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Fantastic Four #511 (SPOILERS)

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:43 / 17.03.04

Okay, now this is ridiculous.

I mean, I've been digging Waid's run on FF as much as the next guy, but I was not expecting an issue as great as this one.

It's the conclusion to the Afterlife story and so they're in heaven, right, and so they save Ben Grimm, right, and then they wrangle a meeting with the Almighty, right?

And, what do you know, it really is Jack Kirby.

And it works like gangbusters. It's quite a beautiful love letter to The King and to Super-Hero comics in general.

Classic in every sense of the word.

FinderWolf

15:00 / 17.03.04

I'm very psyched for this. Waid's first arcs were pretty good with ocassional moments of greatness, but this recent arc has been very very strong and innovative throughout, with terrific character moments that really define (and redefine) the FF. Looking forward to picking this issue up tonight!

Alex's Grandma

17:01 / 18.03.04

To reiterate: SPOILERS

Mm. I don't know. The Jack Kirby reference did, admittedly, go right over my head, but even so, didn't this feel like a bit of a cop-out ? As well as Animal Man 25 re-heated, warmed-over, and nothing like as well done ? It would have been fine to have torn down the third/fourth wall if that had been been the point of where it was logically heading, the story so far, ( and it has been excellent, no arguments there, ) but to have, say, the problem of Reed Richard's injuries solved... just like that, when they've been the whole bleeding point of the last ten issues... Just seemed a bit slack, a bit, you know " and then they woke up, and it had all been a dream, " a bit like Mark Waid's finally run out of ideas.

Nah.

Well yeah, but I just think The Fantastic Four is the wrong place to start challenging the ontological categories of the Marvel universe.

Captain America, on the other hand... now that might be interesting, he'd have to deal with a re-vamped version of the Cosmic Cube, as opposed to just beating the shit out of " terr'is " analogues, he'd have face up to the fact that he was largely imaginary, and then get into a fight with the " god " that wrote him, that druggy beatnik freak...

That said, if this isn't Mark Waid's last Fantastic Four ever ( and I don't know either way, ) I will admit to being fairly hellishly interested in where he's going with it next, so...

raelianautopsy

23:16 / 18.03.04

To be fair to any allegations that Waid is ripping off Morrison's Animal Man, I would just like to point out that this idea has been done a few times before.

John Byrne's comedic She-Hulk had her knowing she was a fictional character, and I seem to recall a What If? issue where Rogue discovered the "ultimate secret of the Marvel Universe" that they were just comic books.

Also, the Illuminatus Trilogy had the overtones of charecters reading their own book and a computer controlling reality by writing the book that was their lives. Or something like that, I haven't read it in a while.

So this idea has been done before. As far as I know Grant Morrison was the first to use it for super-hero comics (and did a damn good job with the Animal Man climax). But I also liked Mark Waid's reality-questioning in this new Fantastic Four issue too.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

00:45 / 19.03.04

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby tried to get into the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards, but were blocked at the door.

THAT was really cool along the same lines.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:20 / 19.03.04

Doctor Doom launched an attack from the Marvel offices back in the JacknStan days. John Byrne attended the Trail of Galactus personally. And Peter David moonlighted as a priest to officiate at Rick Jones wedding.

Gary Lactus

19:42 / 19.03.04

Yeah, that early Jack, Stan and Doom issue is amazing. Didn't know about them trying to get into the wedding though, those cheeky scamps.

So, Jolly Jack Kirby rules heaven. When Sizzlin' Stan Lee finally trancends to the Mavel Universe will he restore the cosmic balance in hell?

Jack Fear

01:32 / 20.03.04

What, does nobody remember the Flash's "cosmic treadmill" and his visit to the DC Bullpen?

Eskay Doss

04:28 / 20.03.04

Wasn't Jack Kirby also God or somesuch in an issue of Alan Moore's SUPREME?

Joetheneophyte

07:50 / 20.03.04

I am after that second Supreme graphic novel but none of the local shops have got it. I will probably order it today when I go into town

Loved Supreme the Story of the Year

excellent and warmed my silver age bollocks quite nicely

Loved the Supreme bots....the super dog......all the great hokey Superman stuff that Byrne got rid of

(I am weird, I actually liked Byrne's Woner Woman run and I loved the Clone saga in Spiderman ..... I would have loved the creativity involved with keeping Ben Reilly as the true Spiderman ....but for me Marvel took the easy route and restored the status quo.....that said it was a universally hated story so what do I know!!!!!)

FinderWolf

19:25 / 22.03.04

>> didn't this feel like a bit of a cop-out ? As well as Animal Man 25 re-heated, warmed-over, and nothing like as well done ?

I felt torn on this as well. (back to discussing FF here) I loved the fun, nostalgia and cool faux-spirituality of it all, but the whole 'erasing Reed's fucked-up facial scars' seemed a bit abrupt and too easy. What will they think when they come back to earth? They'll never remember that he had the scars in the first place? It just seems a little too "i'm a writer who wrote myself into a corner and came up with this deus ex machina solution." BUT, as deus ex machina solutions go, this one was pretty cool. It sort of didn't work for me, but at the same time, it did.

FinderWolf

14:25 / 22.04.04

Just to let you all know, the new FF is really, really fun. Human Torch & Spidey action, great fun with the Sue/Namor tension. I wasn't psyched enough about this issue to do a new thread, but just wanted to say this is a darn good comic book.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:31 / 22.04.04

Yeah. That opening sequence was so fantastic. And they got the old logo back! I just noticed! Goood Boook.

Gary Lactus

18:26 / 22.04.04

Agreed. Picked this month's up after reading last month's. It is good. I love the Four.

Axolotl

15:09 / 26.04.04

I really liked this. Far lighter in tone than the previous storylines but really well done.

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