You are wrong about Fantastic Four | Opinion

It's time to make a weird admission: for a long time, I hated Fantastic Four. Like, I really didn't like them, I didn't get it. I legit wondered "who buys this" and was baffled that the book had stayed in, mostly, continuous publication. Granted a lot of these feelings were when I was very young, but still: they were my feelings, and I was validated by culture at large seeing the FF as "hokey" and "lame," and the fact that they hadn't had a decent movie in... well, ever really.

I used to be amazed to learn that Fantastic Four used to be Marvel's top-selling title, way back when. That The Thing was their most marketable character, akin to Wolverine before he came out. That just didn't make sense to me.

Still, in my downtime, I like reading through old comics on Marvel Unlimited. A few years ago I read every issue of X-Men and it's spin-offs in order to the then-present, over 5,000 books. Some might say I'm crazy for doing that, some might call me a nerd, you're both right, but mostly I like not having to choose what to read in the evening. I know what I'm reading: the next issue.

Then a few years back I really got into Silver Surfer, right around the pandemic. That's it's own post, but that was a bit of a gateway drug. Surfer is, after all, a Fantastic Four spinoff. Still, I rushed through any issues of Fantastic Four I needed to keep up with what the Surfer was doing. I read them, but begrudgingly.

So I don't know what possessed me, last year, to embark on a new reading challenge: reading all of Fantastic Four like I had X-Men. Granted that's a much smaller "ask" than X-Men, barely 1,000 issues compared to their 5,000, but still, an undertaking. I'm not sure why I did it. Part of it was that the new movies was being advertised, some of it was that reviewers I respected spoke lovingly of certain eras, but mostly... mostly I just wanted to see if I could figure out what I wasn't getting.

For the first little while I was jumping around, reading where I wanted. I was intrigued by a run between issues 380-395 where the Thing's face was scarred, mostly because Wolverine had done it, and coming off reading X-Men it was interesting to see him portrayed as more of a villain. I read the John Byrne run and loved it and knew I would, because I always like the writing of Byrne, regardless of title or genre, so that was a great entry point. I read some modern FF, and was surprised to find a character I've come to love as one of my top ten favorite characters in all of fiction: Valeria Richards. There's something about the super-smart four-year-old daughter of Reed and Sue that grabs at my heartstrings. At once a child and the smartest person in the room.

And the struggle of her origins, that she was thought to be a failed pregnancy that was saved decades later due to time-travel... that meant a lot to me. That was a massive moment right when I needed it, and it formed an emotional bond with that character. It gave hope in a fictional world when the real world wasn't offering any.

But I still avoided the initial 130 issues, those written by Lee and Kirby. I just couldn't get into them. They were so silly. Everyone acted like children. The Thing would just have tantrums and smash up cars and buildings. Everyone assaulted each other. There didn't seem to be any concern except whose emotions were out of control. So many plots hinge on who Johnny Storm is pining after immaturely. Sexism runs rampant.

And somewhere, I'm not sure where, something clicked. They reminded me of something. And it wasn't Spider-Man or X-Men... it was Heathcliff.

For those who don't know, Heathcliff and Garfield and others used to have adventure comics, closer in tone to Archie comics back in the day. These were squarely aimed at children and would feature Heathcliff and his owner going on very stereotypical fantasy adventures: Heathcliff visits a haunted house. Heathcliff looks for sunken treasure. You get the idea. And I read those as a child and loved them at the same time I avoided Fantastic Four for doing the same thing... why?

Because when I picked up an issue of Heathcliff visits a Haunted House, I wasn't expecting it to be Spider-Man, I was expecting it to be "a romp with Heathcliff. In a haunted house." And I got what I wanted. But when I picked up Fantastic Four visiting a haunted house, I expected it to be Spider-Man.

I came to the realization that my own expectations were getting in my way. Spider-Man and X-Men both share a tone to their books, and for a long time they were the most popular comics on shelves. Not Marvel comics, comics in general. As a result their tone permeated the industry: that tone became the tone. Books that came out when I was young shared that tone, books like Darkhawk and New Warriors. And I realize now I judged books that strayed from that tone. Why was Namor so serious? And why was Fantastic Four so silly?

As the years went on, I came to appreciate differences in tone. I love that Marvel produces Deadpool, a light comedy toned book that still takes place in the same universe. I love that it makes serious dramas like Alias/Jessica Jones and isn't afraid to put them on the rack alongside the Avengers. I love that they make young-readers focused titles like Power Pack, and that all of that is in the same world.

... and I realized that even though I knew Marvel could have different tones and that I appreciated it's different tones, that for some reason I was expecting Fantastic Four to be the tone of Spider-Man. And that it wasn't, and never was.

And man, once I started reading early Fantastic Four expecting it to be of a tone with those children's adventures stories like Heathcliff, Garfield, and Power Pack? Bam. Suddenly I could enjoy it for what it was, not what I had expected it to be. If anything, it made me kind of soften on arcs I'd previously championed, like the Mark Miller run on the title. Now those super-serious tales seemed like a betrayal, removing FF from the corner of Marvel it had helped create.

It's an interesting idea, one I've long championed, to reflect on media that you don't like and ask what in you prevents that, rather than what's in the book. It took me so long to do that with FF, but I'm glad I did. If you've been on the fence, I say give it a shot.

Just go in with the right expectations.