Okay, so the FF comic books today are garbage. Complete garbage. And maybe they've been complete garbage for quite a while. At least since the late 1980s.
But today is the 50th Anniversary of the comic book that changed all comic books for all time. No hyperbole. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby redefined superheroes forever, in one clumsy and primitive (to our modern eyes) effort. Within a year of their inception, the FF comic was sporting "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine" on the cover, and it wasn't a bait and switch. By the third year, the book was the best cultural example of superhero comics ever put to bristol board.
Jack Kirby, the artist, essentially unleashed a for-reals universe of the most amazing images ever captured in comic books. Stan Lee put the words in the mouths of characters, most notably the tragic Ben Grimm aka The Thing, who would gruffly inform a generation or two about how to deal with being a monster on the outside, a determined and loyal man on the inside.
It's funny, if you think about it, and only I probably do, the Fantastic Four is kind of the continuation of "Jonny Quest", the sizzling ultra-cool 1960s animated show. Even though it came out two years after the FF, I just now made a connection: "Jonny Quest" followed Professor Benton Quest, his plucky son Jonny, Jonny's kid buddy West Indian Hadji, and Race Bannon, the two-fisted protector of all of them. They get into odd adventures with all kinds of weird menaces and unusual phenomenon.
The Fantastic Four is made up of Professor Reed Richards, his plucky step-brother Johnny Storm, eye-candy Susan Storm Richards, and two-fisted protector of them all, Ben Grimm. Johnny even has an American Indian buddy, Wyatt Wingfoot.
I'm postulating here that THE FANTASTIC FOUR is the continuation of the story of Jonny Quest. In this universe, Prof Quest and Race Bannon, years after the events of the original cartoon, were determined to strike out into space. Preferably before the Russians. Manned missions. Prof is married (again, one assumes) by this time, and Jonny Quest is a teenager of about sixteen. Prof's wife Susan insists on joining her husband in his space mission. She is even the catalyst to bring Race Bannon fully onto the project, as Bannon has some serious objections to the flight.
In the end, the brilliant Prof Quest is wrong: the rocket into space did not have enough shielding. And the cosmic rays bombarded the craft, and changed the crew forever.
Once crash-landed back on Earth, Susan Storm fades away before the mens' horrified stares, seemingly to melt into nothingness. Then she returns, whole and shaken to the core, from a moment of "invisibility."
Race Bannon and Prof begin to argue, once again, over the danger and the unknown results. Race transforms into a monster with orange dinosaur hide for skin and enough mass to rip a tree out of the ground and attack his longtime friend. Prof finds himself able to elongate his limbs, lassoing the shocked mutate.
Finally, Jonny Quest tears at his space suit, burning from within, until flames burst forth and he lifts weightlessly into the air. To fly, burning, disbelieving and yet, somehow, strangely elated. The plucky teen, of all of them, senses the new life, the new adventure, beginning for all of them. That Race, his mentor and father figure, had been scarred forever as a misshapen Thing, a reminder to all of them of the sacrifice heroes sometimes made for a better world, probably did not occur to Jonny Quest.
No, it was the beginning of something unimaginable. Which Jonny had been waiting for, no, born for. He could not help but infect the others, even Race in his tragic state, with a sense of wonderment.
Fifty years later? An eyeblink in the cosmic tale of the Fantastic Four.
Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.
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