What will almost assuredly become know as “90s week at Multiversity” continues! Despite the immensely iconic nature of The Fantastic Four’s line-up, their roster has still fluctuated over the years as one or more of their members shifted through phases of dead, powerless, depressed or in love. However, for one particularly strange three issue adventure, the team was completely replaced by four other iconic Marvel characters in Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, The Hulk and Wolverine. This brief line-up became largely beloved over the years and are about to have a resurgence of sorts in the upcoming Venom Event. In honor of that, lets take a look back at the original debut and singular adventure of The New Fantastic Four from way back in Fantastic Four #s 347-349!
Click on down for all the yuk yuk!
While many would be hard pressed to really call this story a classic (since classic stories rarely go for $6.50 total when pulled out of a longbox in 2011), I first became enthralled with this line-up after their brief appearance almost 10 years later as part of the Ages of Apocalypse crossover and then largely forgot about then until the press conference for The Venom Event. Realizing I could probably easily find the three issue “era” of the team, I went to a charming LCBS (The Outer Limits in Waltham, MA) and five minutes later I was the owned of these charming and stunningly 90s Walt Simonson and Art Adams romp.
Coming in the twilight of Simonson’s run on the book (he left it five issues later), one might wonder if he expected this ragtag team to become as fondly remembered as they were after only three (two and a third, really) as a “team”, but if you look at the storied tradition of Marvel super hero teams, it is often the ones with the most surreal and unexpected line-ups that end up lasting the test of time (the original Defenders, anyone?) The storyline is also notable in that it proves just how versatile Simonson himself was as a writer as it took characters from wildly disparate parts of the Marvel Universe and with immensely different histories (Danny Ketch had been Ghost Rider for less than a year at this point) and made them work not only well together, but make their union make sense from a storytelling perspective.
These issues are also notably Adams ONLY three Fantastic Four issues’ and demonstrated what many would define as classic Adams featuring his signature approach to character design (that sorta blocky but still highly stylized facial expression) and some marvelous interpretations of some monstrous beasts (including the very first formal Fantastic Four villain). Given their overall quality it leads me to wonder what might have occurred had the duo been left on the book.
However the real draw to this story I feel has to be the absolute charm the comedic aspects give to it. As the cover to issue #347 proudly states, the book is “the world’s goofiest comic magazine” and while Justice League International probably put the book to shame around the time of its release in terms of sheer goof, the book still has the kind of family oriented quirk that made the book so beloved and really served to highly illustrate not only how close the FF were as a family (supporting cast included), but just how close knit and friendly the super hero community was at the time (including that old grump The Hulk).
Sure, team-ups still happen, but none have made them seem like a reunion of old friends quite like this book does. When you see an old friend on the street, the two of you go get coffee. When super heroes see and old friend on the street, they go beat up a giant monster. The jump in logic is not a hard one to make, but the added element of pseudo-humanity really drives this story. Despite the dire consequences surrounding their union, the New FF still seem to be having some fun together, and that feeling is infectious for the reader.
Overall, there is a very good reason why this “run” on the book is so fondly remembered. Quite simply, it wrote a book on how to portray lighthearted, compelling super heroics and ultimately proved to be a crown jewel in the already legendary careers of its creators. And it too can be yours for less than 7 bucks!
