Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 2

Reprints Fantastic Four #241-250
Written, penciled and inked by John Byrne.

Summary:
The Fantastic Four are sent by SHIELD director Nick Fury to the African nation of Wakanda to investigate a "power pocket." They're accompanied by Human Torch's girlfriend Frankie Ray, who has recently discovered that she has powers similar to those of the Human Torch.

Wakanda's King T'Challa, also known as the Black Panther, joins the FF on this task. Shortly after their expedition begins, the heroes are captured and taken to an underground city that resembles Ancient Rome.

It's ruled by a man who calls himself Emperor Gaius Tiberius Agustus Agrippa. Gaius de-powers the Fantastic Four and takes them prisoner. He plans to make the Invisible Girl his queen. But if the Fantastic Four are to survive, only Sue can save them.

Next up, Galactus' herald Terrax attacks New York. He is trying to break free of Galactus and takes Manhattan hostage, taking it into outer space. He demands that the Fantastic Four battle Galactus for him.  

In the middle of this battle, Galactus arrives and easily disposes of Terrax. Galactus needs nourishment and decides to consume Earth's energies. The FF attack him and they're assisted by Doctor Strange, Captain America, Wasp, Iron Man and Thor. The heroes are successful in defeating him, but the Big G is near death. Before they can appreciate their victory, Reed makes a controversial decision to save Galactus.

But the ravager of worlds is not grateful to Earth. Galactus needs to feed on the planet and is preparing to do so. But Frankie Raye steps forward and offers an alternative to Galactus: if he spares Earth, she will serve as his new herald. The Fantastic Four are opposed to this, especially Johnny Storm. Frankie becomes cosmically powered and is now called Nova. She leaves Earth to find planets Galactus can feed upon. The Human Torch is devastated by Frankie's departure.

Sometime later, Sue returns to the Baxter Building and finds Ben and Reed unconscious. She discovers Johnny being attacked by a man she doesn't recognize. With her teammates out of commission, the Invisible Girl will have to go it alone against an extremely powerful foe. She will be shocked when she learns the identity of her opponent.

Subsequently, The Fantastic Four visit the Latverian Embassy so they can deliver the body of Doctor Doom, since their last battle ended with Doom in suspended animation. Doom regains consciousness and transports the FF to Latveria. For once, Doom is not trying to destroy them, but is seeking help from the Fantastic Four. The heroes recently helped the Latverian resistance movement overthrow Doom's rule of their tiny nation. Zorba, rightful monarch of Latveria, took power of the country.

However, under Zorba's rule, the country has fallen apart. Crime is rampant and Latverians are starving. Zorba's response has been a declaration of martial law, with Doom's old robots serving as Latveria's new secret police force. Doom says that the Fantastic Four owe it to Latveria to help him regain his throne.

They're reluctant at first, but after seeing the plight of Latveria, the Fantastic Four join forces and help Doctor Doom, since they feel partially responsible for Latveria's plight. Can the FF and Doom succeed in overthrowing Zorba?

Following the events in Latveria, the Fantastic Four fly to the moon to visit their old friends the Inhumans. They've been invited to the naming ceremony for Crystal and Quicksilver's infant daughter. All is well, until the entire surface of the moon is taken captive by a giant alien.

This creature is so huge that it is unaware that the FF and Inhumans are present. How can the Fantastic Four hope to defeat a being that is 1000 miles tall?!

When they return to Earth, New York is attacked by Gladiator, the alien Shi'ar warrior who has battled against and alongside the X-Men in the past. Gladiator's spaceship was driven off its course, which forced him to land on Earth. He mistakenly thinks he's arrived on the Skrull homeworld. The FF show up to stop him, but they're easily defeated by Gladiator.

But as soon as Gladiator has dispatched one team of heroes, another arrives to confront him: the Uncanny X-Men! But appearances can be deceiving.

Plus, Spider-Man and Captain America arrive to help the Fantastic Four deal with Gladiator!

Review:
Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 2 contains some great material written and drawn by one the Bronze Age's greatest storytellers. I remember buying some of these fresh off the spinner racks and I've enjoyed these tales for more than three decades.

Story:
We start off with a good done-in-one story guest starring the Black Panther. It's a nice nod to the Panther's early appearances in The Fantastic Four. In early issues written by Stan Lee and penciled by Jack Kirby, stories were often broken into chapters. Byrne brings that back here, making it feel like a Silver Age tale told with a Bronze Age sensibility.

A great three-part Galactus story follows. Byrne shows that being heroes makes you do things that sometimes seem antithetical to heroism, like saving the life of Galactus. While Terrax is certainly a bad guy, Byrne reminds readers that Terrax became Galactus' herald when he was forcibly recruited by the FF.

This portion also contains a nice brief scene where Spider-Man and Daredevil, Marvel's "street level" heroes, decide that fighting Terrax and Galactus is above their pay grade.  

The book ends with the great Gladiator battle. Gladiator was created as an analog to Superman and Byrne shows that Gladiator should be considered one of Marvel's heaviest hitters, up there with Hulk, Thor and Juggernaut. Gladiator makes mincemeat of the Fantastic Four in the first round of their battle.

While most of this book features very serious drama and action, Byrne also finds time for some lighter, humorous moments. For instance, the scene below-right, where Reed shows off his new re-usable Christmas Tree:

And I still smile at the Thing's "Indian Jones" costume!

There are some stories contained in this tpb that aren't great. The essential message of the Doctor Doom story is that some countries are better off being ruled by totalitarian dictators. My academic background is in history and political science. I try to not to take comic book stories too seriously, but I've always had a problem with this story and can't endorse that idea. I figure Byrne just wanted to return Doom to his status quo of Latverian monarch and this was how he decided to pull that off.

The story from FF #245 begins with five pages of Sue debating a talk show host about her powers and her decision to take Reed's last name. It doesn't really add anything to the story.

The Inhumans story also isn't that great. It's one of those "it was all just a dream" tales and it isn't exactly essential FF material.  

But on the whole, these are great stories and Byrne's love for the characters shines through on every page.

Art:
Byrne pencils and inks every panel of Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 2 and all of it looks great. 

This scene here, where Gladiator punches the Thing through 8 cars is a nice example of how great Byrne's art looks in this tpb!:

And Spider-Man's guest appearance near the end of the book gives us this gorgeous splash page that features the wallcrawler:

On the bottom left panel of the second page, Byrne draws a nice homage to the cover of Amazing Fantasy # 15, which featured Spidey's first appearance:

Byrne's art is wonderful to behold from start to finish. It looks great in this glossy tpb.

How does it look?:

It looks great, here's a scan from a copy of Fantastic Four #250:

This is how the same pages look in the reprint:

Extras:
I'm not sure this really counts as an "extra," but Fantastic Four #250 ended with a pinup of the FF penciled by Byrne, that's included in the back of this tpb.

Rating:
Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 2 features mostly good stories and art that still looks, dare I say it, fantastic 35 years after it was originally published. If you're a fan of John Byrne's art, this book is must-read, since these stories never looked better.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!

Fantastic Four Visonaries: John Byrne Vol. 1

Reprints Fantastic Four #232-240
Written and Penciled by John Byrne.
Inked by John Byrne and Terry Austin.

Alternate cover.

The members of the Fantastic Four are scattered all over New York and strange things are happening to them. At a hair salon, the Invisible Girl is attacked by a monster who blasts her with sand. Outside a Broadway theater, The Thing has a rain cloud appear over his head. The cloud turns into a bubble that threatens to drown Ben.

In Central Park, Johnny Storm, is attacked by a living tornado. Reed Richards is imperiled by a living flame. The FF soon learns that it's the work of their old foe Diablo, master of alchemy! The Fantastic Four track down Diablo with the help of Doctor Strange, Master of Mystic Arts!

Subsequently, the Human Torch receives a letter written by a man just before he was executed. He claims to be innocent of the crime and asks Johnny to help posthumously clear his name.

This leads Johnny on a journey into New York's criminal underworld.  The Torch winds up face-to-face with Spider-Man's old foe Hammerhead!

After that, we are introduced a man named L.R. "Skip" Collins. Collins has led an ordinary, quiet, risk-free life. His life at home isn't very enjoyable, with his adult son Junior living at home and his wife Louisa busy with housework.

Collins wishes his house was less cluttered...and suddenly it is magically cleaned. Later, on his way to work, he wishes that the roads weren't so crowded. Just like that, traffic thins out drastically. It appears that Skip can shape reality by simply wishing for it to change.

His boss sends him on a business trip to New York City. Collins is excited and goes on a sight-seeing tour. But shortly after he arrives, the city begins to (quite literally) fall apart. Collins watches the Fantastic Four struggle to save the city. Using his power, he saves New York from destruction by wishing it never happened.

Reed is convinced that the cause of the destruction originated in outer space and decides that the FF will investigate in their rocket. They learn it's the work of Ego, the living planet!

Next, we observe the residents of a small, idyllic town called Liddleville. Reed Richards works as a professor at the local university. Ben Grimm is married to Alicia and operates a restaurant.

 
But they're haunted by nightmares. In their dreams, they launch into space and die in a crash. Or they gain superpowers. They talk and learn that they're having the same dream. They realize the dreams are suppressed memories and remember that they're the Fantastic Four. In short order, the heroes discover that Liddleville was a tiny model of a city and the FF's consciousness has been placed in small synthe-clone bodies created by the Puppet Master. It's all part of a scheme of their greatest foe, Doctor Doom!

Can the heroes defeat the Latverian monarch while they're imprisoned in tiny clone bodies?

After returning to New York, Reed, Sue and Franklin go horseback riding in Central Park. Their day of leisure is interrupted when they hear a nearby bank alarm. Mr. Fantastic discovers a robbery in progress and uses his stretching powers to capture the thieves. Suddenly, a 9-foot tall woman emerges from the bank and attacks Reed by making eye-contact with him, inducing vertigo.

Sue & Reed meet Spinnerette!

The team learns that she is an alien who the other robbers have named Spinnerette. She is not evil, but Earth's oxygen has made her intoxicated and easily manipulated by the criminals. Can the Fantastic Four save Spinnerette from Earth's atmosphere and protect New York from her powers?

Later, Reed once again tries to turn the Thing human. But it doesn't work and Ben ends up looking like he did in the early days of the FF. Needless to say, Ben is not happy about this development.

At the same time, the Torch's girlfriend Frankie Raye makes an alarming discovery about herself. She has the same powers as the Human Torch!

Frankie learns that her step-father, who she knew as Thomas Ray, was actually Professor Phineas Horton, who created the original Human Torch. When she was 14, Frankie was in accident that gave her her powers. Her "torch" powers were wiped from her memory until now. Johnny agrees to help her use her abilities and Reed jokes that they may change their name to "The Fantastic Five!"

Sometime later, a woman named Penny visits the Baxter Building, seeking the aid of the Fantatic Four.  The team is shocked to learn that Penny is Ben's Aunt Petunia, whom he has mentioned many times.  She does not fit the description they had imagined.

Penny tells them that she and her husband, Dr. Jake Grimm, have seen some bizarre medical cases in Benson, Arizona. People are dying from fright. There is an archaeological dig taking place in Benson, which may be related to the deaths. 

The FF and Benson encounter a young girl named Wendy who seems wise beyond her years. We learn that Wendy spent lots of time around the site of the dig visiting her "friends." We soon learn that Wendy's friends are supernatural beings who confront people with their worst fears.

This is enough to kill some people. But if anyone can end the threat of Wendy's friends, it's the Fantastic Four.

Lastly, Pietro Maximoff, the mutant super-speedster known as Quicksilver rushes through New York en route to the Baxter Building. Pietro seeks the aid of the Fantastic Four for two reasons. His wife Crystal is pregnant with their child and she has fallen ill. Quicksilver believes Reed is the only one with the scientific knowledge that can save Crystal.

In addition to that, the Inhumans need to find a new home. The pollution of Earth has made their location in the Himalayas uninhabitable. The Fantastic Four find a home for them. They will transport their homeland, Attilan, to the moon!  

Review:
Fantastic Four Visonaries: John Byrne Vol. 1 contains some great stories and art from one of the signature talents of the Bronze Age.

Story:
The stories in this tpb range from good to great, and some can be described as classic. 

When he took over the title, Byrne said he wanted to take the Fantastic Four "back to the basics," as in what he believed made them great in the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby era. It's no coincidence that the first story in this tpb is titled "Back To The Basics."

"Terror In A Tiny Town," the Doom/Liddleville story, was the issue that got me collecting Fantastic Four back in 1981. It's still one of the best FF stories ever written. Byrne really has a great feel for the personalities of these heroes. For those who count such things, Ben says his catchphrase "It's Clobberin' Time" 3 times in this tpb.

 
The Skip Collins story feels a lot like an episode of The Twilight Zone. The same goes for the "Wendy's Friends" episode. The other tales are good, though the weakest of the bunch is the Spinnerette story.  She and her people are nicely drawn by Byrne, but they're basically generic aliens. On the whole, a good collection of Bronze Age stories.
  
Art:
Byrne is at the top of his game here. I normally prefer his pencils when they're inked by someone like Terry Austin or Joe Sinnott. But he does a fine job inking himself in this tpb. The artistic highpoint is the battle with Ego.  

The Fantastic Four battle Ego from the inside!

The Liddleville story gives Byrne a chance to draw the Fantastic Four the way they looked in the early 60s and he does a nice job.

Speaking of Terry Austin, he inks the 8-page story that features the Thing reverting to his earlier form. It's a short but nice reunion of the Byrne/Austin art team from the greatest era of the X-Men. 

How Does It Look?:
Here's two-page spread scanned from Fantastic Four #236, borrowed from the excellent blog Mars Will Send No More:

And here's how it appears in the tpb:

Fantastic Four Visonaries: John Byrne Vol. 1 features work from John Byrne when he was at the height of his writing and penciling peak. These tales hold up well 34 years after they were published. The Liddleville story and the battle with Ego make it worth buying and the rest of the stories are good as well. Highly recommended.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans

Reprints Fantastic Four (1961) #164-176
Written by Roy Thomas and Bill Mantlo.
Penciled by George Perez, Rich Buckler, John Buscema.
Inked by Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta

A man calling himself the Crusader shows up in New York, invades a bank and attacks Calvin McClary, the bank's owner. Luckily, the Human Torch is nearby and intervenes. Crusader defeats the Torch and gets away. This menace is armed with Quantum Bands that give Crusader super-strength that make him very dangerous. Johnny will need his Fantastic Four teammates if he wants to stop the Crusader.

We learn that Crusader's real name is Robert Grayson and that used to fight crime under the name Marvel Boy. His father Horace was an atomic scientist who fled the Earth to Uranus in the 1950s.  Horace Grayson needed money to fund his Uranus project and McClary wouldn't loan it to him. This resulted in the deaths of many Uranians, and the Crusader has come to New York to avenge them. This leads the madman to attack banks all over the city. 

Later, the FF are flying over the Midwest when they encounter the Hulk! They battle the Green Goliath and the Invisible Girl eventually subdues him using her force field. The Hulk is turned over to the military. Reed makes a deal with Col. Sellers of the Air Force: If he's able to cure Bruce Banner of his Hulk transformations, Banner will go free and work with Richards.
 

The Thing doesn't like the way the Hulk is being treated by the military. Ben looks at Hulk and sees that they are both "monsters" who are unjustly feared by the powers that be.

Reed uses a device on the Hulk that he hopes will turn him back to Bruce Banner. The device is successful, but Col. Sellers suddenly reneges on their deal and imprisons Banner. When Ben sees this, he decides to free Banner, who turns back into the Hulk. The Thing teams up with Hulk and only the Fantastic Four can stop them.

They battle all over the city of St. Louis. Suddenly, Ben has a change of heart and attacks the Hulk. But in the middle of the fight, the Thing changes back to his human form! He's plain old, human Ben Grimm once again. 

Since Ben is no longer the Thing, the FF need a new member. They hire Power Man, also known as "Luke Cage, hero for hire".

Ben's happiness at regaining his human form is short lived. No one recognizes him on the streets of New York, and talk shows that wanted to interview the Thing are no longer interested in booking him. Plus, Ben feels like a loser knowing that he's been replaced by Power Man. Grimm is further incensed because Reed is paying Cage for his services.

In the middle of these changes, the Fantastic Four are notified of a series of bank robberies. They learn it's the work of Thor's old foe the Wrecker. He possesses a mystically powered crowbar and proves to be a tough enemy. Power Man gets a chance to prove that he belongs on the team when he goes toe-to-toe with Wrecker.

Following that battle, Cage is having a conversation with Sue and Alicia Masters and Franklin. Power Man suddenly attacks them, but Invisible Girl's force holds him back and subdues Luke until her teammates arrive. Power Man steals their Fantasticar and escapes. The Fantastic Four know that Cage must be under some sort of mind-control and wonder who the real villain is. 

Reed knows that they will need all the help they can get to stop Power Man. He also sympathizes with his old friend and builds Ben a "Thing suit." It's an exoskeleton that will allow him to become the Thing again, while staying human. The suit enables Ben to rejoin the Fantastic Four.

Ben tries on his "Thing suit" for the first time.

The FF tracks down Power Man. The heroes learn that Cage is being controlled by their old enemy the Puppet Master! 

After that conflict, a spaceship lands in Central Park.  A golden gorilla emerges from the ship and grows into a giant. The Fantastic Four battle the gorilla and are able to capture him using Sue's force field (which also returns him to normal height). To their surprise, this gorilla can speak and tells them why he has come to Earth. He says his name is Gorr and he came to Earth to seek their help against Galactus, devourer of worlds!

Gorr had been sent to Earth by the god-like being who calls himself the High Evolutionary, who has created a Counter Earth nearly identical to our planet. The High Evolutionary asks the FF to help them find another planet that Galactus can feed on in order to spare Counter Earth. Will the Fantastic Four succeed in finding another planet? Or is Counter Earth doomed? Before it's all said and done, the High Evolutionary must engage Galactus in direct combat.

When the FF directly confronts Galactus, it will have a long-lasting impact on Ben Grimm.

Finally, when the Fantastic Four return to Earth, they are accompanied by the shape-shifter from planet Poppup known as the Impossible Man. The alien finds himself alone in New York City. The Impossible Man eventually ends up visiting 575 Madison Avenue, which houses the offices of Marvel Comics! Impossible Man demands that Marvel create a comic book that features him as the star. When they refuse, he attacks Marvel with extreme prejudice!

Review:
While this isn't exactly "classic"material, Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans is mostly fun from beginning to end. But I have some problems with these tales.

Story:
Roy Thomas writes some very entertaining stories in this tpb. It opens with the Crusader story, which features the FF against a very powerful being who has been tragically driven insane. The Hulk battle is pretty good too. It makes sense that the Thing would feel sympathy for his fellow "monster."

The FF battle the Hulk & Thing on the St. Louis arch!

But after that, I'm not crazy some of what Thomas does.  Ben is returned to his human form, something he'd wanted for (at that point) 167 issues. But almost immediately after his transformation, Grimm starts whining about how he's no longer a celebrity. Is it believable that Ben would feel left out when it was time for his teammates to go into battle? Sure, but we should have gotten at least one issue's worth of pages that show Grimm enjoying the return to his normal old self.

Ben cries in his beer.

Power Man, hired to replace the Thing,  is well-written here. Cage tries to balance his enthusiasm with being in the FF with respecting Ben's feelings. It's also good that Thomas doesn't try to overload Cage's dialogue with "urban" idioms, a mistake made by lots of 70s writers.

Gorr's first appearance is ridiculous, but I mean that in a good way. What's not to like about a giant, talking, alien, intelligent golden gorilla?! Thomas gives us a nice tribute to King King and other giant monster movies. There are even references to the 1976 Kong remake. The Thing jokes that "Dino de Laurentiis could save a fortune if he just had a Polaroid".

The Galactus story is pretty good. Thomas demonstrates that Galactus simply hungers and wants to consume the energies of Counter Earth simply because he needs to. But I was a bit disappointed in the battle between the Big G and High Evolutionary. It's teased as an epic clash, but Galactus needs only 9 panels over a page and a half to easily defeat the High Evolutionary.  

The Impossible Man & the FF crash-land in Central Park.

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans concludes on a funny note, with the Impossible Man paying a visit to Marvel Comics. I always liked things like this when I was a kid and still enjoy them today. It's entertaining to see Thomas, George Perez, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee depicted as comic book characters.

There's one more problem with this book. It ends with a cliffhanger. The Impossible Man story was followed by a two-parter that featured the Frightful Four. If you want to read what happens next, it's been reprinted in tpb called Fantastic Four Visionaries - George Perez, Vol. 2 (maybe I'll review that book here someday). 

Art:
The art contained in this tpb is excellent. George Perez draws the first 4 issues reprinted here and also the last story in the book.  Most of Perez' art is beautifully inked by Joe Sinnott, who inks the other pencilers as well. Look at this gorgeous two-page spread from Perez and Sinnott:

Great stuff.

John Buscema was, of course, a legendary artist and one of the best of the Bronze Age. This isn't his best art, but it's still good. Rich Buckler pencils the rest of the book and his art is also excellent. These stories were published during a time when Marvel wanted Buckler to deliberately imitate the art of Jack Kirby. But that's not his fault, and Buckler and Sinnott make a great art team. Here's an example of their work:

Power Man decks the Wrecker, while Ben struggles with life without super-strength.

How Does It Look:
Below you find the splash page as it originally appeared in Fantastic Four #175:

And here's how it looks in Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans:

And for good measure, here's another original page, scanned from FF #172:

It looks like this in the tpb:

Thank to SuperMegaMonkey for the scans from the old issues.

Extras:
Thomas wrote a column in FF #176 about the making of the story where Impossible Man visited the Marvel offices. That column is reprinted here. The tpb also contains 4 pages of original art.

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans features some outstanding art from Perez, Sinnott and Buckler and some solid stories from Thomas. This tpb is recommended, but Thomas' handling of Ben Grimm in the middle portions and the cliffhanger ending prevent me giving the book a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.