KIRBY CORNER
Welcome to the Kirby Corner a new feature where I, Dad review a Classic Jack Kirby comic. I am taking a walk from the 1940's to the 1990's reviewing some of Jack Kirby's classic comic books from his early days at Timely comics, aka Marvel as well as the time he jumped to the other side of the street and went to go work for DC. So check back once in awhile as I post some of the books that I'm reading. Now let's go see what Marvel's First Family is up to.
FANTASTIC FOUR #1
Writer: Stan Lee
Art: Jack (The King) Kirby
Published by Marvel Comics (1961)
- FF #1 -
Open With:
The Fantastic Four is called for by a smoke signal outside a high rise building window. Thus establishing the name of our superheroes and we are witness to a figure in shadow that has summed them. We also get what is now a classic Kirby / Marvel intro with a headshot of our main characters Dr. Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm and her brother Johnny Storm.Our story then continues on to three of the members of this first family. Sue is having tea at a friends home when all of a sudden she turns invisible and leaves her friends house to answer the call. Sue then proceeds to walk through a busy city street and knocks people over. It seems silly that she leaves her friends place like this and takes a cab while invisible.
Elsewhere Ben Grimm A.k.a. The Thing is at a clothing store attempting to get a new set of extra large clothes when he sees the smoke signal and leaves the department store and causes the clerk to pass out from fright.
Meanwhile in another part of town the Human Torch, Johnny Storm is at a service station looking at his hot rod. When he sees the signal for The Fantastic Four. Johnny then turns on his flame powers and bursts out of the service station while destroying the hot rod in the process.
On his way back to where the Fantastic Four call home Johnny is attacked by the Air force and he is forced to defend himself and melts the jets. Of course this escalates and a rock is launched at the Human Torch. However the rocket is unable to stop Johnny as a set of arms and hands manages to grab the rocket out of the sky. Thus enters Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic, and saves Johnny from the rocket as well as falling to his death due to his flame powers flickering out.
Now that we have a quick intro to the Fantastic Four, we are then slipped back in time and given the origin of the Four's powers. 
The four friends sneak on to the experimental rocket that Reed has designed in the hopes of studying Cosmic Rays. Of course Ben Grimm was against going but good ole' Sue Storm convinces him to be the pilot.
Once they are up in space they are bombard by the very Cosmic Rays that Reed was looking to study. This makes the rocket crash back to earth and we see what happens to the crew. Of course they all transform and become the Superhero group the Fantastic Four. I guess this is better than being bit by a radioactive rock.
So begins the next chapter of the Story. The Fantastic four meet the Mole Man! This would be a good point to mention that a lot of 1963's comics and as well as later in the bronze age the books where separated into smaller sections thus give the read a sense of the serial like stories from the 1940's and the classic film strips.
In this second part we see that Reed has learned of giant holes forming below Atomic plants throughout the world. it looks as though something has burrowed underneath them and caused a collapse.
To note back in the 1960's nuclear power was a new technology and alot of stories were created using Atomic power as a plot device. Here we can see that whatever was burrowing beneath the plant was looking for the nuclear material. Thus brings us to the latest attack that happens while the Fantastic four are discussing the issue. In french Africa a cave takes place and we see giant claws coming up from the substrata of earth.
So here is where I want to really talk a little bit about Jack Kirby and is part in creating the Fantastic Four. So in the panel just above you can see that Jack really liked creating monsters. The way he made the claws look menacing as well as the way he really plays with the scale of the creature. Jack was really good at making the reader feel the emotions of the characters. His style was unique, in that it was a fast as well as detailed. He was able to throw down line work that conveyed the emotion of the characters even without the detail of individual faces.
Jacks style was just overall fun. His art alone could tell the story, even if Stan Lees descriptions and dialogue helped tell the reader the plot and storyline. Speaking of story, we are then brought back to the Fantastic Fours home in what is called Central City, not New York, which makes one wonder when Stan decides to make the Marvel books all interconnected in New York. Either way it is interesting that New York isn't established until later issues.
Reed manages to locate the source of the sinkholes and we see that it's on Monster Island. Convenient that this universe has a place called monster island. So the Fantastic Four go to investigate.
Here we get the four in uniforms that aren't like what we now use to, they look like forest rangers with ball caps and ponchos. 
Do the Fantastic Four find the cause fo the monsters attacking the Atomic Plants? Do learn the fate of the earth and what is on Monster Island? You will just have to grab your own copy and read it to find out.
THOUGHTS ON THE STORY:
So this is the beginning of what is now the legend of the Fantastic Four. We get the start of the characters relationships with one and other. We see that Ben and Reed have a connection as friends , but Ben has a lot of anger that he takes out on the people around him.
The story does seem to take a little while to get to monster island and give us the main antagonist. This might be because of the era this story was written. Stan wanted to tell the origin in the first part of the book, then the turmoil in the second and third acts, and the fourth with the resolution. Going back and reading these stories from the 60's is really fun as you don't have this decompression of storyline across four to six issues.
ART:
Jack Kirby is considered the "King" of comics. Not only is he responsible for creating a large amount of characters in the Marvel universe, he is also one of the most prolific artist from the Golden and Silver age. What I like most about this first issues art, is you can see the start of Jack's design for the characters. The Thing's rocks are still very organic and his face has a rounder look than the blocky style that Jack eventually lands on. We also get some early uniform design as "King" Kirby is still working on what the teams look will be.
It is a great starting point for our walk through Jack' s art in our Kirby Corner.
All in all I give this book a:
Score 8 out of 10
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