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5 von 5 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
5.0 von 5 Sternen
The humble beginnings of the World's Greatest Comic Book, 9. Mai 2005
From a historical standpoint the first twenty issues of "The Fantastic Four" are important because they were Stan Lee's first steps in creating the Marvel Universe. Before there was Spider-Man, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, and everybody else, there was the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, and Invisible Girl. I love how the cover of issue #1 proclaims that these four characters are "together for the first time in one mighty magazine," which is interesting since none of them had appeared individually in any magazine, monthly or otherwise (since Johnny Storm is not the original Human Torch). The whole point of "The Fantastic Four" was that Stan Lee was revitalizing the sorry state of superhero comic books in the early Sixties. While testing an experimental space craft Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm are exposed to a bombardment of mysterious cosmic rays. When they return to earth they discover that they have gained fantastic abilities, which they will use to fight evil. When compared to the competition at that particular point in time, these comics are pretty good, but I cannot help but compare them to the glory days of the Fantastic Four starting around year four when Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and the Inhumans first pop up. Lee's writing certainly improved over time, but not as much as Jack Kirby's artwork. Even within this collection, which covers the first twenty issues of "The Fantastic Four" along with the first annual, you can see a significant improvement in Kirby's artwork (just pay attention to how the Thing is drawn over this period), which I think goes beyond the work of Dick Ayers as the main inker on those later comics (Note: For FF#13 you have the rare combination of pencils by Kirby being inked by Steve Ditko). It is the character of the Thing that was the key to creating the most dysfunctional group of superheroes (before the X-Men reformed with Wolverine anyway). The pathos of a man turned into a monster, and being unaware of his fate unlike the Hulk, was another to overcome the elasticity of Mr. Fantastic, which is one of the lamest super powers, even if Reed Richards is a lot smarter than Plastic Man. Resurrecting the Human Torch as a hotheaded teenager was a good move, especially since it led to bringing back Namor the Sub-Mariner as well, but it was soon clear that Sue Storm's invisibility was no big deal and her powers were augmented with force fields. My memory of these early issues was that there were a lot of hokey villains, but in rereading these stories I am more impressed with the gallery of super villains Lee and Kirby created in these early years. Doctor Doom is, of course, the biggest and baddest of them all, and Lee returns to him and Namor repeatedly because they are clearly heads and shoulders about the others. The Super Skrull is a good second-level supervillian and I have to admit that the Miracle Man, the Red Ghost, the Impossible Man, the Molecule Man, the Mad Thinker and, yes, even the Mole Man, were not as bad as I first thought. However, the Puppet Master is just too freaky looking for me to accept; good thing Alicia makes her first appearance in that story as well. So I started out convinced that I was going to give the Volume 1 of "The Essential Fantastic Four" four stars, but when I went over these early issues again they were better than that; once you add in the historic significance of these comics you really have to give it five stars. But, when it comes to Lee and Kirby's work on the Fantastic Four, the best is yet to come, True Believers! (Final Note: Hey, kids! Can you spot Adlai Stevenson in one of these comics? Would it help if you knew that he was the Democratic nominee for President in both 1952 and 1956 and was the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the Kennedy administration? And they say comic books are not educational...)
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