hard to dispel. The creature from the black lagoon – no, the monster from the lost lagoon, sorry – returns for another go and then Stan hands the scripting chores over to ‘Rascally’ Roy Thomas. The writing phase of Mister Lee’s fantastic, industry-changing career was coming to an end as he moved on to the promotions and marketing department. He didn’t end with a whimper by any means but a fresh viewpoint was welcome.
Roy Thomas did a sort of re-launch by retelling the origin of the Fantastic Four, using the slightly contrived method of having the Thing reminiscing while wearing Reed’s new thought projector helmet so there are visuals to go with his words. Remembering the team’s first villain, Mole Man, sets Ben Grimm to thinking. His girlfriend Alicia is blind. Moles are blind. Perhaps Mole Man has a cure for Alicia! I’m being facetious. The rationale is better than that and leads into a great underground adventure which revives a couple of long-forgotten subterranean villains. As a fan of early Marvel, before he joined the team, Roy Thomas had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the old stuff which he often put to good use.
He’s also a liberal. Having raised the race issue, he now dallies with feminism by having Sue argue with Reed about her role and introducing a domineering lady super-villain called Thundra. From parts unknown, she has come to Earth to fight the world’s strongest man, which she believes to be the Thing. To accomplish this, she joins the Frightful Four, a team of bad guys with a name that reeks of Noel Coward to English ears. (‘Simply frightful, darling!’) or perhaps of older works by Agatha Christie. The Fantastics survive the Frightfuls and after a dalliance with the Inhumans, written by Gerry Conway, go on to face a rich man who has it in for them again. This is followed by a great two-parter in which the whole of the USA becomes a distorted vision of the fifties with Marlon Brando bikers against crew-cut jingoistic patriots. ‘Rascally’ Roy was firing on all cylinders back then, though Gerry Conway scripted the second half, to give credit where it’s due.
Apart from a couple of issues by Ross Andru and one by Ramona Fradon the art is all by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott and is therefore beautiful. Not startling, not genre changing, not especially clever, stylish, daring or anything like that; just simple, competent and lovely. This kind of illustration is too often undervalued, methinks.
All in all, this is another fine collection of stories to add to your collection of collections. Together with the first five volumes, this makes thirteen years of yarns from ‘The world’s greatest comic magazine’ and although they take up a lot of space on the bookshelf they really are frightfully good; almost, dare I say it, essential.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
January 13, 2019
The Fantastic Four press on in a post Kirby/Lee world. A decent and mostly average volume.
August 26, 2015
I stopped reading after Stan Lee's last issue because I'm just not interested in comics written by Roy Thomas (due to being disappointed by The Kree/Skrull War). The issues are decent enough, but Jack Kirby is definitely missed. Not only his art, but also his wild and imaginative contributions to the story because of the Marvel Method used to create the comics. John Buscema's art is pretty good, although a bit similar to Kirby's, although not to the same extent as his art in the Silver Surfer series.
January 23, 2016
Nulla da dire sui disegni di John Buscema in ottima in ottima forma. Purtroppo però sia Roy Thomas sia Gerry Conway non riescono a imbastire trame decenti, e sono tutte dimenticabili in fretta. Certo alcuni buoni spunti ci sono ma nel complesso di queste storie non resta molto.
January 7, 2012
Enjoyed this era of the Fantastic Four and really found this book helpful since i no longer have to pull out the individual issues to read! Great villains and stories abound!!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews