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

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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.

🔗 “Why was ‘The Fourth World’ called ‘The Fourth World?’”

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Better late than never, but I only just stumbled across Mark Evanier’s amazing News From ME blog by way of his “Jack F.A.Q” about Jack Kirby and, as The Fourth World is one of my Kirby obsessions, had to share this bit about where the name originated:

I can give you about eleven answers to this and if you'd asked Jack eight times, you'd have gotten eight more.  Len Wein, who worked at DC at the time, says that it was a cover blurb intended to only appear on the covers of the fourth issues.  It referred to the fact that every issue of a Kirby comic was like a world unto itself; ergo, each #4 was a "Fourth World."  Folks then adopted it to refer to the whole epic that flowed betwixt Jack's books.  Meanwhile, Steve Sherman — who worked with me as Jack's assistant at the time —recalls Jack coming up with it as a variation on the term, "The Third World," as used in a socio-economic context.  It was Jack's way of transcending that term, as Jack transcended everything.

That may be true but I don't recall that.  Apparently, Jack also told a few folks that he considered the material his fourth universe in comics.  The Marvel books would have been "Kirby's Third World" and I've never quite gotten clear what the first two were. There are other answers, even less credible.  Personally, I buy none of them.  I don't think there was any logic behind it, at least when Jack first used it.  I think it was just a term that popped into his head and he liked the sound of it.  Later on, he came up with several different retroactive explanations.


The whole blog is an amazing resource and has been duly added to the RSS reader for daily brainfood.

the collection: foci

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As I seem to have shifted my collecting (re-collecting?) interests back to comics, finally starting my third era – the first being the early-mid 90s and the second being mid-late 2000s – thought it might be useful to share a few brief thoughts on why I've chosen to add what I’ve added to The Collection in this third era if only to solidify said choices for myself.

  • Early Silver Daredevil: easily my favorite Marvel character; I have a fascination with the yellow suit and the transition to the red and how haphazard his early issues felt: unlike other Marvel creations, there didn't feel like there was a grand design behind him and they were making it up as they went along (I know this was generally the case with the early Marvel, but it feels really pronounced with Daredevil). As I now have issues 2-7, my willpower on holding off on issue one is waning. Also have AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 16, featuring a Ditko DD in yellow suit AND Spidey - what more could I ask for?

  • (PS Electro would have made a fantastic full-time Daredevil villain.)

  • The Question: "Created by Steve Ditko" has a wonderful ring when you open up a comic. I just love the character – from Ditko's objectivist meanderings to O'Neil's left-wing eastern mystic / Kaine in KUNG FU to Rick Veitch and Tommy Lee Edwards's poetic ass-kicker (in one of my favorite representations of Metropolis ever) to the Timm-verse JLU iteration to Rucka's genius transformation of Montoya into the second Question: the character is one of the most elastic – a blank face and a suit tend to lend themselves as such – ever created; that he seems to be languishing again is more than slightly heartbreaking.

  • Early Silver Marvel in general: this was prevalent during my first era of collecting, largely guided by cheap back issues of early MARVEL TALES. In this present iteration, I've amassed a pretty solid collection of Lee/Ditko Spideys and the aforementioned Daredevil, but I'm also grabbing up important issues in the development of the Marvel Universe: the first Cap story in TALES OF SUSPENSE No 59; the first issue of the Hulk's own ongoing series, No. 102 (having spun out of TALES TO ASTONISH); STRANGE TALES ANNUAL No. 2, just because it includes a weird Kirby Spidey tale (I have a thing for Kirby drawing Spidey). Speaking of:

  • Kirby's Fourth World: have the omnibus, love the insanity behind all of it. NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, and FOREVER PEOPLE first issues are in my possession as is Kirby's first DC work, SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN 133. Not an active pursuit, but I'll always pick them up should the opportunity arise.

  • Complete runs of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (historical import and Perez art); BATMAN: YEAR ONE (Mazzuchelli Bats); Andreyko's MANHUNTER (several holes in my collection of one of DC's best series ever – which would be a perfect candidate for Max series adaptation: it screams for a merging of GOLIATH and PEACEMAKER, maybe a bit of ELI STONE thrown in); Bendis / Brubaker DAREDEVIL runs - had them all, lost them all in one of the moves; the Moench / Jones BATMAN run (still my favorite run in the whole of the character); I also need to get my hands on ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 12, as I have the first 11 issues then moved and all of it went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

  • Outside of comics-comics: 1939-41 Superman merchandise – the early Siegel and Shuster iteration and the Fleischer cartoon version remain my favorite incarnation of Supes, the cornerstone of my collection being my 1939 Ideal composition doll as well as a first edition 1942 Lowther/Shuster ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN book and a 1940 Valentine’s Card featuring Superman about to punch a puppy because apparently that was a prerequisite for pre-war romance, IDK.

  • All foci above are, of course, in concert with the forever interests of The Shadow (I even have a complete run of the eight-issue Archie series coming because, in my passion for historical completion, I'm nothing if not a glutton for punishment) and Dick Tracy, though both tend to be more towards toys, radio premiums, and Big Little Books, but I still snap up comics whenever I see them.

Do I have any idea what I'll do with all of this? Not in the slightest: I did, after all, run a half-marathon distance with no desire to run an actual half-marathon (with numbers and people and such) and now seem to have opened my own comic shop / museum with no customers or intention to sell anything so who knows.