This web site is a personal voyage of discovery: my lifetime love of the Fantastic Four, and uncovering its mystery:

• Who wrote it?
• What happened next?
• The lost Fantastic Four stories: issue 1 was not the first!
  

There are really two different Fantastic Fours. As a child I loved the Marvel Fantastic Four, but now I prefer the Kirby Fantastic Four.

The Marvel Fantastic Four

Most of this site is about the Marvel Comics Fantastic Four. I think the best stories were written between 1961 and 1989 (issues 1-333). On this site I treat them as if they are real. That is, I reject "suspension of disbelief", and I ignore what the writers may have intended, and instead I read the text as if it was a report of actual people in the real world. The result is amazing. Marvel's Fantastic Four becomes a story about survival: An alien soldier realizes he is on the wrong side. While on a mission to Earth he escapes. But he knows that as punishment this whole planet will be destroyed. So he devises a plan to save this world by creating the ultimate weapon.The real hero is the Earth woman he loves, and her attempts to show him that violence is not the answer: Reed needs emotional intelligence instead. But can she persuade him before it is too late?

This story is a metaphor for America in the Cold War. It begins the month when the first man entered space, and ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. We see the era through the eyes of elite men (Reed), ordinary workers (Ben), youth (Johnny) and women (Susan). On a deeper level this is a metaphor for humans and our discovery of technology: does our future lie in war or peace? The story ends with four possible futures for America: ranging from peace and love to nuclear armageddon. After the story ends (after 1989) we have a child's confused memories of the story, known as the Franklinverse. It features a clone team.

This infographic shows every major event both before and after the story. Click for a high resolution version.

The Kirby Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four issues 1-102 are officially credited to "Stan Lee and Jack Kirby". As a fan I naturally wanted to know how they made the stories. When I looked closer it seemed obvious to me that Jack Kirby created the stories, and then Stan Lee changed the dialog (and sometimes more) to make stories that are easier for children to follow. Now I am more interested in uncovering Kirby's original stories, and this is why:

• Lee's writing is different from Kirby's writing. As a child I preferred Lee's. As an adult I prefer Kirby's.
• The Fantastic Four is simply a continuation of Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown.
  
• The Fantastic Four is the mid point of a continuous Kirby epic that began in 1941 and ended in 1984. In later years I look forward to seeing how Reed and Sue's story continues in Kirby's Fourth World. I already have my suspicions of how they appear in Captain Victory, but will save that argument for when I can make a much stronger case.
• Uncovering the original stories is a fun adventure on its own. We could start with FF 108, which was later partly reconstructed as "the lost Fantastic Four story". Another famous example was FF 67: Lee's changes angered Kirby so much that he started to hold back his best ideas, and soon left the company. Other notable examples include FF 1, FF 8, FF 15, FF 23, FF 31, FF annual 5, and probably many, many others. In every case I prefer the Kirby original.

Kirby's stories have many layers:

• the surface action, suitable for any ten year old child.
  
• The links with other stories, which hint at something bigger.
  
• The reflection of current events and scientific discoveries, which expand the mind.
  
• And the deeper themes of discovery and the meaning of mortality that make these stories so profound Time and again I will return to a story that seemed trivial when I was a child, and find it has much deeper meaning. The Kirby universe has enough content and depth to keep any reader enthralled for life.

Where to buy Fantastic Four 1-333

The Fantastic Four is available in several formats from any good book store:

Marvel Masterworks:
Masterworks are top quality reprints, with introductions by the original writers where possible. Each volume reprints around 14 issues. Volume 15 (up to FF163) is due out September 2013.

Marvel Essentials:

Until 2015 Marvel also published lower priced black and white compilations, taking us to FF207. These are gradually being replaced by full color "Epic Collections".

Marvel.com:

Digital copies are gradually being made available from Marvel.com.

Second hand:

You can buy back issues from eBay, Amazon, comic shops, etc. If you're lucky then your local library can order some collections from other libraries. If you're very lucky you might find a "GIT corp" DVD: an authorized product that has all the comics on one disk, but it's no longer produced.

Please buy from Marvel!

We need Marvel to make money from The Great American Novel. Then they might decide to start time moving forward again: Reed can then remember that he fought in WWII, Franklin can grow up and have his own kids, Johnny and Crystal can marry, and we can find out what happens next! Also, if Marvel sees this site as an ad for their comics they are less likely to shut it down for copyright infringement. (But please note that I am careful to almost never show a complete page, unlike many comic sites.)

Other Fantastic Four related comics

You only have to read one title for the full story: just the Fantastic Four. The 28 year epic story is self contained.

However, there are other titles that may be of interest. Thanks to Modern Alchemy for this time line (click for a more extensive version).

• "Strange Tales" featured the early adventures of the Human Torch. Some were written by Stan Lee, but most fans consider them poorly written. That is true, but I find them charming and fascinating as an insight into the early days. They contain the first appearance of a few characters who turn up in the main book, but they are not essential reading. They demonstrate clearly that the Torch loves being a superhero, and feels overshadowed by Reed and Sue, but we already know that from the main title.

• "Marvel Two In One" featured The Thing and various guest stars, but is not by the regular writer of the FF. It demonstrates clearly that Ben is highly efficient and well balanced when away from Reed, but we know that already.

• Perhaps most interesting is "The Thing" (the 1983-1986 series), particularly issues 1-4 by John Byrne, the regular writer of the FF. These issues expand on Ben working through his personal demons. In the Battleworld issues (11-22) Ben's demons become visual. The results are summarized in FF294 and elsewhere, but are interesting if you want more depth about Ben Grimm at this turning point in his life. Of special interest is issue 3, the controversial issue where we learn that Lockjaw can talk (more about Lockjaw here), and issue 7 ("Goody Two Shoes"), the clearest examination of the principle of the unreliable narrator.

• Giant Size FF 1-4 is by Gerry Conway, the regular writer. The series does not add anything to the core story, but can still be interesting. For example, Giant Size FF issue 1 is a lot of fun, and is a key text in the Hulk-Thing debate.

next: the Great American Novel