Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 1 (New Printing)

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There’s also an otherwise uncollected Lee/Kirby strip, concocted from storyboards Kirby produced for the animated FF show, presented in the twentieth anniversary issue. His Fantastic Four run is famous, but he was also the man tasked with revamping the Man of Steel following the relaunch of Superman in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths. John Byrne was largely responsible for making the Fantastic Four a must read title during the 1980's. His run can be a little uneven and overly quirky for some readers, but I had a heck of a time with it. We’ve been reading about these characters for over two-hundred issues, so it’s easy to take these things for granted.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, I’m taking a look at some of the stories featuring the characters over the past half-century. The earliest stories are a bit too heavy on monsters and aliens, a carry-over from the pre-Marvel Atlas comics days. The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide doesn't care where you've been, where you're going or where you're located. Read more about the seller notes “VG+/VG+ 2nd edition 1st printing 2013 Marvel hardback omnibus, unclipped DJ, high quality edition. With its dynamic, clear storytelling and steps at innovations (for its time), this run of issues truly merits this deluxe edition.A monarch without subjects, he swore vengeance on humanity and attacked New York City with a gigantic monster. The book was never as popular as it was during that initial run, and has gradually slipped further away from the centre of Marvel’s publishing line. Fantastic notices a weird energy source somewhere, the Four quickly goes there, there is something odd in the place and soon they are kicking and punching aliens. Additionally, they weren’t professional superheroes, as the Avengers were – so Byrne drew their uniforms as if they were actual clothes, rather than skintight costumes. Later on, we join the second-half of a crossover with Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, without the first chapter included.

All that said, Byrne does some very strong work with some of the characters here, with the biggest beneficiary by far being Susan Richards (not yet ditching the "Invisible Girl" codename; that would have to wait for later in Byrne's run). Byrne was arguably one of the truly iconic powerhouse comic book creators of the eighties and nineties. The internet has not been kind to Byrne, with a large majority of his work being ignored or readily-trashed, regardless of how it might have been received upon publication.When Byrne refers to Galactus as a “brother” of Death, I fail to see how defeating Galactus is any different from an attempt to cure cancer. Even after his run ended, I kept reading because he made the FF feel like a family, and I genuinely cared about all of them.

Still, it does help explain how Sue becomes pregnant with their second child, which is part of this Omnibus. One gets the sense that Byrne loved the Fantastic Four a particular way, and that he feels a need to defend that era against certain criticisms that have been made of it. Back in the 'sixties finding copies of marvel comics for sale here in the UK proved difficult - as a result I had only read a few of these stories.

It seems strange then, that Reed is so impartial on Galactus of all things – something that would come back to bite him in the butt in The Trial of Galactus, which we’ll discuss next time around. The Skrull infestation of King’s Crossing has absolutely no long-term negative effects for the residents – only good ones! As the X-Men emerged as Marvel’s cornerstone franchise, the Fantastic Four were still looking to find a footing. I think that this is where Byrne’s run really works best, in reevaluating and restoring the team’s position within the wider Marvel Universe, trying to contextualise them decades after they were introduced, when the world has truly changed.

Superman, Byrne takes to opportunity to use the alien to propose his own sci-fi theories about the source Superman‘s powers, which he would officially incorporate into his Man of Steel relaunch as “self-telekinesis. This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue – we really have no awareness today of how different in tone, how shocking it all was. It’s generally regarded to be one of the better comic book runs of the eighties, alongside Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Walt Simonson’s Thor, but it’s also widely regarded as the best run on Marvel’s flagship family since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby finished their record-setting run establishing both the series and the shared Marvel Universe. The Skrulls from Outer Space’ were shape-changing aliens who framed the FF in the eyes of shocked humanity before the genius of Mister Fantastic bluffed them into abandoning their plans for conquering Earth. Les fantastiques de la grande époque, ma préférée comme celle de beaucoup d'adolescents dans les années 80, celle de John Byrne !At the age of eleven I got into the fantastic four as I watched the first hanna Barbara episodes on channel 4.