Fantastic Four #1 - Writer - Stan Lee, Artist - Jack Kirby, Colorist - Lost to Time
Premise - Four people gain super-powers and use those powers to fight a menace that threatens the world.
What I Liked:
1) The art. As I have commented before, comics are a visual medium and art is a huge part of my enjoyment in reading comics. Kirby's art has an edge and roughness to it that is very appealing. His layout skills are terrific. Page 1 is three panels, page 2 is 8 panels, page 3 is 10 panels, page 4 is 7 panels and page 5 is 6 panels. Even when the same number of panels is used each page has it's own unique feel to it. The characters are all distinctive and the monsters (including the good guy monster the Thing) are all done magnificently.
2) The story. So much happened in the span of one comic it was incredible. We start with an introduction of each character as Mr. Fantastic summons them together, we get a recap of how they got their powers and then we go and fight the menace, the Mole Man. The Mole Man is defeated and we got his origin story also. All in 25 pages and it doesn't feel rushed. There is plenty of back story for us to explore at some point, but this book hits the ground running and never lets up. Once your done you know who the characters are, have a sense for their personalities and understand their powers. Great story.
3) The characters. The Human Torch looks to be really powerful, Invisible Girl, The Thing the group's strong guy and their leader Mr. Fantastic who can stretch his body to unbelievable proportions. The Torch and Invisible Girl obviously announce their powers with their names.
What I Didn't Like:
1) Hardly anything. They are nit picky things like the Thing losing and getting his jacket back, the fact that they steal a rocket ship and no one seems to care. But really they are minor things. If anything it left me just wanting more story and more pages. Which is how a comic should make me feel. One last minor note is Mr. Fantastic I thought was a very modest name for Reed Richards to pick.
Grade - A
Yes, FF was truly a masterpiece of it's time and is still a magnificent piece of comic book art. It changed the whole approach of comics and was the beginning of Marvel taking down DC as the number one publisher of comics. Heroes who weren't always pretty and bickered with each other? What a great, new idea! And without this book there wouldn't have been a Hellboy. Kudos Misters Lee and Kirby!
ReplyDeleteI like Jessica Alba as The Invisible Girl.
ReplyDeleteExcept, you know, when she's invisible.
:D
Have you seen Alba lately? She's been bitten by the Hollywood anorexia bug that's going around. If she loses much more weight she'll be the Invisible Woman in real life. You know you've gone too far when your collar bone protrudes and you can see the ribs between the breasts. Eeeew!
ReplyDelete