Best Of The Fantastic Four Volume 1 HC [Hardcover]

"The Best of the Fantastic Four Vol. 1" is a good primer to bring readers up to speed on what the Fantastic Four is all about. As with any collection that attempts to select 360 pages from 46 years of publishing history, the final choices are subjective and exclude a lot of great material.

Of course, the collection leads with the 1961 first issue, where writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby introduce readers to the Thing (a carryover concept from Marvel's then-successful monster mags), Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch (a revamp of the Golden Age character) and the Invisible Girl.

The next story is the origin of Doctor Doom from FF Annual #2, included presumably because the book coincided with the Fantastic Four movie, which featured Doom. It's a fun story, but not Stan and Jack's best.

Doom is present in the next story, along with guest-star Daredevil, from FF #39-40, an enjoyable two-parter. What follows is a bona fide FF classic from issue #51, "This Man...This Monster!"

Next comes a more problematic choice. FF #100 is included presumably because it's an anniversary issue that guest-stars (sort of) almost all the FF villains. Kirby worked miracles on a regular basis, but not even he could pull off dozens upon dozens of baddies in only 20 pages. A rare misfire by the book's original team.

Next comes a sampling of creative teams from different eras. FF #116, by Archie Goodwin, John Buscema and Joe Sinnott, is a quick read, but one feels it's only here because, again, Doom is the villain. George Perez of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" fame is represented by FF #176, written by Roy Thomas, which features the super-annoying Impossible Man.

John Byrne, whose run on the title is second in quality (and quantity) to only Lee and Kirby, is well represented by the collection. We have his classic Thing time-travel story, "Remembrance of Things Past," and my personal favorite Fantastic Four story of all time, "Terror in a Tiny Town" from the FF's 20th anniversary issue. Byrne is also on hand to chronicle one of the group's most tragic moments in "A Small Loss" (FF 267).

Some of the more modern stories in this collection (2002 and up) are OK, but seem to be included only to represent all eras of the book's lengthy run. In some cases, like 2004's "Wolf at the Door - Part 4," not enough time has past to judge if a particular story is worthy of "Best of" inclusion.

And, of course, the stories that are excluded! Where are representative stories of the Inhumans, Galactus, and the Silver Surfer? For that matter, where is ANY story from the 90s? How about Reed and Sue's wedding? The attack upon New York by the Sub-Mariner? The editors left lots of options open for future volumes!

The good news is the FF's adventures are available elsewhere -- in Marvel's budget-priced, black-and-white Essentials volumes, the more expensive Masterworks hardcovers, or on DVD-Rom with ads and letters pages included.

This book, handsomely organized and bound, is still a great addition to any bookshelf and serves to whet the appetite for all the great FF adventures!

This collection is not so much a "best of" as a sampling of the series and characters at various points in their over forty-year history. While it does contain some excellent stories, there are also a few that are mediocre at best.

The volume starts off with several Stan Lee/Jack Kirby collaborations, but most of them aren't their best. This first is Fantastic Four #1 -- often-reprinted as it is, but probably a given -- which presents the team's origin story and their first encounter with the underground menace of the Mole Man. It's followed by Doctor Doom's origin story, from an early annual. After that, the selections become a bit questionable. There's a two-part story in which the FF lose their powers and must rig up artificial ways of emulating them, lest they fall victim to a foe hoping to find them helpless. The ideas they come up with are silly and wouldn't fool a blind man, let alone the general public. In fact, they don't fool a blind man, as Daredevil shows up to help them out as if they were all feeble. Couldn't they have just laid low for a few days until they were able to use the deus ex machina Reed whips out in the second half of the story? What about all the other gadgets they have lying around? It just doesn't make any sense. Nor does the next story, which has a rival scientist stealing the Thing's powers and taking his place on the team. When the real Ben Grimm shows up and tries to explain, they brush him off, thinking he's the imposter because "the Thing isn't exactly an easy man to imitate." What? If anyone should know better, it's these people. At least the villain gets a nice shot at redemption at the end, which gives it a little bit of pathos. After this story, the FF slugs it out with several of their greatest (and not-so-great) enemies...sort of. It's nothing special, and just seems like a lame way to shove a bunch of guest-stars into a #100 issue.

In a story by Archie Goodwin and John Buscema, the FF confront the Over-Mind, an alien entity with "the might of a billion brains," and must seek help from an unlikely source in order to defeat it. Vast improvement in writing and art here; pity we only get the concluding chapter of the story. Classic 1970s Marvel, though.

The Impossibly Annoying Man--sorry, the Impossible Man--returns in a story by Roy Thomas and George Perez. The Impossible Man is best described as a dangerous nuisance; a mischievous but powerful shape-shifting alien, he likes to cause trouble whenever he visits our "boring" planet. There's even a comment in-story about how readers didn't like Impy when he was first introduced, so why bring him back? Who knows.

Now we get to some really great stuff with John Byrne's 20th anniversary story. The FF suddenly find themselves living as normal people in a world that seems strangely familiar yet wrong. The first half of this story (before things are revealed) has a wonderfully eerie, Twilight-Zone atmosphere. If any story besides the first one deserves to be here, it's this one. In fact, almost any issue from John Byrne's 1980s run on the book wouldn't be inappropriate, so we get another that spotlights Mr. Fantastic, as he desperately attempts to acquire assistance in dealing with his pregnant wife's radiation poisoning.

There's a cute and funny story by Barry Windsor-Smith in which the Human Torch includes the Thing in his April Fool's Day "celebration." Then we jump ahead quite a bit to some more recent work, including a story that sheds light on the Thing's childhood (with nice art by Stuart Immonen), a "day in the life" piece, and one in which Mr. Fantastic's understanding of human nature proves just as important as his superhuman powers.

It's an uneven collection in terms of quality, but it's almost monotonous when it comes to content. None of their cosmic adventures, either to space or to the Negative Zone, are represented here, although they are occasionally seen returning from one. Doctor Doom appears far too often, and only two of those appearances here are worthwhile. While it would be impossible to fit every significant issue into a single volume like this, far better choices could have been made.

I don't really recommend this book for collectors, as they will probably have the better stories already, and they'll probably want something less scattershot. (Go for the Marvel Masterworks for the early stuff, the Visionaries for John Byrne's amazing run, or Fantastic Four, Vol. 1 for something more recent.) However, I think it would make a good gift book for someone getting into comics, especially younger readers. When I was a kid, there were few reprint collections out, and they were hard to come by. I would have loved something like this.

A fun volume to have in your library if you are a Marvel fan, or just grew up with the Fantastic Four (as I did, in the sixties!). I wouldn't necessarily say these are the best stories, but they are certainly fun stories. It's interesting to see the very earliest adventures at the front of the book and compare them to the latest. Quite a change in style...but the characters stay true to form (better dialogue, better art work, obviously in the most recent incarnations). Stories from how the Four became Fantastic to their bankruptcy and personal difficulties. A few stories about the angst of the Thing being the Thing and funny moments between Ben and the Torch. Perhaps not REALLY the very best of FF...but a lot of fun at least.