User blog:Nausiated/Top Three Fantastic Four Runs from Fantastic Four Vol 1: An Opinion

For those who have been paying attention, I've been pausing my "expanded history" run by updating absent comic book summaries. As I've found that in order to cross-reference things properly, these need to be completed first so all the appropriate appearances are listed on the page. Truth be told, some comic summaries are blank, poorly written, had a rush job on appearances and various other faults. Some of these pages haven't been touched since the Wiki first started (with the exception of formatting changes) so there are massive gaps in information. Which is too bad, people tend to focus on what's new and current, and forget that the older material is relevant and important, and with the Marvel universe the past always makes a comeback.

Anyway.... I decided to start with Fantastic Four Vol 1. Right now I'm getting to the end of that run. Right now I've gone through the summaries for the entire series from and as of this writing I've updated up to ... With only 24 more issues to go I thought I'd pause and talk about the entire run, it's good points it's bad points and rank them from best to worst. I'm organizing these by writers since they are typically the more constant of the different teams.

#1: John Byrne's Run
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I would put this right at the top of the list. Even above the legendary run by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. John Byrne revitalized the Fantastic Four franchise in the 1980s saving it from a horrible slump. His first story was titled "Back to Basics" and that's exactly what he did. Took the Fantastic Four from the stagnant limbo that they were caught in since Lee and Kirby left the series and brought it back to what was great about the series.

However, Byrne wasn't just rehashing old themes, he understood that the Fantastic Four weren't just a super-hero team, but also a family and that families go through change. There was plenty of classic Fantastic Four giving the stories a nostalgic twinge, however he also took the trials and tribulations of a close knit family and updated it. When you look at Lee and Kirby's run it's very "American Dream" style story telling: long time sweethearts get married and have a kid, you got the hot rodding kid brother, and the gruff tough guy and best friend who also has his dream girl. With all the emotional trappings and personal drama that comes with that dynamic, plus the added bonus of punching super-villains in the face and exploring the unknown.

When John Byrne took over the series the "American Family" had taken a dynamic shift. It was a different world in the 20 years since the Fantastic Four first appeared. Themes that were hardly touched upon in other titles became a reality here. Reed and Sue expecting a second child only for Sue to have a miscarriage (powerful stuff, even though Carlos Pacheco & Rafael Marin later undid this circa ), the Thing and Alicia Masters realized that their relationship wasn't working out and began to drift apart. Johnny struggling to find a meaningful relationship and after losing Frankie Raye when she became a Herald of Galactus, and after the Secret Wars he began dating Alicia Masters and the two were getting close to being married (although this too was undone by Tom DeFalco's run when it was revealed in that "Alicia" was a Skrull spy). Byrne also made Franklin Richard's budding mutant powers a legitimate plot device as opposed to a contrivance with no lasting impact.

Not only was it a masterful execution of stories, Byrne also did a bang up job working around dead end plots that were inacted by other writers, such as developing the plot to have Doctor Doom return to the throne after he was disposed in. He also expanded upon Doctor Doom. Byrne had brilliant work arounds when editorial pressure forced him to write stories around other Marvel events (such as killing Dr. Doom in Secret Wars and bringing him back for Secret Wars II).

#2: Stan Lee/Jack Kirby
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Of course Stan and Jack's work is high on my list, they're the creators of the Fantastic Four and the laid the majority of the ground work for the series. Why they rank in the #2 spot is simply time. No matter how classic these stories are, a lot of them haven't aged very well. Early tales are clunky, Kirby had to refine his characters. But to start the character dynamics were great. When you compare it to super-hero books at the time when Fantastic Four burst on the scene in 1961, it was pabulum. What DC Comics was doing at the time were happy-go-lucky super-heroes whose adventures had no consequences, the stories often ended the way they started -- with the status quo restored. Plots were never serious, there was nothing to lose, and the hero always ended up on top 100% of the time. So to create characters who argued, and had real-world feelings (all be it hokey and dated by today's standard), there were interpersonal relationships between characters that actually evolved. From Lee & Kirby's run you saw the Fantastic Four at their most progressive, something that had not been captured again until Byrne took the reins. You saw Reed and Sue go from long time sweethearts to husband and wife, to parents.

But not all the concepts were great, particularly when you again -- note the date -- certain slang, and even dated concepts. Particularly the treatment of the Invisible Girl, although did a (very rarely repeared) Q&A story that chastised fans for complaining about Sue being "useless" and pointing out the contrary, she was still relegated to the doting 1960s mother figure, too emotional and "feminine" to make any decisions. By today's standards, you read this (particularly since Marvel has moved into being more inclusive to female readers) that sort of writing -- as much as it is a product of its time -- is tough to swallow without at least groaning.

Lee and Kirby also came up with a rogues gallery for the Fantastic Four none who have endured the test of time. Doctor Doom, the Puppet Master, Galactus, the Mad Thinker, Diablo, Dragon Man, Annihilus, Blastaar, and so on. No other creators on Fantastic Four have created villains that have been this long lasting ever since. However not all of the characters were winners, they had plenty of duds like the Monocle, the Nega-Man, and Gregory Gideon... But they were fare and few.

Then there was the supporting cast, between reviving the Sub-Mariner, to introducing the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther and Wyatt Wingfoot the Fantastic Four used to be a well spring of new characters.

You also can't mention Lee and Kirby's run of Fantastic Four without at least talking about the Inhumans. As iconic as these characters are, I honestly think this is a low point of the series. Clearly as Kirby was getting more creative control of the series, his own input on the types of stories they should tell became obvious. Jack Kirby is a great artist, one of the most iconic and best of his era, but as a writer -- as sacrilegious as this is going to sound -- wasn't that great. (Those of you who are saying "I thought Stan Lee was the writer!" which he was... sorta... Stan came up with the plots, Kirby usually fleshed out the stories and Stan was left to fill in the dialogue) The Inhumans are one of a long line of Kirby's derivative work. It's all the same. Always involving genetics, or cosmic space gods. The Eternals, the New Gods, the High Evolutionary's New Men, the Asgardians... Even if you go back to the 1940s and see his work on Hurricane... Kirby had a massive boner for god like characters that are the product of science. It's tired. You read enough Kirby writing and you start to roll your eyes if you actually read it critically enough. He's not a great writer by any means. Thankfully Kirby's other tropes -- reviving wartime characters and inserting a group of teenagers who get in on the action -- were very minimal in this series, unlike his other works where it was almost constant.

By the end of their run you're almost worn out about stories about the Inhumans, or androids. The end of that entire run was incredibly weak and Lee and Kirby's detonating professional relationship is very apparent. Between that and the rough edges to start sticks this in the #2 slot for me.

#3 Tom DeFalco/Paul Ryan Run
A lot of people HATE this run. Because it is regularly observed in that same jaded lens that long time comic book readers apply to a lot of comic books from the 90s. It certainly has a lot of the 90s trappings. But I think a lot of what people hate about it is due to the fact that when the 90s comic book explosion was going full tilt and people had already dismissed the Fantastic Four and unless you started into DeFalco's run from the start and followed it right to the end and KNEW enough about the series as a whole to follow along you would be hopelessly wrong. I think because people didn't get all the back story with a lot of the characters in this run, combined with "undoing" Johnny's marriage to Alicia Masters with the first of many "No, it was a Skrull the whole time!" plot contrivances, people were quick to judge the run without giving it any forethought.

It was a far from perfect run, at times DeFalco and Ryan tried to cram too much into what was going on once things got rolling there was just too much going on between the lesser known, and less popular events like Infinity War, Starblasters, Atlantis Rising, and also trying to cram in plot threads that were picked up in spin-off titles Fantastic Force, Fantastic Four Unlimited, and Fantastic Four Unplugged. There was also the long running schemes of Nathaniel Richards and the teenaged Franklin Richards that seemed to stretch on and on. But I think the biggest detriment to that long winding tale wasn't the length of the story at all. If you read it you can see the exact point where Marvel decided to do Heroes Reborn, leaving DeFalco to scramble and tie up as many loose ends as possible before the Onslaught event that led to Heroes Reborn. I think that greatly impacted how this run came to an end.

Groan all you want, while the entire "Alicia was a Skrull the whole time!" was a hack premise, where they went with it as a story was quite fascinating. The emotional rollercoster that was Johnny and Lyja's relationship thereafter was actually an interesting read. How it impacted the romances between the real Alicia, the Thing, Johnny and Sharon Ventura was some masterful work.

Also a people like to dump on this run for it being basically everything wrong with the 90s, however if you actually read the stories, it was actually a pretty damning commentary on what comic books were turning into at the time. DeFalco presented a world where heroes were getting darker and more violent, and leaning to more extreme measures. The Fantastic Four found themselves caught up in this new world and some members wondered if in order to endure they would have to do the same thing. Of course in the end, they realize that being "grittier" was too disruptive to their core values.

Also DeFalco took the Fantastic Four to their most harrowing defeats only for them to bounce back again due to their family dynamic and sticking through to the end.

While the "death" of Reed Richards in this run was a premise that was ultimately undone, the tale of Sue coping with her loss -- initially disbelieving that Reed was dead and eventually coming to terms with her loss and trying to overcome it and move on with her life -- was an interesting look (for the first time) as to how the Fantastic Four would react when one of their number died.

But there were too many take backs: Franklin turning into a teen only to be restored to childhood, Reed's "death", Ben's face being horribly scarred by Wolverine. Eventually the status quo was restored, and setting the tone for years to come where the Fantastic Four will go through life shattering changes only for the status quo to be restored to normal shortly thereafter with no forward growth.

What people also don't give DeFalco credit for is digging back into past Fantastic Four runs and bringing back plot elements that worked well that were not explored further by the subsequent writing teams. While DeFalco dips into a lot of classic Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four plots, he also draws from Byrne's run as well as Steve Englehart.