A Bit About the Fantastic Four

Hello Everybody. It's been away a while. I wish it was because I've been super busy or that I've been lost in some made up Sci-fi Scenario, but, nope just been away. Sorry.
So... what to talk about... what to... there we go! These guys!

Yup The Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four has been one of my absolute favorite comics for as long as I could remember. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the early sixties "Fantastic Four" blends the sci-fi, superhero, and slice of life genres into glorious melange. The problem with the Fantastic Four however is, at this point, the book is often... shall we say... not good. Which is really strange, since if you look at any of the good periods (especially the staggeringly amazing first 102 Kirby, Lee issues) of the  book it seems to be an easy nut to crack. So I'm gonna give you some things people forget about the Fantastic Four that make it come up wanting.

The Fantastic Four is not really a Superhero Comic. 

I hear you going, "but David of course they are a superhero comic they wear tights, get in fights, and have superpowers. Hell their undies are even on the wrong side of their pants in to picture YOU posted" While Fantastic Four does have the trappings of a superhero book. The series is really more fantastical science fiction than superhero. When Fantastic Four is at it's best it's full of big sci-fi ideas, time travel, alien invasions, alternate dimensions and lest we forget planet devouring quasi gods.  

This guy.

Sure there are plenty of super powered throw downs, but, the main thrust of the story was always more Star Trek or Doctor Who than Superman or the Avengers. I find that this tends to always be the first thing forgotten during the bad years. So often the Fantastic Four end up the boring version of the Avengers fighting you're typical Marvel Universe badguy. This is a total waste of the characters, leave the supervillains to the Avengers and let the Fantastic Four deal with alien invasions and the unexplainable it's what they do best and the book is the best when they're doing it.

They are a family. 

Now this point is not forgotten. By anybody. In fact it's the first thing people say whenever they talk about the Fantastic Four. However, for the book to be good it requires the writers to be able to write about their most dreaded subject dun dun dun! married people! Really look at many of the recent retcons and reboots in comics and you'll find the most hated characters by fans and writers alike seem to be those that are married. The why deserves another post, but it seems that the last decade of super hero comics has had a definite theme of "get them superheroes unhitched". However Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman's marriage is one of the most truly successful in all of comicdom (both in and behind the scenes). I think that it's successful mostly because unlike other married superheroes there is no legendary time in which they weren't together. However there have been some attempts at writing Sue and Reed as a couple that really make one cringe. Mostly due to poor attempts at depicting marital strife. So I think that if you write Fantastic Four you really have to  be able to sell Sue and Reed as real functional  marriage. This means they get along, they fight, compromise and make up. You don't even have to be married to know this! Lets face it every writer at least knows some married couples. While we're talking about family they also have children...

Remember us?  Marvel doesn't most of the time. 

Now my snark aside. A writer who writes Fantastic Four really needs to have a handle on writing kids. A common answer to "How to write the kids?" is to just ignore them*. But we're talking about good Fantastic Four and a good writer can and will include them, and write them well, lesser hands give not so much**.

Fantastic Four needs new and interesting story ideas. 

Obviously since Fantastic Four works best as big idea Sci fi it needs the big ideas. And these need to come in the form of new and interesting threats. Sure you can use the skrulls, galactus etc from time to time and it wouldn't be the Fantastic Four without an annual visit from Doctor Doom...

Even the Silver Surfer cowers before DOOM

 These threats should be original or at lest novel uses of things from the back catalogue. Here's where we run into problems. It would seem in the post Image comics world, writers and illustrators aren't all that interested in coming up with new creatures and characters for Marvel and DC, lest they lose out on owning them. It also seems that DC and Marvel aren't that interested in new creations so they can avoid future legal problems. But that is another subject worthy of another entry. So barring a massive change in the standard operating procedure of Marvel, we're probably stuck with this one.

Well there you have it. Fantastic Four is a comic with a lot of potential and while it's just my opinion if people could  keep in mind these observations it could indeed be "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine."

P.S. you wanna see the Fantastic Four concept done really really well watch The Incredibles. 


* ...or in the case of Valeria cheat by essentially making her Alia from Dune.
** I swear there was a period in the late 90s early 00's where it seemed they wher just copy pasting the same Franklin is worried scene into every story arc

All images belong to Marvel Comics.