A Look at Fantastic Four (1961) #1

Issue: Fantastic Four (1961) #1

Name: Fantastic Four

Blurb: From CRMO:

The Fantastic Four is introduced to the world and their origin is revealed. They must battle the Mole Man and stop his plans for vengeance.

From Comixology:

The Fantastic Four!
Meet Marvel's First Family: Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Human Torch, and The Thing. In this first issue, the FF must confront the menace known as the Mole Man and his giant underground monsters, as they attack atomic plants all over the world.

Creators:

Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Inker: George Klein
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colorist: Stan Goldberg

Characters:

The Good: Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), The Thing (Ben Grimm), Human Torch (Johnny Storm), The Invisible Girl (Sue Storm)
The Bad: Mole Man

Story: (B-)

There's basically 3 parts to this issue: The Fantastic Four, The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man!, and The Mole Man's Secret. The first part essentially does a roll call, introduces the superheroes and gives an idea of their powers…Sue's invisibility, Ben's strength, Johnny's flames, and Reed's elasticity. It also provides the origin of how they got their powers – cosmic ray bombardment.

In the second part of the story, the team's investigations of the atomic plant attacks lead them to Monster Isle where they encounter creatures under the control of the Mole Man and when Reed and Johnny fall into a cave-in, they find the Mole Man in a cavern full of glittering diamonds.

In the third part, as Johnny and Reed, still underground, learn about the Mole Man's origin, Sue and Ben continue fight off his monsters on the surface until they can reach the duo below. Once his story is told, the Mole Man attacks the heroes and calls upon his largest and most deadly monster to destroy the Fantastic Four. As the team grab their foe and head to the surface to escape the Mole Man's horde, he escapes and blows up the island to seal himself off from the rest of the world.

I won't say there aren't a few issues with the story, but it flows nicely and does a good job of introducing everyone and showing us what they can do. I'm not really sure how they defeated the “biggest and most deadly” guy, but he is unable to catch the Human Torch so I figure he was distracted as the team took off with his boss. In any case, they escaped the island and made sure the Mole Man wouldn't bother anyone further.

Art: (B-)

For the most part, I like the art, but there are a few places where I feel there is room for improvement. The cover is pretty cool – the huge beast coming out of the ground to grab Sue is intimidating and I think appropriate for the cover of such a groundbreaking comic. The dialog boxes could be better though – at least what the characters are saying could be.

In the book proper, I have an issue with both the look of Human Torch and The Thing. The flames on the Torch seem to cover up his features and the Thing's face looks a bit mealy and without much definition. I figure these items will be refined in future issues because I'm pretty sure they don't look like this for long – it would be hard to display emotion with the lack of clarity around the face of these characters. I do, however, like how the invisibility of Sue is handled and I think the elasticity of Mr. Fantastic is dealt with in a superb manner as his proportions seem to all make sense no matter how stretched out he gets.

For a novice reader like myself, the panel layout is clear and the dialog bubbles make it obvious who is saying what so it works well and is a plus.

Characters: (B)

I'm relatively new to the Fantastic Four in comics as my primary knowledge of them is from the movies which could definitely be better. I do know of their origins, or at least those that were in the first movie, not the reboot – I still haven't seen that one… so I get the idea about the cosmic rays. I am surprised how they are basically stealing a rocket and racing to space, though. Granted, in 1961 the space race was pretty intense – Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in April and then in May, Alan Sheppard became the first American in space – so I can understand the push for Dr. Richards and the team to want to beat the Commies, but stealing a rocket didn't seem too heroic to me as I read.

I was also surprised by how angry Ben Grimm seemed to be from the outset of the story. He didn't want to be involved in the flight until Sue calls him a coward. I get the feeling that he may mellow a bit as he gets used to being the Thing, but he is definitely a hot head in this issue, so much so, that it's almost as if it's the Fantastic 3 vs the Thing and then Mole Man is also there – at least for the first half of the book.

Enjoyment: (A-)

I enjoyed reading about the origins of the team and seeing their first interactions and I think it fulfilled my expectations for a first issue. The fact that the Silver Age begins with this comic made the whole experience that much more exciting, and while I may not be the 1960s teenager the book was targeted at, I thought it was a fun read.

Special extra: (A+)

This is the start of the Silver Age of comics. There's no way I can give this anything other than a top score for specialness. Not only is this the start, but it introduces 4 major characters in the Marvel Universe and a bad guy.

Overall Rating: (A)

What I'm doing here is taking the ratings I am giving for Art, Story, Characters, Enjoyment, and Special Extras and dividing it by 4 – the Special Extras are…extra flavoring so I'm not dividing by 5.

This book is clearly in the top class of comics that I've read. Not all parts are great, but the combination of art, story, characters, enjoyment and of course the special fact that it is the dawn of the Siver Age of Marvel makes this a definite A.

This comic can be found on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.

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