Fantastic Four in 1963
The Fantastic Four, specifically, and the nascent Marvel universe, generally, embraced its now-winning formula in 1963. The result, for the Fantastic Four in this stage appears to be little more than monster-of-the-week and overuse of a couple admittedly cool villains.
The #15 appearance of The Mad Thinker feels like little more than the aforementioned monster-of-the-week shenanigans. There is also the matter of sheer overuse of Doctor Doom, who sees several appearances this year. Yes, I get it: Doom is awesome. But there is a such thing as too much, as with Magneto effectively wallpapering much of the X-Men’s early years. Taken altogether, it’s not a terribly pretty sight for a comic series that dropped a new paradigm on the sequential storytelling.
The Rama-Tut issue (#19) was the obligatory lame issue of the year, potentially even weaker than #21’s surprise villain. I suppose issue #19 is some importance, but only in retrospect and only in the context of a certain villain. This doesn’t add value to the borefest, though.
Overall, the series overall seems stagnant in 1963. Things will, of course, be changing very soon, though…
It’s not all a loss for the year, though. Ant-man and the Hulk make appearances this year, which earn points for expressing the concept of the shared Marvel universe. Granted, the strategy may simply be to cross-pollinate and sell more issues of new books, but the point stands nonetheless. The Watcher’s appearance also portends to something larger.
I’m going to be critical of the FF for this year, simply because I know that the series is capable of higher heights.
Issues: Fantastic Four v1 010-021, Annual 001
Grade: 6
