The Best Marvel Annual: Fantastic Four 1

MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE COMIC ANNUAL IS AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 1, which I covered here nine years ago. But running it a close second is the first Fantastic Four Annual.

My second favourite Marvel Comics annual.

On the newsstands in the U.S. on 3 Sep 1963, this is Marvel's fifth 25-cent annual (tying with Patsy and Hedy Annual 1) although, as noted in my earlier post, DC had been pumping out reprint 25-centers from mid-1960 onwards. It features the sixth Silver Age appearance of Namor the Sub-Mariner in an epic-length clash with the entire human race, and is almost all-new material.

Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner was reintroduced during the Silver Age in Fantastic Four 4 (May 1962), then returned in issues 6 (Sep 1962), 9 (Dec 1962) and 14 (May 1963), making a sidebar appearance in Strange Tales 107 (Apr 1963) along the way.

It's interesting that editor Stan Lee decided to go with the Sub-Mariner for the first FF annual rather than Doctor Doom (who would be the antagonist for the following year's annual) but it's likely that Stan felt Namor's backstory allowed for more spectacle than the still under-developed Doctor Doom.

With much pageant and heraldry, Namor arrives in the newly-restored Atlantis for his own coronation, though we never get to find out just how The Sub-Mariner was able to track down his people.

And spectacular it is, opening with a vista of the restored kingdom of Atlantis, and its blue-skinned inhabitants back in their rightful abode. But wait ... hasn't Namor been searching for his lost people since Fantastic Four 4? Yet Stan and Jack choose to gloss over the reunion, merely mentioning it in a caption box on page 2 - "The mighty Sub-Mariner has finally found his long-lost undersea kingdom." It's a bit of a missed opportunity, but I can see why Jack would want to get straight into the action.

Probably Jack Kirby's first double page spread for Marvel Comics, the two pages look to have been drawn separately, as they don't quite match up in the way a single drawing would. Pretty cool all the same.

So, in order to demonstrate himself worthy to lead the Atlanteans in their battle against the surface people, Namor incites some of his pet sea monsters to start harassing the shipping lanes of the Atlantic. By sheer coincidence, it's exactly at this time that Reed Richards decides the team needs a holiday, and books them on to a restful sea cruise, with one eye on investigating the strange goings on across the world's oceans.

Investigating the appearance of sea monsters, the FF's rowing boat is captured inside an organic air-sac and dragged to the bottom of the ocean. If only Sue Storm had been able to throw a force field round them ... but she wouldn't get that power until Fantastic Four 22 (Jan 1964).

We don't have to wait long until the monsters show up and the FF take to a small boat to investigate. This was one of the problems I have with Jack's plotting details. Nobody in their right mind would go after a sea monster in a rowing boat ... except maybe for Captain Ahab ... oh, wait. Of course, they're easily captured by Namor, who simply insists they present his demands to the United Nations and he'll leave the surface people alone. And with that, he uses one of his implausible undersea contraptions to hurl them back to New York.

The origin sequence, narrated by "Dr G W Falton", is the first mention in the Marvel Age of the idea that Namor is a mutant. I'd argue against that, as Namor is the  result of combining two different sets of genes, rather than having slightly altered DNA to his parents.

Reed loses no time in setting up a special session at the UN and invited speaker Dr G. W. Falton offers a capsule history of Atlantis and the origin of the Sub-Mariner. Quite how he knows so much about Namor and his people isn't called into question. So it's not a massive surprise when the true identity of Dr Falton is revealed.

If Reed's supposed to be able to squeeze his entire body through the tiniest pinhole, I'm not convinced now that heavy equipment falling on him would hurt him in any way. A No-Prize is on offer if you can explain it to me.

Prince Namor must have been expecting the meeting at the UN to go badly, as he has his troops standing by in New York harbour for immediate deployment. With the element of surprise it's only a matters of hours before the Atlanteans are in control of Manhattan. And before the Fantastic Four can formulate an effective response, Reed is injured while preparing a device to combat Namor and his troops. Luckily, Reed just about managed to complete the device and Ben and Johnny know where the On switch is.

With his armies driven back into the sea, Namor tries to take on the FF alone. But even his power isn't enough and he resorts to escape instead, taking Sue Storm with him. 

The effect is immediate and devastating. Namor's troops are deprived of their life-giving water and are forced to abandon the battle and return to the sea. Now the FF just have The Sub-Mariner himself to deal with. Taking the fight to the Baxter Building, Namor goes a few rounds with the FF members until, outclassed, he's also forced to flee back to open waters, but he takes a hostage with him. Quite literally hot on his heels, The Human Torch gives chase while Ben and Reed get the experimental U-Car ready to follow.

The fighting is brought to a halt when the Fantastic Three and Namor realise that Sue Storm's life is in danger.

While Namor battles the FF above the waves, below aboard the Atlantean flagship, Sue Storm's presence has sparked rivalries and jealousies. Lady Dorma, realising that Namor and Sue have feelings each other floods the ship with seawater. Interestingly, it's Warlord Krang who seems concerned for Sue's safety. By the time the Atlanteans next appeared (in Fantastic Four 33, Dec 1964), Dorma is a more sympathetic character.

The various plotlines are wrapped up in a very hurried fashion, as though Jack Kirby saw the 37th page cantering up and had to squeeze what should have been four or five pages into two. The story might have been better served by dropping a couple of the pinups.

Not surprisingly, Sue almost drowns unnoticed by the combatants above, until Ben spots her trapped in kelp at the seabed. Their grudge-fest momentarily forgotten, the two combine forces to free The Invisible Girl and bring her to the surface. Over the FF's objections, The Sub-Mariner orders his people off the Atlantean flagship and hastens to deliver Sue Storm to a New York hospital for the proper medical attention. And that's pretty much it.

What seemed at the time like an epic, widescreen spectacular, doesn't seem to hold up quite so well today. With my reading of it for this blog entry, it definitely has Jack Kirby's plotting fingerprints all over it and isn't terribly well-structured.

Breaking it down, it goes like this:

Scene 1 - Namor in a restored Atlantis (4 pgs)

Scene 2 - Horseplay in the Baxter Building, Reed mentions the sea monster sightings (4 pgs)

Scene 3 - The FF take a cruise, see the Monsters, take off after them in rowboat (2 pgs)

Scene 4 - FF Captured by Namor, who orders them to present his demands to the UN, then frees them (3 pgs)

Scene 5 - At the UN, expert "G W Falton" lectures on the origins of Namor and Atlantis and is revealed to be Namor (6 pgs)

Scene 6 - Namor's army invades and takes NY, Reed uses a super weapon to drive them back to the sea (6 pgs)

Scene 7 - Now alone, Namor grabs Sue and returns to Atlantis (2 pgs)

Scene 8 - FF follow and give battle, Sue is injured (7 pgs)

Scene 9 - Namor rushes Sue to NY for medical treatment but is gone by the time Reed catches up (3 pgs)

It's only my opinion, but I think Scenes 3 and 4 just slow the story down. I'd rather have seen the FF investigating in the Fantastic-Car, perhaps having a battle with one of the sea monsters. As it is Namor captures them a bit easily, and then releases them with a message for the UN. Why not just address the UN himself? Why the folderol of posing as an "eminent" expert (who no one's heard of) to tell the story of Atlantis? It would have been more powerful if Namor had told it as himself. And Scene 9 could have used another couple of pages to show us that Namor has saved Sue Storm but lost his kingdom, rather than glossing over that big event in a caption box.

I think Stan left Jack too much on his own with this one, and by the time the art showed up in the Bullpen, it was too late for do-overs.

THE EXTRAS

One of the funnest parts of these old Silver Age annuals is the extras Stan would throw in, something we never got in the DC Annuals. And this one is no exception. We get 11 pinups of old foes, three pages explaining the FF's powers and a schematic of the Baxter Building, a bonus retelling of Spider-Man meeting the Fantastic Four from Amazing Spider-Man 1, all rounded out with the first 13 pages of Fantastic Four 1 for any latecomers.

As a listing of what had gone before, these pinups might be interesting to some newer readers, but they don't give much insight into what any of these foes were capable of ... they don't tell the story. An opportunity missed. Click to enlarge.

The pinups are okay, but look a bit like Jack Kirby knocked them off in a single day. I was never the sort of kid who ripped out pinups and stuck them on the wall. Also the pinups here didn't all have ads on the other side, so you'd be faced with some tough choices about which side to display.

What struck me in looking at this handy-dandy guide to the Fantastic Four and their skyscraper HQ is how the characters and set up owe quite a bit to the team dynamics of the pulp characters Doc Savage and his team.

Much more entertaining to me were the two pages explaining the powers of the Fantastic Four and the guide to the Baxter Building. What did occur to me when revisiting these pages was just how much the FF draws upon Doc Savage and his band for inspiration. It's especially apparent when you compare the Baxter Building to Doc's HQ on the 86th floor of "Manhattan's tallest building", which also had express elevators, science labs, a library and living quarters.

While Doc Savage had other companions he relied on - Renny, Johnny and Long Tom - Ham and Monk were by far the most popular, constantly insulting and playing tricks on each other. Though Pat was often seen as a "pest" by Doc, she was every bit as capable as the others.

It's easy to match scientific genius/inventor Reed Richards to Doc Savage. Doc's most popular companions, Monk and Ham, appeared in more adventures than any other team members and just like Ben and Johnny, were constantly "friendly feuding". Pat Savage was Doc's cousin and often invited herself along on Doc's adventures. Both Ham and Monk thought she was a "peach", though Doc felt that dangerous adventures were no pastime for a female.

The Kult of Kirby have long claimed that the case for Jack being the sole creator of the FF can be proved by how similar The Fantastic Four are to Challengers of the Unknown (actually a Simon & Kirby creation). In my view the characterisations of Reed Richards' band of heroes are much closer to Doc Savage's team, which neither Stan nor Jack have claimed any close affinity to.

In Amazing Spider-Man 1, the second story pit Spidey against the forgettable Chameleon. But in there somewhere, he tried to apply for membership in the FF ... and we all know how that turned out.

Another interesting feature is this annual was a re-telling of the FF's first encounter with Spider-Man, which originally happened in the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man (Mar 1963), occupied barely three pages.

Rather than simply re-using some of the panels from Amazing Spider-Man 1, Kirby redrew almost exact copies of much of the art, reworked slightly to fit in to the expanded continuity.

For the Annual, Stan and Jack expanded the scene to six pages and Ditko was drafted in as inker to give the art some visual continuity, probably because Kirby's Spider-Man was never terribly convincing.

While Ditko's inking helps with the Spider-Man figures, I don't think his work over Kirby's pencils is especially good. He did a better job on FF 13 a few months earlier, but still wasn't getting The Thing's hide right.

I had speculated in an earlier blog entry that this retelling was a substitute for another six-page Spider-Man/Human Torch encounter which ended up in Amazing Spider-Man 8 (Jan 1964). But in retrospect, this no longer seems plausible. The key evidence is the Job Numbers, which I admit I never thought to check before.

The Job Number for the six-page "The Fabulous Fantastic Four Meet Spider-Man" in the FF Annual is X-344. This is consistent with the other Job Numbers we can see in the Annual:

• X-324 - "The Sub-Mariner vs the Human Race", main story
• X-343 - Questions and Answers About the Fantastic Four
• X-206 - The Mad Thinker Pinup

The story in Amazing Spider-Man 8, "Spider-Man Tackles The Torch" was likely created some considerable time later, as its Job Number is X-529.

The Mad Thinker pinup Job Number is quite a bit adrift from the others, and was probably created right after Kirby finished up on Fantastic Four 15 ("The Fantastic Four Battle The Mad Thinker and his Android of Doom", Jun 1963), as that story has a Job Number of X-191, and several weeks before he started on the FF Annual in earnest. I note that the Job Number on Fantastic Four 17 (Aug 1963) is X-315, and for Fantastic Four 18 (Sep 1963) it's X-361, so Kirby would handed in the art for the FF Annual in right between those two FF issues.

And finally, the reprint of the first 13 pages of Fantastic Four 1. Except that it's not just a reprint. As often happened with the evolving appearances of characters in the Marvel Silver Age, just doing a straight reprint would probably have confused readers a little.

Above left: Dragoom from Strange Tales 76. Centre: The Human Torch as he appeared in the original printing of Fantastic Four 1. Above right: The Torch as depicted - altered by Sol Brodsky - in the reprint of FF1 published in FF Annual 1.

Back in Fantastic Four 1, The Human Torch was a shapeless mass of flame, not unlike the fire creature "Dragoom" in Strange Tales 76 (Aug 1960). Kirby had probably drawn him this way to look less like the original Human Torch from the 1940s' Timely Comics. But as the months went by, the look of Johnny Storm's flaming alter-ego changed quite quickly and by FF3 had become the red humanoid figure we're most familiar with. At the time Fantastic Four Annual 1 was published, the main FF title was already up to issue 17, and if Johnny's flame form had been left as is, most readers would be wondering who the fiery guy was and what happened to Johnny.

The Grand Comicbook Database notes that the figures of Reed and Ben were also updated, though after comparing the art in the Annual with that of other reprints of Fantastic Four 1 (no, I don't have the original) the depictions of Mr Fantastic and The Thing look identical.

Coming back and looking over Fantastic Four Annual 1 with fresh eyes, I think I may have been swayed by other historians in my assessment of it. I still don't think it's as good as Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1 (Sep 1964), and Fantastic Four Annual 3 (Sep 1965) might actually be more fun. As spectacular as the 37-page epic is, it's not without its problems in pacing and general storytelling. And the pinups, inked for the most part by Kirby himself, seem rushed and lacking in detail, though none of that would have bothered me when I first saw this annual around 1966.

The three other Marvel Annuals for 1963 - Millie was all new material; Strange Tales Annual 2 had an 18-page Torch/Spidey story pencilled by Kirby and the Patsy and Hedy Annual was all reprint, still a lot to manage on top of the regular titles.

That said, we should also consider what else was going on in 1963, a massive expansion year for the burgeoning Marvel Comics. Around the same time that Jack Kirby was working on the FF Annual, he was also crafting the first issues of The Avengers and The X-Men, issue 18 of Fantastic Four, Sgt Fury 3 and the Human Torch/Spider-Man cross-over for Strange Tales Annual 2. And although Stan had given him some respite by taking him off the Thor strip in Journey into Mystery for the mid-part of 1963, he still was expected to draw covers for that title, along with Kid Colt Outlaw, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and Two-Gun Kid. So, yes, some aspects of the Fantastic Four Annual may have looked a bit rushed, but not without good reason.

I still have a couple more Annuals on my list to look at, but that can wait until another time.

Next: Prototype, Schmototype