Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-)read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review / memory / whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box09): Of all the "greats" in comics, Lee and Kirby's FANTASTIC FOUR (or, Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR with Stan Lee dialogue) has been something of a blindspot for the entirety of my collecting days and decades: I've read an issue here and there – the earliest issues, the greatest of the greats, No. 51 (This Man, This Monster), among others – and, in each case, doing so reminds me a.) how good the Fantastic Four can be, and, b.) to just buy that omnibus.

The more I've reacquainted myself with Marvel's 1960s output the more it's become clear that there are really only a handful of stories being told – the hero is a coward!? the hero(es) lose their powers! the hero quits!? the heroes fight each other! the heroes team up! the hero's life outside the mask impedes on the life in the mask! among others – under an overarching villain-of-the-month plot (the "filler" issues being largely nothing more than a villain-of-the-month): the brilliance of 1960s Marvel was in their ability to stack and transpose these plots to different characters and combinations of characters while keeping everything within the parameters of each character (even though everyone sounds like Stan Lee, FELLA! PAL!, the overlording Jobs in a bullpen of genius Wozniaks) and the nascent Marvel Universe as a whole: in this case, the FF lose their powers and team up with Daredevil (who had popped in to help the FF with their wills) to defeat Doctor Doom who, by the end of this issue (I've also got issue 40 in the boxes, so I might cheat and read ahead) has, after being de-hypnotized by a Latverian court hypnotist, learned the truth and is ready to (in what I'm sure will be his undoing) toy with the powerless FF before slaying them all once and for all and ensuring the world knows who did said slaying; a tree falling in the forest Doom is not.

While I wouldn't consider this to be among the greatest of the great FF adventures, it's nonetheless an idea-packed explosion of creation and drama that sings and thrills as only mid-60s Marvel could do. Will it spur me to finally devour the rest of the Lee / Kirby run? In theory, it absolutely should. In practice? TBD.

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FANTASTIC FOUR, Vol. 1, No. 39 (Lee / Kirby; Marvel, 1965)

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