Where It All Began!
We start our journey, not surprisingly, with Fantastic Four #1:
There’s a lot to like about this cover. It’s a “welcome” to a new series. It introduces all the main characters, both visually and with expository dialogue that hints at the essence (such as it was) of each character. It shows a villain. It has ACTION! Plus some poor, anonymous, defenseless people at the outskirts (more on them in a moment).
What’s interesting about this cover is how accurately it foreshadows the relatively thin reed (no pun intended) of character each FF member will depend on at the outset of the series. Let’s look at them each in turn:
SUSAN STORM, a/k/a THE INVISIBLE GIRL
Powers
Invisibility
Force fields (later on)
Exclaiming, “Oh, Reed!”
The Invisible Girl is shown helpless despite her ability to turn invisible. This is a familiar circumstance for poor Sue Storm. Her powers, while cool, are clearly the lamest of the four, at least at the outset of the series. But there’s more going on here. The others are all confident in their abilities to overcome their foe. But poor Sue is just scared and unable to cope. Sadly, she will be shackled with this problem for some time. The Ham Taco is rooting for her.
JOHNNY STORM, a/k/a THE HUMAN TORCH>
Powers
Flight
Precision-controlled flame
Uttering catchphrase that, viewed in retrospect, is awkward
The Human Torch is portrayed here as a cocky jackass. He remains a cocky jackass for most of the series. I still haven’t seen the FF movie because I don’t think my delicate sensibilities could withstand hearing an actual human shout, “Flame On!”.
BEN GRIMM, a/k/a THE THING
Powers
Strength
Toughness
Limitless self-pity
The Thing looks here like he has no skin. He actually does have skin. We know that because he never stops complaining about how ugly it looks. He isn’t even happy when he gets a hot blind girlfriend who doesn’t care about his appearance. Strangely, even though he’s self-conscious, he does most of his superhero work wearing nothing but briefs.
REED RICHARDS, a/k/a MR. FANTASTIC
Powers
Elasticity and stretchability
Rubbery resilience
Impervious to efforts to dye his gray spots
Finally, here’s Mr. Fantastic. He’s tied up at the moment. (That’s right. I went there.) It’s not clear how this giant mindless monster bursting from the ground was able to rope up a super-flexible genius superhero. Not to mention the fact that Mr. F can squeeze himself through friggin’ keyholes just a few issues down the road, making it hard to understand how some simple ropes could detain him for even a split second. But he’s got bravado here, and that’s all he needs!
Finally, back to those defenseless people:
DEFENSELESS PEOPLE
Powers
Crouching
Cowering
Stumbling
Interesting bunch here. We appear to have Street Fighter villain M. Bison at the corner in the upper left, practicing his technique and wondering whether to enter the fray. We have green man, brown man, and gold-human-torch-look-alike man, all in varying degrees of distress. We have woman-with-a-purse, who we’ll see again during the Kirby era. And finally, we have a fire hydrant that either was missed by the colorist or was an errant target of the Invisible Girl.
All in all, particularly in the context of 1961, this was a heck of a cover, despite its snicker-worthy features viewed from a very sage 2006 standpoint.
More on this milesone issue to follow!
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