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I almost passed on this TRUE BELIEVERS reprint of The FANTASTIC FOUR #357. After all, not only do I have the original issue I purchased back in 1991, but it's a fairly recent issue to boot. Wait a second - 1991? Wow, that's nearly 30 years in the past, in a whole other century, yet it seems like only 9 or 10 years ago that I first bought this ish, not the length of time that it actually is. Doesn't matter how often I find myself thinking like that, I never get used to it, and no doubt there'll be another reprint comic along soon that catches me off-guard like it's the very first time it's ever happened to me.
The good thing about this particular tale is that it 'undoes' one of the few story ideas by JOHN BYRNE that I was never very keen on - JOHNNY STORM marrying ALICIA MASTERS, BEN GRIMM's former girlfriend. For the most part, I'm a big fan of what the 'Byrnester' did on the FF, but this wasn't one of them. TOM DeFALCO came up with a neat way of pressing the reset button and restoring the former status quo to MARVEL's first family. And I should say that the late, lamented PAUL RYAN probably drew the sexiest version of SUSAN STORM RICHARDS in the history of the mag, though I don't much like the hairstyle he's given her in this mag's interior.
Never mind, even the mighty JACK KIRBY cocked-up on that score for part of his run on the title, so nobody's perfect. Anyway, if you've never read this issue, it'll fill a wee gap in your collection without breaking the bank, so consider buying a copy as soon as you can! (There's evidence of vertical 'seam-joins' on some pages, but it shouldn't spoil your enjoyment too much, if at all.)
This is an era of the FF that mostly passed me by- I bowed out when Walt Simonson left. Always liked Paul Ryan's work though, he was a very traditional Marvel style artist, a kind of Romita/Buscema mix.
ReplyDeleteApparently Mr Ryan (who I believe passed away far too young) was a very snappy dresser, always wearing a three-piece suit when he visited the Marvel offices.
I wasn't too keen on Simonson's version of FF and missed quite a few issues, DS, but Ryan pulled me back in, probably because of the way he drew Sue. (I don't just mean that he gave her a hot bod, but he also gave her an attractive face.) That's probably the one thing I wasn't keen on with Byrne's art; he drew women with large eyes and overly-thin necks they all looked like teenagers, if not younger. It lessened a bit when Sinnott took over the inking, but, generally, I was never too impressed by his women.
ReplyDeleteAlways thought Byrne drew Captain America's ladyfriend Bernie a little too cartoonishly, with really big eyes.
ReplyDeleteHe drew a fantastic Scarlet Witch though. And incidentally, revealed in West Coast Avengers how she keeps her headdress on! A panel shows her getting into costume and putting kirby grips in her hair to hold it on!
A nod to Jack Kirby perhaps? Yeah, he diluted the cartoony look of the women a tad in his later work, but most of his women never really did much for me. A Don Heck Wasp or Scarlet Witch however, and wow!
ReplyDeleteOops! Should be a dash between 'necks' and 'they' in my first reply to DS. (...overly-thin necks - they all looked like teenagers...)
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