Fantastic 4 - Antithesis!

Fantastic Four - Antithesis is the final published work of the late great Neal Adams. I am proud to be able to have and hold so much great work by an outstanding and important artist in my collection. The story was written by Mark Waid. 

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD SO TREAD WITH CARE. 

The creative team of Waid and Adams are joined by inker Mark Farmer who does a remarkable job taming the pencils and giving them a nifty polish. The story begins with the Fab 4 battling Annihilus yet again. Once they've mopped him up and sent him scuttling back into the Negative Zone, one of Reed's many machines issues a warning about an object entering Earth's atmosphere and posing a threat, so the team combine their powers ingeniously and deflect it. Turns out it was the Silver Surfer all along. (Not like the cover wasn't a tip-off.)

A wounded Surfer is in need of fixing and warns that Galactus is no more, having been defeated by a powerful enemy called Antithesis who emerged from the Negative Zone and absorbed the might of Galactus making him merely Galan, the mortal man he once was, again before tossing him into the Negative Zone. The FF race to save him, and of course have to battle Annihilus yet again and end up on the mighty ship of Galactus. 

Galen arranges to give the Fantastic Four the Power Cosmic which they use to confront the forces of Antithesis and the monster himself. They succeed in defeating him and send him packing into the Negative Zone, hopefully returning the power to Galen so he can become Galactus once again. But it turns out Reed ends up the power cosmic (didn't see that coming) and world eating has a whole new name. 

Mister Fantastic / Galactus plans to starve himself and end the threat for all time. But Sue ain't having it and she and the team along with the Surfer and Galen go to Whisper Hill to enlist the aid of Agatha Harkness. They lure the Reed/Galactus hybrid to them and then reminds him of his children. This proves to be the right move and he surrenders the power back to Galen, and the Surfer and the new improved  Galactus head back into the cosmos. The improvement is a bit of compassion for the people of the worlds he encounters. 

SPOILERS HAVE COMPLETED. 

Once again, the Fab 4 have saved the day with a combination of bravery, smarts, and the proper application of superpowers. It's just what you want in a Fantastic Four yarn. The artwork is lush, and the storytelling works almost all the time. This final published comic story produced by Neal Adams is a worthy contribution to his legacy. 

The four-issue run of this FF story was deemed a little too slight to run as a trade itself. It clocks in at around eighty pages, so we get couple of choice more vintage reprints such The Uncanny X-Men #65 which proved to the last of the Neal Adams issues on that venerated run,and told the story of an alien invasion. This invasion was anticipated and so gave an excuse to revive Professor X, who had been dead for a bit. Denny O'Neil is the scripter. That's Marie Severin's work on the cover. 

We are also treated to the first issue of the Fantastic Four by Waid and artists Mike Wieringo and Karl Kesel. This was the last time I paid regular attention to the team, and I enjoyed the late Wieringo's work very much. 

All in a dandy little package and a great way to enjoy the work of a master. Look out for more than a few more Neal Adams posts as the year rumbles along. 

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Return To Forever!

This Forever People limited series by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Paris Cullins and Karl Kesel has never been collected so contrary to my usual practice, I had to dig out the original issues to read them. Most everything concerning Jack Kirby's Fourth World has been reprinted, so I guess it's only a matter of time, but this does deserve the treatment. 

(The final panel of Forever People #11 by Kirby)

The story opens years after the final scene of the original Forever People #11 which saw the team transported to a lush and beautiful alien world which we learn is named "Adon". They find a primitive people there but use their New Genesis technology to help these folks create a modern civilization. Serifan is presented as dissident, overcome by his desire for the old days. Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer have married and are expecting a child. Mark Moonrider found a new love and is married with a couple of kids. Sadly, Vykin died creating the new world. 

But things change when the team is brought to Earth and returned (more or less) to their status when they left. Dreamer is no longer pregnant, Moonrider's wife and children are vanished, and Vykin the Black is once again alive. This is pretty potent stuff, a change which would wipe any real person out and possibly throw them into deadly despair. There is some of that, but the members try to deal with the changes and the newer modern world of 1988. 

Moonrider is overcome with sorrow and rage at his losses and falls victim to the shadow demons which are called "The Dark" and which have followed them to Earth. He is seduced by the power and turns against his former allies. The Forever People though are assisted by a mysterious and powerful woman named Maya who claims to be from New Genesis. 

The battles are ferocious as Moonrider turns on the team and they battle. The Dark enemy wants control of the Forever People and the world as a whole. The creatures feed on despair and fear of others, and so set about to create scenarios which will supply their needs. 

It seems the team has been brought to Earth to help a man named Donny who they assisted years before when was an imperessionable boy. He has grown, married and had a child but has been overcome by despair as his life seems to have lost some of its direction and meaning. Eventually Moonrider overcomes his grief and anger enough to once again join his mates and together they bond to send for the Infinity Man. The Infinity Man is able to fend off the Dark, thus saving them all. 

The Forever People now are poised to learn the truth of their origins. It turns out that New Genesis is not their natural home, but Earth is. They are each a young orphan child plucked from across time and space on Earth and taken to New Genesis to be reared. They grew up together and formed the team we know who were drawn to Earth when the war between New Genesis and Apokolips began to do their part. Maya reveals herself to be an incarnation of of the Infinity Man and both are incarnations of the Mother Box. Maya gifts the team with a new Super-Cycle and the team prepares for the future. 

DeMatteis sets up a nifty background for the Forever People which is very much character driven. We learn a great deal about each of the members, save perhaps for Vykin who always seems to get a short straw in these stories. Later stories by other talents revise the status quo of this series and sort of forget that the Forever People are supposed to be from Earth. The Forever People has always been the Fourth World book which was most rooted in its time, the early 70's. The characters are variations of stereotypes of youngsters in the drop out culture which thrived for a time. They are cosmic hippies and so tied to the attitudes of a specific era. This makes it difficult to fit them into a more modern landscape. DeMatteis and Cullins and Kesel to a decent job. 

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100 Days Of The King - Day 83

Way back in those wild and woolly 80's when I traded off a bunch of my DC comics, I kept my Kirby books, and among those were issues of DC's exceedingly fun Who's Who run. This handbook style comic made an attempt to document most of the heroes villains and some others much in the style of the Marvel Handbook. The major difference was that it tended not to be as detailed (often not feasible with heroes decades old) and it featured artwork by talents associated with the characters (for the most part). So we were treated to some of Jack Kirby's final published takes on his Fourth World characters and others he'd created for DC.

Among those creations were the Challengers of the Unknown. Here we see them in all their glory. Kirby had lost a step or two by the time he produced these, but they still are filled with charm.

Many folks prefer the style Kirby had when he was producing material for the Challengers and after early Atlas/Marvel. I like it too, though his later more mature style remains my favorite.

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Barda To The Bone!

She's awesome! Big Barda hit the comic book landscape in the pages of Mister Miracle #4 and her presence immediately transformed the comic's direction and scope. Suddenly out quaint comic about a mysterious young man who adopts the role of a show biz escape artist becomes something larger, a mythic battle on the grandest landscapes and it a love story as well. The relationship between Scott Free and Barda is among my favorites in all of comics. I don't know its current state (and don't care) but their romance which quickly developed into a marriage felt like it was legit. We know Barda was a bombastic figure and also inspiration for many comic book artists to come over the years. Here is a gallery of some of their interpretations of the Female Fury from Apokolips.

(Cautionary note: The final image in this gallery is a little bit racy, so a NSFW label might be appropriate. Scroll with care.)

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Timely Returns - Post-Modern Edition!

Several years ago during Marvel's 70th anniversary celebration the company issued a great many one-shot issues which called back to their Timely roots. The books as are typical of the modern era of comics are wildly uneven in their quality, some with artwork which is lovely to behold and some with art that requires more patience. The covers though by and large are very handsome. I have not bothered to read these again since gathering them up and I do not have the complete collection pictured above. For better or worse here are the covers from this event.

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Captain America - Patriot!

This vivid throwback story written by Karl Kesel with some very evocative artwork by Mitch Breitweiser, tells the story of Jeff Mace the Patriot. Jeff Mace is the man who took over for Captain America and had a rather long career after World War II until the early 1950's. He was the third man to take on the identity after the disappearance of the original and the death of the Spirit of 76.


This entertaining four-part story details Mace's early time as The Patriot, showing how he was inspired to become a stateside fighter against the Axis threat. He was a reporter who wanted to do more, and he did. This is also the tale of his friends, such as an ace camera man Casey who ends up joining the war effort overseas, and a beautiful woman named Mary who eventually becomes the complicated masked character Miss Patriot.


This is not a story I can discuss much without destroying some of the surprises. But the large story is well known. Jeff Mace becomes Captain America and has to work alongside truly super-powered types like Whizzer, Miss America, Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner despite being just a regular guy. His struggle to become accepted and even a leader with these folks is poignant. Later he battles crime alongside Golden Girl and still later gives up the role of Cap entirely.


Kesel does a grand job of making all the established stuff about Captain America's most complicated history fuse neatly here in this untold behind the scenes saga. Jeff Mace is a good guy, and a hero you can root for completely. He makes mistakes, but seems always to be trying to do the right thing. This story is a breath of fresh air in a modern world overripe with anti-heroes and downright villains put up as role models. Jeff Mace, the Patriot is a hero.


This trade is highly recommended. It also has the one-shot All-Winners story from a few years ago as well as the classic What If? #4 story which first revealed in delicious retcon fashion that Jeff Mace had become Cap.

Get this book.

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