Marvel Monday: One Giant Leap for Comics, One Small Step for Art

A possibly slightly altered version of the original cover.

In November of 1961 a comic would be released that would change comics forever.

At least, that is what everyone has said since then. And to be fair, Fantastic Four #1 is a big step out of the golden age and into the modern age of comics. They fight with each other! They don't have secret identities! They fight with each other! They have complex relationships! Did I mention that they fight with each other?

Because these guys get along like Putin and the Ukraine. Hah! Topical humor! By the time I get to current Marvel Comics we can all look back and laugh at how dated that makes this blog.


I am not going to go into too much detail in the synopsis (except where hilarious), because you can read that over at the Marvel Wiki. I am also not going to delve into the big debate on who is more responsible for the Fantastic Four, Stan Lee or Jack Kirby. I am not here to delve into the deep passions going on behind the scenes at Marvel Comics. I am here to enjoy freaks of nature beating up other freaks of nature for my amusement.

The story opens with a mysterious, shadowy figure firing a flare gun that creates a giant flare that spells out "THE FANTASTIC FOUR!" in the sky. Later on, those three words, magically still suspended in the air, will merge together to form a giant "4". Yep, this is a comic book all right, complete with bendy laws of physics.

It will be revealed that the shadowy figure is none other than Reed Richards, head of the Fantastic Four. He has fired the flare (causing mass panic by the way) to summon his teammates to him. And so his teammates reveal themselves... by launching a terrorist attack on the city.

I'm serious! Invisible Girl runs down a busy street, knocking over pedestrians and freaking out harmless cab drivers. Now that might seem minor, but considering the damage the others are going to do, I think it is more a comment on how useless Invisible Girl is.

We next see Thing smash through a wall of a clothing store... for absolutely no reason except to cause massive property damage... terrorizing passersby, taking fire from frightened policemen, and then ripping up the asphalt around a manhole so he can plunge into the sewers. He then, well... acts just like a supervillain.

If only there was a Marvel hero to stop him! But Spider-Man would not show up for months.

And then there's the Human Torch. He's working as an auto-mechanic on a car when he sees the signal, and rather than, say, exiting the car and then transforming, he decides to make a melted scrapheap. Presumably out of spite.

Screw you, mechanic guy!

He then flies in full view of panicked civilians, which gets the military called in, so early Vietnam-era jets go out after him... and he mercilessly melts them down. We are told that all the pilots ejected, but the Human Torch didn't know that. He just went toe-to-toe with the American Military and killed a lot of American soldiers. Essentially committing an act of war.

In typical American fashion, the United States responds by launching a nuclear missile at the Torch. Who is currently flying over New York City.

Kent Mansley would be so proud.

He is saved when the rubbery arms of the fourth member of the Fantastic Four grab the missile, and toss it harmlessly out to sea. Which technically makes him guilty of hijacking an American nuke.

For obvious reasons, neither the police nor the military do any follow up about this, nor do they ever attempt to stop the super-powered terrorist cell operating within New York City.

And here we come to my main difficulty with this comic. The Fantastic Four... are not heroes. Indeed, they are incredibly irresponsible borderline terrorists for much of the issue. When the issue flashes back to tell their well-known origin story, the little details stick out.

Ben Grimm (later The Thing) flat out tells Reed Richards (later Mr. Fantastic) that flying a rocket into the cosmic rays will cause tremendous harm to them, but Sue Storm (later Invisible Girl) essentially manipulates Ben by calling him a coward who wants to let the commies win. Because that's what heroes do: Use tactics straight out of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

It doesn't stop there. As they begin to transform, they don't just act like complex characters going through a traumatic experience. They act like villains. The Thing flat out tells Mr. Fantastic that he wants his fiancee (Sue) for himself, and proceeds to try and murder Mr. Fantastic to get her.

Say what?

Anyway, we all know how the story ends. Johnny calls himself the Human Torch (who apparently was a 40s legacy character), Sue calls herself "Casualty of 60s Sexism"... um, I mean Invisible Girl, Ben calls himself The Thing, and Reed calls himself Mr. Fantastic.

Because apparently Egotist McDouchebag was already copyrighted. Seriously, who follows up three perfectly descriptive superhero names with "Mr. Fantastic"? And then he proceeds to name the whole superhero team after him alone? No wonder Ben wants to kill him.

Actually, no, that still in no way justifies Ben's attempts to kill him.

Anyway they finally get back to the plot, which involves a Mole Man and an underground series of tunnels and a bunch of monsters and an attempt to steal nuclear power stations by digging under them, but that goes about how you would expect. Although there is a nice bit where they go to Monster Island and fight King Ghidorah. Okay, they call it Monster ISLE, and they never mention the monster's name, but come on. Just look at it.

Fantastic Four totally ripped off... what's that? You say Toho didn't come up with King Ghidorah
until 1968? Hmm. Guess someone in Japan liked Marvel Comics.

So the Fantastic Four finally band together to defeat the villain. Who predictably escapes by blowing up his base and escaping underground to return again someday!

I don't know. I applaud Marvel for creating a superhero team that does not always get along, thus paving the way for some of the best superhero team stories in comic history... but I almost feel they went overboard. I don't find the Fantastic Four likable. They commit blatant acts of terrorism at the start, fight with each other to the point of psychosis, but somehow we are supposed to expect them to be a tight-knit group? I don't buy it.

Oh well. It's only the first issue. Maybe things will get better.

I want Sue's incompetence to eventually turn out to be part of her secret radical feminist agenda.