True Believers: Fantastic Four - The Wedding Of Reed & Sue #1 - Marvel Comics

TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR - THE WEDDING OF REED & SUE No. 1, September 2018

Featuring a reprint of Stan Lee’s “Bedlam At The Baxter Building!” storyline from Annual Three of “Fantastic Four”, this twenty-three page reproduction sold a staggering 16,987 copies in July 2018 and arguably demonstrated just how great a story the original October 1965 adventure was with its intense sense-shattering prenuptial shenanigans and all-encompassing cast of “Marvel Universe” characters. Indeed, considering that the then Editor-in-Chief somehow manages to incorporate the likes of the Avengers, the X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil and Spider-man alongside a truly impressive rogues gallery of the New York City-based publisher’s super-villains, it’s incredible to believe the Will Eisner Award Hall Of Famer was able to pen anything even resembling a coherent narrative, let alone one which not only contains plenty of ‘screen time’ for its titular characters but additionally produces numerous stand-out moments, such as the Mole Man’s surprise attack from beneath the very foundation of the Baxter Building and his minions’ subsequent defeat by Professor X’s mutant students.

Admittedly, the basic premise behind this comic’s narrative is undeniably contrived with Doctor Doom “skilfully manipulating my high-frequency emotion charger” so as to “fan the flames of hatred in the heart of every evil menace in existence” and resultantly create “a veritable army of the most deadly villains alive” with which to destroy Reed Richards’ famous quartet. Yet the utter simplicity of the ‘hokey’ plot point does allow for the reader to be rapidly immersed in the mad machinations of the “paranoiac” Puppet Master, and no sooner has his poison-armed pawn been subdued by Nick Fury’s undercover agents, than Ivan Kragoff and Harvey Rupert Elder make their separate moves to bring Su Storm’s imminent wedding ceremony to a deadly end; “Ahh! The coast is clear now, my beauties! And so, the time has come for the Red Ghost and his Super Apes to finish the job they’d begun many months ago!” This rapid succession of threats and foes is so successfully implemented that any thoughts as to the dubiously manufactured nature of the script is swiftly forgotten and replaced with a genuine sense of awe at Lee’s sheer vision, with even Attuma, “merciless warlord of the deep”, deciding to seize the moment and threaten the land-dwellers with an invasion of his trident-carrying legions.

Of course, just how enjoyable this carousel of costumed crime-fighters and malevolent Machiavellian evil-doers would be without the dynamically-charged pencilling of Jack “King” Kirby is hotly debatable. The Manhattan-born artist’s breath-taking visuals for this comic provides every punch, kick and energy blast portrayed with just the sort of bone-crunching energy one would expect from an illustrator “widely regarded as one of the medium’s major innovators.” Whilst his incredible splash-page “photo of a journey thru the Fourth Dimension” which depicts the Watcher transporting Mister Fantastic to “a laboratory whose wonders beggar description” is certainly worth the one American dollar cover price of this digitally re-mastered book alone.

Written By: Stan Lee, Drawn By: Jack Kirby, and Inked By: Vince Colletta

True Believers: Kirby 100th - Groot #1 - Marvel Comics

TRUE BELIEVERS: KIRBY 100TH - GROOT No. 1, October 2017

Despite Jack Kirby having “some pretty crazy stuff up his sleeve”, Editor Jordan D. White was probably right when he wrote in this anthology’s foreword that the “titan of the comic industry” would “likely never have guessed… When he first started drawing a giant tree-monster from space bent on conquering Earth”, that the “despot” would become part of “a big-budget Hollywood film in which” the extra-terrestrial was later “reduced to a tiny sprout dancing to some choice pop songs.” Certainly there's little in the way of the character’s modern-day likeability on show as far as this seven-page publication is concerned, with the rather two-dimensional “Monarch of Planet X” simply stomping about an American village and threatening to carry its entire population off into outer space…

Moreover, Stan Lee’s “overlord of all the timber in the galaxy” is far from heroic, and undoubtedly the villain of the piece, as he selfishly consumes vast amounts of wooden furniture and fencing, and then seeks to crush any of the local population who dares defy his fiendish plan to tortuously experiment upon Mankind. Instead, the New York-born writer pens for down-trodden scientist Leslie Evans to be the actual ‘saviour of the hour’, a man who supposedly lacks the manly ruggedness his wife Alice desires, yet is still capable of outwitting Groot by breeding a strain of termites in his laboratory which ultimately kills the giant alien; “Oh, darling, forgive me! I’ve been such a fool! I’ll never complain about you again! Never!!”

Fortunately, this book’s second script, a “Journey Into Mystery” reprint entitled “Here Comes… The Hulk”, proves a far more satisfying read, even if the orange-furred Xemnu the Titan is a far cry from the gamma-green character Marvelites will later much more readily associate with the name “The Hulk”. Far from telling a simple invasion yarn, the Will Eisner Award Hall Of Famer provides a thought-provoking plot featuring a planet upon which criminals are exiled in order to stop them “menacing the universe”, a failed escape attempt in an ill-equipped space rocket, a naïve resurrection of an alien abomination and the ‘zombification’ of every person on Earth.

Admittedly, Lee has to rely upon a number of cheesy coincidences to make the all-encompassing narrative satisfyingly speed along, such as the unconscious “part monster, part machine” being found by just the right sort of “small town electrician” to repair him, and the creature from outer space’s god-like ability to mesmerize “millions of helpless labourers” using his hypnotic spell rays. But such coincidental contrivances are easily forgivable considering the grand scope of Stan’s story, the succinctness of its page count, and “King” Kirby’s wonderful illustrations of the ever-menacing Xemnu.

Writer: Stan Lee, Penciler: Jack Kirby, and Inker: Dick Ayers