Here’s Day Four of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, and beginning the first full week of August means we also have a new theme this week: the Fantastic Four. And the first prompt is…the Fantastic Four?!
Since we also have separate prompts for each individual character coming up, I thought I might do a “before and after” thing, today being the “before” part of the equation. This was a moment with a lot of drama in their origin story, so I went with it. I always thought it was cool how Jack chose to render the cosmic rays as these sort of “lozenge” shapes. Kind of not all that threatening in themselves indivdually, but fearful because they’re an unknown, and there are so many of them!
I fully admit to appropriating the color scheme used in the original version, because why not? I thought it looked great, and it also kind of reminds me of the almost “pop art” coloring approach used in Alex Ross’ Fantastic Four: Full Circle (which in my opinion is the best version of these characters that I’ve seen in years!).
A note about the FF: while pretty much any Marvel book Jack had a hand in is worth a look, there are two absolutely essential titles he did at Marvel that I feel are the tentposts of his work there, which have to be taken into account when appraising that body of work. In them, you see not just an artist and storyteller working at the height of his craft, but you also get to see something of the man himself and his interests. Fantastic Four is one of those books. In it, you get to see Jack’s fascination with sci fi, the unknown, and with what might be out there. It’s a theme that runs through much of his work, and we got to see a bit of it previously in Challengers of the Unknown at DC.
I did say two titles, so I’m not going to hold you in suspense waiting days to hear the second one. It’s Journey into Mystery/Thor. That’s where you see Jack’s ongoing fascination with myths and legends, which runs throughout his career.
So who’s first up when we move to the individual members tomorrow? I’m not going to spoil that. You’ll just have to check in and see!
I actually had to find a copy of FF #1 to revisit the cosmic ray scene. The rays certainly were big and blobby. A 13 page introductory story beginning pulls us right into the room. I have to say I had forgotten the anti-commie motivation leading to the the blast off. I remember science alone being the driving force. Not politics. But the “Cuban Missile Crisis” was in the time period. My memory failed me, apparently. But how quickly the story moves from politics to Mole Man in the snap of the fingers.
Your capturing of that moment in time is stellar! Oops. The hurdle I always had a tough time with is Ben being stuck forever. I found that sad.
Thanks Mark
I must admit that I often miss the efficient, no-nonsense way that a lot of comics stories used to be told. 13 pages, and all the critical info was there! I suspect today, this would be padded out to take at least six issues, so as to fill a trade paperback.
Young as I was, I do remember there being at least an undercurrent of concern in the space program over the idea of Russia making it to the moon first. It makes sense that it would be part of this story, coming out when it did (I’m not sure of the exact timing, but it might well have come out on the heels of President Kennedy’s speech about, “We choose to go to the moon!”).
For All Mankind does a great job of playing on that very idea, of Russia landing on the moon first, and how history might have developed differently from that point forward.
The tragic aspect of the Thing is one of those unique aspects to the character, yet often creators seem to forget that tragic element.