Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four, often abbreviated as FF, is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in The Fantastic Four #1, helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first superhero team created by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and editor/co-scripter Stan Lee, and through this title the "Marvel method" style of production came into prominence.
The four characters traditionally associated with the Fantastic Four, who gained superpowers after exposure to cosmic rays during a scientific mission to outer space, are Mister Fantastic, a scientific genius and the leader of the group, who can stretch his body into incredible lengths and shapes; the Invisible Woman, Reed's girlfriend and later wife, who can render herself invisible and project powerful invisible force fields and blasts; the Human Torch, Sue's younger brother, who can generate flames, surround himself with them and fly; and the monstrous Thing, their grumpy but benevolent friend, a former college football star, Reed's college roommate and a skilled pilot, who possesses tremendous superhuman strength, durability and endurance due to his stone-like flesh.
Since their 1961 introduction, the Fantastic Four has been portrayed as a somewhat dysfunctional, yet loving, family. Breaking convention with other comic archetypes, the members squabbled, held grudges both deep and petty, and eschewed anonymity or secret identities in favor of celebrity status. They are also well known for their recurring encounters with characters such as the villainous monarch Doctor Doom; the planet-devouring Galactus; the Kree Empire's ruthless and tyrannical enforcer Ronan the Accuser; the Negative Zone's ruler Annihilus; the subterranean villain Mole Man; the sea-dwelling prince Namor; the spacefaring Silver Surfer; the Skrull warrior Kl'rt; and the Molecule Man.
The Fantastic Four has been adapted into other media, including several video games, animated series, and live-action films.
Publication history
Origins
Longtime magazine and comic book publisher Martin Goodman, aware of the strong sales of Justice League of America, directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee, writing in 1974, "Martin mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The ''Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of superheroes.... 'If the Justice League is selling', spoke he, 'why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?'"Lee, who had served as editor-in-chief and art director of Marvel Comics and its predecessor companies, Timely Comics and Atlas Comics, for two decades, found that the medium had become creatively restrictive. Determined "to carve a real career for myself in the nowhere world of comic books", Lee concluded that, "For just this once, I would do the type of story I myself would enjoy reading ... And the characters would be the kind of characters I could personally relate to: They'd be flesh and blood, they'd have their faults and foibles, they'd be fallible and feisty, and — most important of all — inside their colorful, costumed booties they'd still have feet of clay."
Lee provided one of his earliest recorded comments on the creation of the Fantastic Four for a fanzine in 1968, during which time penciller Jack Kirby was also working at Marvel. When asked who conceived the team, he or Kirby, Lee responded "Both ' 'twas mainly my idea, but Jack created characters visually". In the 1974 book Origins of Marvel Comics Lee described the creative process in more detail, stating that he developed the basic characters as well as a story synopsis for Jack Kirby to follow in the first issue. Lee noted the involvement of both Kirby and Publisher Martin Goodman prior to preparing his synopsis: "After kicking it around with Martin and Jack for a while I decided to call our quaint quartet the Fantastic Four. I wrote a detailed first synopsis for Jack to follow and the rest is history." Kirby turned in his penciled art pages to Lee, who added dialogue and captions. This approach to creating comics, which became known as the "Marvel Method", worked so well that Lee and Kirby used it from then on, and the Marvel Method became standard for the company within a year.
Kirby recalled events somewhat differently. In a 1970 Fanzine interview he confirmed Lee's involvement in the creation of the Fantastic Four but took credit for the main characters and ideas, stating "It was my idea. It was my idea to do it the way it was; my idea to develop it the way it was. I'm not saying Stan had nothing to do with it. Of course he did. We talked things out." Years later, when specifically challenged with Lee's version of events in a 1990 interview, Kirby responded: "I would say that's an outright lie", although the interviewer, Gary Groth, notes that this statement needs to be viewed with caution. Kirby claims he came up with the idea for the Fantastic Four in Marvel's offices, and that Lee merely added the dialogue after the story was pencilled. Kirby also sought to establish, more credibly and on numerous occasions, that the visual elements of the strip were his conceptions. He regularly pointed to a team he illustrated and may have created for rival publisher DC Comics in the 1950s, the Challengers of the Unknown. "f you notice the uniforms, they're the same ... I always give them a skintight uniform with a belt ... the Challengers and the FF have a minimum of decoration. And of course, the Thing's skin is a kind of decoration, breaking up the monotony of the blue uniform." It is important to note, however, that the Fantastic Four wore civilian garb instead of uniforms, which were only introduced in the third issue of the series following readership feedback. The original submitted design was also modified to include the iconic chest insignia of a "4" within a circle that was designed by Lee.
Given the conflicting statements, outside commentators have found it hard to ascertain who created the Fantastic Four. A typed synopsis by Lee for the introductory segment of the first Fantastic Four issue exists and outlines the characters and their origins, with various minor differences to the published version. However Earl Wells, writing in The Comics Journal, points out that its existence does not assert its place in the creation: "e have no way of knowing of whether Lee wrote the synopsis after a discussion with Kirby in which Kirby supplied most of the ideas".
It is also notable that the Fantastic Four's first adventure in 1961 depicts a team of four adventurers led by a scientist travelling beneath the earth's surface and encountering giant monsters while contending with a human antagonist who is also from the surface world. Although neither Lee nor Kirby ever mentioned the 1959 film Journey to the Center of the Earth as a direct inspiration, publisher Martin Goodman was well known for following popular entertainment trends to attract sales in his comics line.
Comics historian R. C. Harvey believes the Fantastic Four was a continuation of the work Kirby previously did, and so "more likely Kirby's creations than Lee's". But Harvey notes that the Marvel Method of collaboration allowed each man to claim credit, and that Lee's dialogue added to the direction the team took. Wells argues that Lee's contributions set the framework within which Kirby worked, and this made Lee "more responsible". Comics historian Mark Evanier, a studio assistant to Jack Kirby in the 1970s, says that the considered opinion of Lee and Kirby's contemporaries was "that Fantastic Four'' was created by Stan and Jack. No further division of credit seemed appropriate."
1961–1970s
The release of The Fantastic Four #1 was an unexpected success. Lee had felt ready to stop working on comics at the time, but the positive response to Fantastic Four persuaded him to continue with comic books. The title began to receive fan mail and Lee started printing the letters in a letter column with issue #3. Also with the third issue, Lee created the hyperbolic slogan "The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World!!" With the following issue, the slogan was changed to "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!" and became a fixture on the issue covers into the 1990s, and on numerous covers in the 2000s.Issue #4 reintroduced Namor the Sub-Mariner, an aquatic antihero who was a star character of Marvel's earliest iteration, Timely Comics, during the late 1930s and 1940s period that historians and fans call the Golden Age of Comics. Issue #5 introduced the team's most frequent nemesis, Doctor Doom. These earliest issues were published bimonthly. With issue #16, the cover title dropped its The and became simply Fantastic Four. In Fantastic Four #19, Stan Lee announced that Reed Richards would remain leader of the group, due to an overwhelming fan response in the affirmative. Stan's comment of Nuff Said would from here become an ongoing phrase in Lee's communications with fans.
While the early stories were complete narratives, the frequent appearances of these two antagonists, Doom and Namor, in subsequent issues indicated the creation of a long narrative by Lee and Kirby that extended over months. According to comics historian Les Daniels, "only narratives that ran to several issues would be able to contain their increasingly complex ideas". During its creators' lengthy run, the series produced many acclaimed storylines and characters that have become central to Marvel, including the hidden race of alien-human genetic experiments, the Inhumans; the Black Panther, an African king who would be mainstream comics' first Black superhero; the rival alien races the Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls; Him, who would become Adam Warlock; the Negative Zone and unstable molecules. The story frequently cited as Lee and Kirby's finest achievement is the three-part "Galactus Trilogy" that began in Fantastic Four #48, chronicling the arrival of Galactus, a cosmic giant who wanted to devour the planet, and his herald, the Silver Surfer. Fantastic Four #48 was chosen as #24 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that, "As the fourth year of the Fantastic Four came to a close, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby seemed to be only warming up. In retrospect, it was perhaps the most fertile period of any monthly title during the Marvel Age." Daniels noted that "he mystical and metaphysical elements that took over the saga were perfectly suited to the tastes of young readers in the 1960s", and Lee soon discovered that the story was a favorite on college campuses. The Fantastic Four Annual was used to spotlight several key events. The Sub-Mariner was crowned king of Atlantis in the first annual. The following year's annual revealed the origin story of Doctor Doom. Fantastic Four Annual #3 presented the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Lee and Kirby reintroduced the original Human Torch in Fantastic Four Annual #4 and had him battle Johnny Storm. Sue Richards' pregnancy was announced in Fantastic Four Annual #5, and the Richards' son, Franklin Richards was born in Fantastic Four Annual #6 in a story which introduced Annihilus as well.
Marvel filed for a trademark for "Fantastic Four" in 1967 and the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued the registration in 1970.
Kirby left Marvel in mid-1970, having drawn the first 102 issues plus an unfinished issue, partially published in Fantastic Four #108, with alterations, and later completed and published as Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure, Fantastic Four continued with Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman as its consecutive regular writers, working with artists such as John Romita Sr., John Buscema, Rich Buckler and George Pérez, with longtime inker Joe Sinnott adding some visual continuity. Jim Steranko also contributed some covers during this time. A short-lived series starring the team, Giant-Size Super-Stars, began in May 1974 and changed its title to Giant-Size Fantastic Four with issue #2. The fourth issue introduced Jamie Madrox, a character who later became part of the X-Men. Giant-Size Fantastic Four was canceled with issue #6. Roy Thomas and George Pérez crafted a metafictional story for Fantastic Four #176 in which the Impossible Man visited the offices of Marvel Comics and met numerous comics creators. Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard crafted a multi-issue storyline involving the son of Doctor Doom which culminated in issue #200. John Byrne joined the title with issue #209, doing pencil breakdowns for Sinnott to finish. He and Wolfman introduced a new herald for Galactus named Terrax the Tamer in #211.