Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four 41-47, Fantastic Four Annual 3

The first chunk of the massive Essential FF Volume 3.  What a nice, cost effective way of reprinting classic Marvel comics - Twenty four issues in black and white for 15 bucks.  Crazy good value if you’re just looking to read the old school stuff.  I’m pretty sure I got this to read the original Galactus saga.

Gotta say, I was not looking forward to reading this again.  I love and respect Stan Lee’s stories, his characters, and the sheer volume of both.  The amount of lasting, legendary work he put out is truly mind-boggling.  In just the eight issues that I’ve read, he married Reed Richards and Sue Storm and introduced the Inhumans, both elements that are still playing major roles in the MCU today.  

But like JRR Tolkien, Lee’s ideas and stories far surpass the quality of the writing itself.  His self-proclaimed bombastic wordplay is absolutely exhausting to read, and not in a good way.  The overwrought, melodramatic dialog and narration is amusing enough at the start, but it wears thin very quickly.  I contemplated giving up on the whole trade three issues in, but the Inhumans storyline gave me a second wind, enough to make it to the Galactus arc, which starts tomorrow.  I’ll push on through that, at least.  

The sexual politics of the sixties are cringe-worthy to say the least.  I doubt if Lee’s views are an isolated incident.  Even keeping that in mind, the sheer number of instances surprised me.  After a while, there’s nothing to do but laugh and hope that we’ve managed to advance our stances in the right direction since then.  (Sometimes I doubt even that.)  Let’s take a walk down the hallways of yesteryear.

Her undying love for Black Bolt clearly takes a backseat for a couple seconds

God forbid that masculine and romantic be paired together.

Yeah, maybe we haven't come too far since the 1960s...

Moving on.  The combination of Stan Lee science and Jack Kirby tech is admittedly brilliant.  Kirby’s machinery looks like nothing else, and I love it.  Lee doesn’t try to make his gadgets feasible on anything more than the most superficial of levels, and even that’s being generous.  

I don't--How does that even--

Of course you could tell.  It had to be a sub-atronic time displacer.

Someone needs to bring these machines back.  I can’t even imagine what Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis would do with toys like these.