World's Greatest Comic: The Fantastic Four Appreciation 2022

[Matt Rat]

An interview with Slott by Comics Cube reveals that Alicia and Ben were going to get married almost a decade earlier had The Thing not been cancelled, the proposal was to happen in Thing#25 and then the wedding would have been Thing#50.

Brevoort at the time told Slott that he could have the proposal and the honeymoon, but the wedding had to be in Fantastic Four, and that JMS would write the wedding.

[Lukmendes]

What I find most annoying is that he's been on the moon, like, a dozen times.

Peace

Even if he hasn't been on it, the reaction itself is just... Meh.

An interview with Slott by Comics Cube reveals that Alicia and Ben were going to get married almost a decade earlier had The Thing not been cancelled, the proposal was to happen in Thing#25 and then the wedding would have been Thing#50.

Brevoort at the time told Slott that he could have the proposal and the honeymoon, but the wedding had to be in Fantastic Four, and that JMS would write the wedding.

Huh, didn't even know JMS wrote F4, wonder what the issues were like.

[charliehustle415]

Even if he hasn't been on it, the reaction itself is just... Meh.



Huh, didn't even know JMS wrote F4, wonder what the issues were like.

Pretty good, it has the prelude of the Return of Thor where Doom tries to get his mitts on Mjölnir, and then it kinda got derailed by Civil War

[Frontier]

An interview with Slott by Comics Cube reveals that Alicia and Ben were going to get married almost a decade earlier had The Thing not been cancelled, the proposal was to happen in Thing#25 and then the wedding would have been Thing#50.

Brevoort at the time told Slott that he could have the proposal and the honeymoon, but the wedding had to be in Fantastic Four, and that JMS would write the wedding.

Wow, so this was one delayed marriage .

[The BaRoN]

Dan responded to my post on the Spider-man forum about our conflicting views on Spider-man being the butt of jokes, good thing he doesn't care about the FF otherwise he'd have seen all my negative posts about his FF run as well.

Anyway, HUGE FF sale on ComiXology/Kindle right now and I just grabbed a few like Hickman Complete collection vol 3, Nobody gets out alive Epic collection and the full Robinson & kirk run.

[FFJamie94]

Even if he hasn't been on it, the reaction itself is just... Meh.



Huh, didn't even know JMS wrote F4, wonder what the issues were like.

I like JMS' run, but I know a lot of People don't.
He didn't really get much room to do what he wanted.
He did one arc, then a Planet Hulk Prelude and then Civil War preludes and tie ins.
I wish he managed to have more room to breath because it was a pretty fun time.
A lot of the issues People have with it weren't exactly his fault, it was an editorial problem, it was just he wrote it.

[Iron Maiden]

I liked JMS's run too but IIRC he was frustrated by the "event" interruptions. One of the first things he did was to bring Doom back after his Unthinkable "exile" but he never really got to use him much after that. I think he asked to be switched to Thor when that relaunched.

Here's a quote about his issues dealing with events, etc.

"I’m all for crossovers if they benefit the individual books. But it was feeling more and more like the individual characters were being bent towards the event in ways I didn’t think were appropriate. I mean to make Reed Richards a bad guy in Civil War… I just never bought into that. And that Captain America would surrender to a mob? I never bought into that. The more you have characters doing things that they wouldn’t do, because you want it for an event, I just had an increasingly hard time with that. And you can see why after a while, I pulled back from that"

You can read the entire article about his FF run here.

[CaptCleghorn]

So I'm doing a little research on JMS' run on FF and this is what I find:

From https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_529

Reed soon calls the Fantastic Four into a meeting. He then explains his theory that their random powers were not an accident, but the product of an alien race trying to make contact with them from a far off world.

My take (without having to dig out old issues) is that this was forgotten, but there is at least trivial foreshadowing of the Spyre situation.

[Darkshadow]

So I'm doing a little research on JMS' run on FF and this is what I find:

From https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_529



My take (without having to dig out old issues) is that this was forgotten, but there is at least trivial foreshadowing of the Spyre situation.

Hopefully, that, along with the idea of their powers being tied to their proximity, and the entire Spyre idea gets roundly retconned with the next writer. I'm all for exploring new ways to use power, but not the origin. If books wouldn't periodically rehash origins so frequently (yes, I know why they do it), they wouldn't have to feel the need to modernize it.

[CaptCleghorn]

Hopefully, that, along with the idea of their powers being tied to their proximity, and the entire Spyre idea gets roundly retconned with the next writer. I'm all for exploring new ways to use power, but not the origin. If books wouldn't periodically rehash origins so frequently (yes, I know why they do it), they wouldn't have to feel the need to modernize it.

Spyre being responsible was a total cluster**** of a development. The intel Spyre had was incredible, even for cosmic civilization standards. But the FF origin needed some sort of tweak. The race against the Soviets was the impetus for the launch back in 1961. But today, we have multiple countries and some private citizens launching space flights. The FF upgraded the flight and a warp speed flight 44 light years away seemed fairly safe for a few decades anyway. But the big thing is getting the ship off the ground quickly despite the cosmic ray storm. A couple of days really shouldn't matter for a flight that long.

It's a good basic origin, fitting the team well. I am considering changes to Sue and Johnny's roles to give them some responsibilities minor changes, even if important. The trouble is writers feel they want and can deliver the change that will stick and become a bigger and stronger part of historic canon. And that's those who aren't ego-maniacs. Writers all wanting to be the person who a) made Reed a family man, b) made Johnny grow up, c) "fixed" the origin.

The FF's origin has some necessary details. Steal rocket, hit cosmic rays, get powers, crash. The more adjusting that's done like with Superman, the farther you get away from the important parts as were seem in All-Star Superman issue 1. The FF shouldn't need any more tweaks until OUR Earth actually encounters intelligent alien life in which case there may be some issues with our new alien acquaintances.

[spiderlink]

Looking forward to this book, the visuals are amazing. https://gizmodo.com/alex-ross-fantas...tm_content=io9
2E48AA75-5975-47DE-9BAC-6E65CD634704.jpg



I like that we see Sue perspective

[CaptCleghorn]

Looking forward to this book, the visuals are amazing. https://gizmodo.com/alex-ross-fantas...tm_content=io9
2E48AA75-5975-47DE-9BAC-6E65CD634704.jpg

I like that we see Sue perspective

I remain convinced this coloring was inspired on by the FF 110 error printing.

[Ravin' Ray]

Fantastic Farewell: Dan Slott Reflects on ‘Fantastic Four’

Dan Slott prepares to bid goodbye to Marvel’s First Family with a robust retrospective on his four-year run.
BY BEN MORSE

[Crimz]

Fantastic Farewell: Dan Slott Reflects on ‘Fantastic Four’

Dan Slott prepares to bid goodbye to Marvel’s First Family with a robust retrospective on his four-year run.
BY BEN MORSE

The way he talks about what he wanted for Franklin and Doom just tells me he was the wrong choice from the beginning.

[CaptCleghorn]

The way he talks about what he wanted for Franklin and Doom just tells me he was the wrong choice from the beginning.

I agree on Doom. He's been developed to a point where he's his own character. He doesn't fit into a good or evil category anymore. Sure, he's out for himself with Latveria a close second, but the heel turn he took here was out of retro Saturday morning professional wrestling.

As for Franklin, I disagree to a point. Leaving him power-free is obviously a bad move. Unmutanting him not good either, but not AS bad. What I liked was his emo, whining. How do teenagers deal with loss? That's an interesting story arc. Franklin is going to be godlike again. I can't imagine the characters not knowing or at least believing that. But Franklin was creating universes. And then he couldn't. Surely a traumatic event for a kid with a relatively normal mind. He deals with trauma, acts like an emo PITA teenage boy, and grows without learning to depend on his powers. As a permanent state, no, but as an arc, I think it's a fine idea.

Slott laid heavily on family and did a lot of tell not show. He's an OK writer with some fairly good stuff (like Thing, She Hulk, and Surfer). But here, he was terribly mundane and saved his best for Reckoning War. I think by that time, he may have not been able to pull it off. Frankly, there was enough stuff in that War to stretch out to issue 700. But there was very little about it that was exceptional. And that made its existence as Slott's finest FF big story all the sadder.

You mention Franklin and Doom, but his jettisoning the Future Foundation is a reason I don't think Slott was a great fit, although I do like him more than most here.