Fantastic Four Epic Collection, Vol. 3: The Coming of Galactus

Fantastic Four Epic Collection

by Stan Lee

Stan "The Man" called it the "World's Greatest Comic Magazine," and he wasn't kidding. If Lee and Jack Kirby set the comics world on fire in 1961 with the debut of Fantastic Four, in 1965 they burnt it down. Letting loose an unmatched burst of rapid-fire creativity, they gave birth to the Frightful Four, the Inhumans, Galactus, the Silver Surfer and even pulled off the first super hero wedding. There's also monster menaces galore, including Dragon Man, and out-of-this-world villains, from the shape-shifting Skrulls to the undersea warlord Attuma. But it's not just the panel-bursting action that makes FF great. It's the drama of a family, joined together to face all the wonders of the Marvel Universe. Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #33-51 & ANNUAL (1963) #3

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, X Men, Spider Man

448 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2018

About the author

Stan 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.

Reviews

[Sean Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't believe Surfer moved on Ben's lady like that. And he doesn't even appear to have external genitalia.

[Terrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Lee and Kirby! I had never read any of the 60s Fantastic Four, so I gave this a try and was very entertained. They don't make comics like this anymore. Thanks Stan and Jack ❤️

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collects Fantastic Four issues #33-51 and Fantastic Four Annual #3

I picked this up from the library primarily to read the three-issue, original Galactus story. That truly is a 5-star read, and the rest of the series captured in this collection really was revolutionary. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were so good at constructing an ongoing saga through each of these almost 20 issues. Seeds are planted for future stories, and the cast and supporting cast are continually growing in their characterizations. The final issue in this collection is the well-known "This Man...This Monster!" Prior to the Galactus story (which also features the first appearance of the Silver Surfer), this collection includes the Marvel debut of the Inhumans.

[Pedro Mendes · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is really dated, but the story is good if we don't count for sue storm, which does get a bit... Quite dated at times.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kirby and Lee were always at the top of their game when they were working together on Fantastic Four, but it is fascinating to see the point around issue #40 where everything suddenly clicks and they basically figure out how to tell the perfect 1960’s superhero story. It’s like seeing the atom being split for the first time.

[Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection starts a little slow. We've already passed the initial burst of creativity that established the Fantastic Four as a whole new type of thing in superhero comics, and there is a fair bit of wheel spinning in the early issues with go-nowhere storylines like the Frighful Four arc that feel more of a piece with the kinds of generic but vaguely science-y villains of the week that you'd get in a contemporary Flash comic than the kinds of genuinely interesting moral conflicts that you might expect. These are not antagonists who have much in the way of interior lives.

Things pick up with the wedding issue (a bona fide classic if there ever was one) and the introduction of the Inhumans, and the Galactus trilogy and "This Man, This Monster" are every bit as great as they're made out to be.

The art is fantastic throughout, but when Sinnott takes over the inking it turns truly sublime. Love Kirby's early experiments with collage.

Here's where I'm going to nitpick on the presentation, though: these comics were not designed to be presented with flat, bright coloring on glossy paper, and I find Marvel's insistence on reprinting them that way annoying. There are too many quibbles with how to re-create the coloring to get into here, but even just switching to printing on matte paper would be a big step up.

[Jared · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the love to two of the founding members of modern comics, but I couldn’t get into this book at all. The dialogue is clunky and dated (I know it’s like 60 years old but still) and is very much a tell don’t show type of story, which would be fine if the stories were compelling

Overall I think I’m mostly disappointed because my first toe dip into this era of comics was with Lee and Ditkos debut of Spiderman and I absolutely loved the camp and goofy dialogue.

This collection has about 3 issues of coming of Galactus (way shorter than I expected) and they’re at the absolute end. I did enjoy being introduced to the Thing in this way and he was the only thing that made me really enjoy the run aside from the introduction of the Inhumans.

I wanted to love it and I just don’t, but im sure there’s other comics of the First Family I’d enjoy!

[Eric Burton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certain issues in this run have aged really well and were a blast to read! Especially The Galactus storyline and 'This Man, This Monster'. However, there were a lot of them that were hard to get through. Everything to do with The Frightful Four really showed its age.

[NewWorldGod · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

[Michael DeCotiis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doom plots… Surfer rides the stars… Galactus eats planets… Stan the Man & King Kirby make it sing

[William Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really did enjoy reading this one! It took some time to get through all of it, but I think that’s kinda the thing with comics, you pick em up, put em down and still enjoy being immersed each time you read it. My biggest complaint with this book is that the story of Galactus takes place in the last 4 issues of the books. So if you want to read his story, that’s where it starts. However, everything leading up to it influences the story! Which is why reading all the stories along the way is important; AND TIME CONSUMING…

Nevertheless, tons of amazing characters and stories. Plus if you watched the new Fantastic Four movie, you can get a lot of joy from reading this and picking up all the characters and elements that they did an excellent job of bringing through in the film!

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Four is often cited as one of the most influential and industry-changing comics of all time. It birthed so many key characters in the Marvel Universe, literally created the Marvel Universe in any sense, and was so unique and powerful that the comics landscape was never the same. But if you were reading Fantastic Four from the beginning you might not get that. Sure, Stan Lee has a knack for dialogue and making the ensemble cast work as a family drama. Sure, Jack Kirby is the GOAT of comics. But Fantastic Four is largely dated and has the curse of "doing it first" for Marvel while not really doing it best. But this collection... this changes things.

The first half of this collection is defined by two storylines- the "Frightful Four", an evil mirror to the Fantastic Four that's formed of a mish-mash of villains, and the engagement of series leads Reed Richards and Sue Storm. The Frightful Four are composed of the Wizard and the Trapster, two villains that originated as Human Torch villains in Strange Tales, as well as Spider-Man villain Sandman and new villain Madame Medusa. Their presence as former villains teaming up makes the Marvel Universe feel more unified as it draws upon their past history, though the execution of it falls a bit flat. The engagement and growing preparation give each issue a sense of forward momentum and appears to get rid of the terrible facade of "will they / won't they" that plagued earlier Reed and Sue interactions. Both are solid stories that can match up against any stories in previous volumes but with their being multi-parters means that they can be explored more in-depth and have a greater level of audience engagement. Culminating in the greatest "who's who" all-out brawl of a fun time with the actual wedding, at which point the Fantastic Four title takes off running.

With Fantastic Four #44 legendary inker Joe Sinnott joins Fantastic Four - and would stay on the title for over a decade, long out-lasting Lee and Kirby - and with him there's a noticeable difference in art quality. Not to say that any previous inkers weren't talented in their own right but Sinnott brings a level of detail that makes all of Kirby's pencils even better. Issue #44 also includes the start of a new storyline- the Inhumans! Fantastic Four was always about science and adventure, but with the Inhumans they really start to experiment with secret societies and super-powers and fantastical science and everything in-between. Nothing is too much for the Fantastic Four, and they're constantly uncovering new knowledge as they go along. There's then the famous "Galactus trilogy", a showcase of Kirby and Sinnott's artistic capabilities and the big science-fiction ingenuity that the series would be known for decades later. Stan Lee also gets to show off his skills at writing flawed human characters, which was always the basis for Fantastic Four but is particularly notable with the strange alien sensibility of the Silver Surfer. Finishing off issue #51 which is one of the best single issues of the entire Silver Age of Marvel Comics.

Half this volume is good. The other half is flat-out some of the best 60s comics you can read. An ongoing saga full of adventure and cool sci-fi concepts. It's still a bit dated (there's a lot that's been said about how terrible Stan Lee writes women and how much sexism is injected into Invisible Girl's dialogue) but by the mid-to-late 60s even Stan Lee's needlessly verbose dialogue is toned back a bit. Lee and Kirby hit their stride and instead of trying to establish the Marvel Universe they now have a chance to play around in it. They're constantly introducing new ideas, fleshing out the world, and after dozens of issues of the Fantastic Four you can finally see why the title is so highly spoken of. From Fantastic Four Annual #3 and Fantastic Four #44 on the series has become a must-read.

[Can Şarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a genuinely enjoyable read.

You can definitely feel the difference in tone, language, and narrative style — which makes sense considering the era it was written in. But honestly, that didn’t bother me much.

My only real critique: Sue Storm felt way too sidelined.

Otherwise, a solid classic that still holds up!

[Ben Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the first Fantastic Four epic collection (which encompasses the first 20 issues), I was thrilled by the sheer creativity involved. With no overarching universe yet, Stan and Jack seemed to overflow with wild ideas, many of them stemming from their experiences with sci-fi and horror comics. With this collection (I haven’t been able to get ahold of Vol. 2 for now since it’s out of print so I had to skip those issues), Lee and Kirby are not only much more polished storytellers, but they’re also working in an established world of their own creation.

This has pluses and minuses. On one hand, we get incredibly fun stories with characters we already know, like the opening issue where the FF are merely silent saboteurs in an undersea war, supporting Namor against Attuma, or the wedding of Reed and Sue in Annual #3, which, for devoted readers of the full Marvel lineup in its first three/four years must have been an Avengers: Endgame level event. It’s all still a ton of fun to read (my favorite moment of that story being a side plot with Daredevil that ends up ending an invasion by Attuma’s forces before it can begin).

In other places, though, it can lessen the impact somewhat. The Frightful Four are boring, a team of mostly previously seen villains who get far too many issues here, and I feel like I’m missing something by not knowing their earlier stories. Even within the stories themselves, they’re kinda made out to be jokes, not to be taken too seriously. And you can feel Lee and Kirby purposely trying to worldbuild, like with the Inhumans, which are a cool concept but one I didn’t really care for much, so all of their stories here just felt like a back door pilot for a different series I won’t be reading. 1965 Lee Kirby may not have done something as silly and stupid and fun as the Mole Man or the Impossible Man (from Vol 1) knowing they had to keep this thing going for the long haul. They certainly are writing with a sense of needing to make everything important, for better or worse.

Of course, it all builds up to The Coming of Galactus and a trilogy of issues that truly deserves the hype. The FF are really forced to face an existential threat for the first time and it scares them. Johnny in particular is sent on an interstellar journey that screws his mind up. All of this is nullified (heh) slightly by the deus ex machines ending, but it’s still incredibly impactful. I also feel like Kirby’s art shines so well here under Joe Sinnot’s detailed inking, a vast contrast from Colletta’s inks earlier in the book. And in the end, we get a legendary story, This Man… This Monster that, honestly the plot doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it embodies the sense of cosmic adventure and the true heart of the series like no other I’ve read.

So, it’s not all perfection, but this section of the Lee Kirby run is probably the closest you’ll get to the “best of the best” if you want to recommend anyone read FF for the first time. You might start them with Annual #3 though because the first half of this collection is mostly a snooze fest. I didn’t even mention the damned Dragon Man or Dr Doom taking over the Baxter Building with Daredevil co-starring because I completely forgot about them as soon as they were over. The Dragon Man even plays a huge role in the Inhumans storyline. Oh well!

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This time it's back to the classics with Fantastic Four and let me tell ya this one is the one to get! The two volumes before this are classics through and through but this volume is where Stan and Jack hit the throttle and I'm curious to see how long they can ride this high.
I started this volume last year and paused around issue #38 because I felt like the series was in a small rut. Namor showed up yet again, the team fights amongst themselves, Diablo and DragonMan aren't my favorite villains, and to top it off the team had begun to fight the frightful four which still surprises me how much marvel tried to push Sandman and even Paste Pot Pete(Sorry Trapster!) as a major villains in the early days. It was a bit of a turn off and I put the volume down to get into something else. If only I knew that I stopped right as the book became more of a breeze!

From issue #39 to the end I loved this volume and would consider it in my list of my all time favorite epics. #39-#40 has a depowered team being led by Daredevil to Doctor Doom who is attacking the team from their own building. Having reed come up with ways to replicate their powers is humourous is the beginning of the issue but a real groaner when Reed solves the situation later 🤣 but as a big DD fan I loved it. And yeesh the ending with Thing and Doom is harsh!

#41-43 is the weakest of this lot and is another Frightful Four story but this time spent more on medusa which will pay off later this volume.

The annual is a gem in this volume with the wedding story everyone has been waiting for and it's everything you'd hope it would be with a who's who of the marvel universe. It's just one you gotta read for yourself.

The next four issues are the introduction of the inhumans and as someone with minimum exposure to them I think it did a good enough job to make me like them even if Johnny and Crystals love at first site is pretty silly. The best part though is how that story bleeds right into the Silver Surfer/Galactus issues which are probably some of the most iconic issues of this series. Having read late surfer issues before this I had never understood his connection to Alicia but after reading this it makes me appreciate the later ones better since she is the first human he makes contact with and she helps him grow.

Finally this volume ends with the best story in the volume (to me anyways) "This Man...This Monster" I had always heard it was a good issue but it was even more fun than I expected and glad I finally got around to it. After that the bonus features are some great Kirby pencils along with some fun house ads and T-Shirt designs.

3 volumes into FF now and I've definitely become a fan and appreciate how they made Marvel into what it is today. Considering the epics have so many early out I definitely see myself finishing out the Silver age of FF this year.

[Paul Stanis · Rating 5 out of 5]

First appearances of: Medusa and the Frightful Four (#36); Gorgon (#44); the first coining of the Inhumans, including Crystal, Lockjaw, Karnak, Triton, Black Bolt (#45); Maximus (#47); Silver Surfer, Galactus (who’s Christmas-colored! Then he’s the classic purple in the next issue, though not all that tall. Maybe 16 feet), and Galactus’s henchman… the Punisher (not that one) (#48).

Look for: the Thing wearing a Beatles wig (#34) (and mentioning one again in #37); Professor X making a telepathic pun (#35); Reed and Sue getting engaged, with the Avengers and the X-Men coming to the engagement party (#36); Invisible Girl learning to use her force fields as projectile weapons (#36);
the Thing quoting the very onomatopoeia his punch made (#37); the Skrull king watching a circus hologram remarkably like the one Lumpy watches in the Star Wars Holiday Special (#37); Paste-Pot Pete renaming himself the Trapster (#38); a standout fight between the Thing and Doctor Doom (#40); Johnny starting college (#50); and a Jim Thorpe, who instead of being a Native American football player, is a college football coach trying to recruit a Native American player (#51).

Annual #3 thoughts: This is the wedding of Reed and Sue (which Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are turned away from by Nick Fury!). There’s a wonderfully fun battle royale of Silver Age heroes and villains with two major flaws. One, Scarlet Witch is the only Avenger not present, whose absence along with the Wasp raises an eyebrow. And two, there’s an amnesia-based deus ex machina (or more precisely, a machina ex deus ex machina).

Quote corner:

“You blundering atavism!”

“Woweee! I’ll bet I could make a fortune renting myself out to Disneyland!”

“So gowan back to your glue-pot, sonny! Three’s a crowd around here!”

“Ever try to make a sand pile say ‘ouch’?!!”

“Triton does not interfere! What will be will be!”

“It’s a different galaxy — with a different race of living beings — and yet — it seems that ambition, and hate, and love, are the same everywhere in the universe! Perhaps we’re not really so different from others — either on Earth — or in the endless void of space! And, the day mankind realizes that lesson — we shall come a step closer to brotherhood — and universal peace!”

[Justin Partridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’ve DONE it!! I’m drifting into a world of limitless dimensions!! It’s the CROSSROADS OF INFINITY- - the junction to EVERYWHERE!”

And with the last 4 (to 5) issues I find The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine really working overtime to earn that title. And I think more than the centralization of the FF in the Marvel Universe and constant experimentation the title goes through in this section, it’s like…it’s truly incredible to see the title visually become the FF that hooked me in the first place.

Because while Kirby has been fantastic (I’m so sorry) so far, I feel like the post-Joe Sinnott issues just bring this whole new depth of expression and sharpness to the panels throughout here. It’s marvelous (IM SO SORRY) to see evolve through the series.

And also insane to think about…okay, so we got the wedding, which leads directly into Inhumans, which then leads DIRECTLY into Galactus?! And then Wyatt Wingfoot and Johnny at college are just the perfect cherry on top of it all. It’s still amazing how the series keeps melding all these massive stories to really down to earth and personable things that each member of the cast keeps brushing up with.

It’s just…

It’s everything! It’s everywhere! It’s comics (arguably) at the best they have ever been or will be. ‘Nuff said.

[Paulo Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book that brings together the stories of the Fantastic Four from issues 33-51, years 1965 and 66, begins with somewhat boring arcs, starring the Frightful four, and the Inhumans, with the usual passions of the human torch and marital tensions between Reed and Sue in between. The book reaches another level with the Coming of Galactus arc immediately followed by the single issue This Man, This Monster. In both stories we have Jack Kirby at his best, bringing the colossal dimension of Space and characters to the drawings. If the story of Galactus unfortunately has a very dull ending, the "not a Thing story" is brilliant in every way, with fast pace family and friendship drama, and even leaving us at the end one of Reed's famous exclamations "He paid the full price, and he paid it, like a man", remembering us that we are more what we do, than what we say or people say about us.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee and Kirby peaked as an FF team in the mid-sixties. We get Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, a constant sense of melodrama (it's not just the FF's greatest battle, it's the greatest battle in the history of all greatest battles — and even reading now, I buy into it) and a constant interweaving of stories. The Frightful Four strip the Fantastic Four of their powers which leads into a battle with Doctor Doom, which leads back into a battle with the Frightful Four which leads into the encounter with the Inhumans ...
Plus solid storytelling. The wedding of Reed and Sue is the prototype for the big company crossover event and it all takes place in one annual.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first volume definitely had an energy as Stan and Jack were doing all new things with the format but I felt that was lost with volume two. Here though, that energy is back. And this is really when they start using the medium to start telling continious stories. The change in episodic issues to a one-long run on adventure really happens here and it's a noticeable change.
Also, with all the hindsight and knowledge we have about the creators, you really can tell how much of this book is Jack Kirby. I think we had to wait a while to really get there, but his ideas are very abundant here.

[Daniel ♉︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really cool seeing some of the FF's first ever storylines. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are so iconic and have such a distinct style I'm happy I've read up on their era of FF. There was a lot of stuff I noticed that was maybe a little sexist tho LMAO but I can't really blame them it was a different time so. There were some plot lines I didn't really care about or felt that they went on for too long but overall highlights: meeting silver surfer, galactus' first invasion of earth, reed and sue's chaotic ass wedding, and the inhumans storyline that introduced black bolt and crystal.

[David Turko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read Stan Lee or Jack Kirby's work before and this was awesome. It was really cool to see the original interpretations of these marvel characters. Reading the classic Galactus story still feels epic to this day. The biggest flaw though is that the dialogue did not age well. I was either laughing or cringing at certain moments throughout this book. Still everything else such as the art and the story still holds up today. Highly recommend for Marvel fans.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars

Man, I loved this one! I like how there were mini story arcs instead of just one off issues (which is not necessarily a bad thing but I’m thankful they changed it up a bit, kept me curious for more). My favorite one had to be the annual, I’m just a sucker for team ups or just seeing multiple superheroes kicking butt in a single issue. But I really did love the Galactus one, can’t wait for more of him in the future and of the Silver Surfer too!!

[Kris Deters · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's amazing to watch Stan Lee and Jack Kirby find the fantastic Four and how to write a cliff hanger at the end of a satisfying story. So many classics are introduced in this volume, The Inhumans, Galactus, Silver Surfer. While there has been space faring and some Skrulls previously, this feels like the first toes being dipped into Cosmic Marvel.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compilation of issues 33 - 51 and Annual #3. This is my first foray into FF and I was very satisfied by multi-issue story arcs with Doctor Doom and Galactus, somewhat surprised how large a role the Frightful Four played. Enjoyed the continuity of longer form storytelling rather than episodic. Very much of its time. Found the characters engaging with flaws.

[Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I wasn’t a big fan of the Frightful Four storyline (other than Paste-Pot Pete, the GOAT), this issue continues Lee and Kirby’s brilliance.

It is very easy to see how the Galactus arc is as famous as it is. The writing, drawing, and coloring for that issue is unique and captures all the right emotions. Those 3 issues in particular may be my favorite so far.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection starts out with some solid FF but then you get some truly great stuff with the first appearance of the Inhumans (Black Bolt, Medusa, etc.) and the first appearance of Galactus and the Silver Surfer.

[Adam Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee & Kirby set the comic industry on fire with the unleashing of the Fantastic Four and this collection proves that together they were unstoppable!

The Inhumans! Galactus! Silver Surfer!

So many thrills and adventures I was thoroughly enthralled!

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the peak of creativity for the Lee-Kirby team on FF. This volume reveals the transition from the early years to their sweet spot of ideas. Jack’s art gets so much more expressive as we get to the Inhumans-Galactus-Panther issues.

[Gary Fortuin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the greatest Fantastic Four stories ever told. An epic struggle against The Frightful Four, the wedding of Reed and Sue, Galactus, the Inhumans and the great ‘This man, this monster’ Ben Grimm story. Marvel comics don’t get much better than this.