Fantastic Four - Year Four!

By the end of The Fantastic Four's fourth year, the Marvel Universe is full born and on the verge of its maturity.  The Fab 4 had become the nucleus for an expanding MU which included the Avengers, X-Men, the Howling Commandos, and individual series for Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, Hulk, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and of course Spider-Man. The Marvel Universe became more than the sum of its parts with crossovers becoming more and more commonplace as the shared world of these heroes became more detailed and rich with each subsequent story.

The FF start the year with a two-part epic which pits the Thing against the Hulk and brings the Fantastic Four in conflict with the entire Avengers team. Soon thereafter Doctor Strange is contacted to help solve a problem with the Sub-Mariner who has once again kidnapped Sue Storm. The very next issue has the Fab 4 mix it up with Professor X and his mysterious team of mutants, the X-men to do battle against the Mad Thinker and his Android.

Then the team end up in space again as the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes return and the all end up on the Moon. A new villain rises from the dead as the alchemist Diablo is discovered and unleashed by the team unwittingly. No sooner is his menace ended than Doctor Doom returns with some help from old FF villain Rama-Tut in the FF annual. We also get a rich origin story for Doom as he is elevated above nearly all the arch-enemies of the team to a status as their absolute number one opponent. And speaking of number ones, the original FF enemy the Mole Man shows up again to confront the team aided by his army of Moloids.

We learn more about Sue and Johnny Storm when the secret of their father is revealed and he returns in a most mysterious manner, as does an old enemy. Speaking of old enemies, the Sub-Mariner returns yet again and this time he's not the worst thing from beneath the sea as Attuma arrives on the scene. The FF are up against a man armed with a real-world super-power -- extreme wealth -- when they take on Gregory Gideon.

And then comes the weird and powerful Dragon Man who serves the returning alchemist from ancient days - Diablo.

And finally the year wraps as some of the Human Torch's old foes, the Wizard and Paste-Pot Pete (who re-dubs himself "Trapster") join forces with the Sandman to form the "Frightful Four". Their fourth member is Medusa, an enigmatic woman who we will learn eventually is an Inhuman. For now she is just another baddie.

And that's the fourth year of the Fantastic Four. The team will enter a new phase in its fifth year, a more leisurely and more complex storytelling will take hold and the concepts will become, if anything, bolder and more dynamic. But in its early days we see the FF go from a fascinating comic about more realistically drawn adventurers to become the hub of a larger scheme which hums and lives even in the modern day. No small achievement.

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Fantastic Four - Year Three!

As The Fantastic Four series enters its third year, it is as a fully-developed comic book. The characters of the key foursome are vivid and and starkly drawn. Reed Richards is truly a phenomenal genius but a man with regrets about what his experiments have done to his comrades as well as a shy man who loves his teammate and seeks more. The Invisible Girl gets a greater power as her force shields become a significant part of the team's firepower and she as well must confront her role as a woman in the 60's who wants to do more than the stereotypes of the day permit. The Human Torch is maturing, albeit slowly, his teen-age tirades giving way to a frisky repartee with his partners but a fundamental need to prove himself a worthy teammate. And finally The Thing has become a wonderful powerhouse, but fundamentally tragic man who has found love but who nonetheless needs to prove that he's a man to everyone on his team and in the larger world.

These four people are thrust into a wild and wacky world of danger and discovery as menaces both vast and small find them. The year begins with a propitious journey to the Moon where the team finds a menace in the form of the Red Ghost and his deadly Super-Apes, but also a comrade in the enigmatic Watcher. The mysterious "Blue Area" of the Moon is one of the coolest concepts in all of Marveldom.

Then the Sub-Mariner returns to kidnap Sue, who does reveal an affection for the undersea lord, but who ultimately confirms her love for Mr. Fantastic. Soon thereafter the Mad Thinker invades the Baxter Building and uses Reed's own experiments in creating artificial life to create his "Awesome Android".

Doctor Doom, who had become a villain for all the young Marvel Universe,  returns for a two-part misadventure as he attempts yet again to bring the Fab 4 to heel. First he brings them into the Microverse where the Ant-Man is crucial in helping to defeat his menace and later he tries to trap the team in their own house.

The nearly forgotten Skrulls attack, sending the Super-Skrull to Earth to defeat the team and erase the shame the Skrull emperor feels for having been driven away from the planet before. But the team is able to contain a being with all their powers.

Then it's time for an epic as Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner at long last finds his lost people the Atlanteans and turns their military might against the surface world. The first Fantastic Four annual describes is elaborate detail the saga of this mighty incursion and how the Fab 4 are able to turn the undersea armies back.

The team travel into time ancient Egypt to find a cure for the blind Alicia Masters and find Rama-Tut, the time-traveler who according to some renditions of the saga would become in due course Kang the Conqueror in the pages of The Avengers.

Next, the Watcher appears with a warning for the Fab 4 as the amazingly powerful Molecule Man makes his debut. The incredible power of the Molecule Man is only limited by his lack of imagination and he too is at last defeated.

Nick Fury, of World War II fame makes an appearance in time to help the FF confront the vile menace of the Hate Monger. It's a another shout out to the "Big One" when the Hate Monger's mask is at last removed.

Finally the very first FF villain, the Mole Man makes his second foray against the team. This time he seeks them out as he attacks the very city in which they live. The Moloids are seen for the first time as the underground villain proves he's not to be taken lightly. Doc Doom shows up yet again, with another scheme, this one ends up in his defeat and sets up a most important story in the team's fourth year.

The year closes out with one of the strangest FF stories as the wildly powerful Infant Terrible appears on Earth. Quickly the intellect of Reed Richards figures out the nature of the amazing menace and gambles to save the Earth from a truly bizarre alien menace.

The artwork during this year was a really strange mix. Dick Ayers inked several yarns, but also Steve Ditko inked a few. George Russos (under the pen name "George Bell") was the mainstay in this year, freeing Ayers to pencil more as the Marvel Universe continued to expand.

And that's a wrap. The fourth year of the Fantastic Four comes next week and it's a hummer indeed.

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Tales Of Asgard!

When I read Kirby's Tales of Asgard this time, it was with a keen eye to the notion that these stories are a direct precursor to the Fourth World material he'd generate at DC after his famous migration in the early 70's. For there to be "New Gods" there must have been "Old Gods" and these are them.

Thor started as a somewhat peculiar superhero feature with secret identities, offbeat romances, super-villains, and all the trappings. But slowly it became something else as more and more aspects of Thor's Asgardian roots appeared in the story. It became less and less about his timid romance with Jane Foster and more and more about his relationship with Odin and the other denizens across the Brifrost.

Eventually the drive to give the series a mythic thrust gives us small vignettes which dramatized Norse myths. We get the origin of the universe, the world, the gods and man. We meet Odin, his allies, his enemies, and eventually his sons Thor and Loki. We see Thor as a boy and Loki too, as their eternal enmity begins to express itself. We meet Heimdall, the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge and others such as Balder the Brave. More myth is adapted as the series slowly begins to slow its pace and offer up extended stories.

A real shift came when Odin sends Thor on a quest to investigate the advent of Ragnarok and along with him are a crew which includes Hogun the Grim, Fandrall the Dashing, and Volstagg the Voluminous. These "Warriors Three" begin in the the Tales of Asgard feature and then become a reliable part of the main modern story up front in the comic.

It is in this tale of Ragnarok that these warriors find their own end and the hints of a new world to come. It is in the pages of these short back up yarns that the seeds of the Fourth World are planted.  We even meet one of Kirby's first passes as a Hive community, an idea he develops in the Fourth World with Forager and his ilk. Later we'll meet the Lightning Lady and her minions in the pages of Captain Victory.

Following the discovery the end of the world and the hint of a new, the heroes go on other quests. They seek out Harokin, a brave warrior who ends up being embraced by the goddess of the death Hela. They find and confront the dragon Fafnir who offers up a terrible tempation.

They even end up visiting a distant territory which evokes the magic and wonder of The Arabian Knights. All along the way the stories grow more and more baroque with Kirby's art getting increasingly abstract as he develops into his mature stage. Vince Colletta supplies the inks to nearly all of these tales save for a few in the early days inked by Don Heck and  George Bell and a later tale inked by Bill Everett of all people.

The Tales of Asgard feature ends and is replaced by The Inhumans (and odd place for them, but the one comic which seemed to be largely controlled by Kirby). It offered up a delightful brew of heady adventures and it offered up a glimpse of what was to come.

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