Well, last time we tried this, I got stuck in 1941. But we at
Slay Monstrobot never give up...so crank up the
Wayback machine again!!
Ah,
that's more like it!!!
Welcome to
Marvel 1981 Week!!
And we start off with a true classic, the
Fantastic Four's 20th anniversary issue, a double-sized classic...a story that's so big we had to break this examination into two parts!!
We start with a familiar scene, as a quartet of astronauts furtively sneak into a launch site:
Our creators?
This was very early in
John Byrne's epic 5+ year run of writing drawing and (mostly) inking the
FF, and already he's got to put together a double-sized issue that summarizes what the Fantastic Four was over the past two decades while still telling a tale that reflects well on their present.
It's a daunting assignment, one many talented creators fail. Was Byrne up to the task? From that splash page, it looks like we're getting a straight up recap of their origin. But not so fast...this one ends a
little differently:
Oh, it's just a dream? But wait, there's more:
What?
Johnny Storm having no memory of the Fantastic Four? Driving a jalopy in a small town?
Reed an absent-minded professor?
Sue a housewife? And everybody's having the
same dreams?
Hmmm...what about
Ben?
What?? Ben and
Alicia married? Alicia with
sight?? What in the name of
Willie Lumpkin is going on here?
Oh, the
Puppet Master!! That explains everything!! Or
does it?
Poor Reed...and at work:
Wow, whatta
dickweed. This
Professor Vincent Vaughn must have some reason for being suck a jerk, right?
Hmmm, his name is
sooo almost familiar...
Anyway, Reed nods off in his office...but his dream has a little bit more information than the others:
And when in doubt...
...
whack yourself in the head!!Well, a newly clear Reed is convinced that a
doofus like the Puppet Master couldn't have taken away their powers, so...
Oh, Reed, you are
such a comic book scientist...anyway:
No one believes him, they all tell him he's nuts. But you don't
gaslight Reed Richards, baby:
And he does make them believe it, they go and beat the crap out of the Puppet Master, to get the truth--they're "
synthe-clones" that Masters created so his step-daughter could have a nice, normal life. But...
Oh, boy, it's
game on now!!
Trapped at tiny size with new super-powers, the FF are in big trouble. How will they escape?!? Tune in later today for the answers!!
One of the first back issues I ever bought! Every summer we would pull out these Byrne issues and re-read them...
ReplyDeleteMan, snell...your spelling is atrocious. And I'm not talking 90210, here ("My spelling is TV producer Aaron, your spelling is his daughter Tori") :D
ReplyDeleteReading the archives, it happens too often and with too much randomness to be either mistakes or ...I mean, it's isn't as horrifically haphazard as some, who can't be bothered in any way to even care about the structure, grammar and spelling of their words, sentences and phrases (nevermind coherent ideas, themes and streams of thought), but it isn't purposely creative either, as some can and do use to inventive and/or humourous effect.
It's more like a poor, cheap or weird spell-check program that you speed through or don't bother to double-check before you post, and it can really disrupt the flow of some of your enjoyable reads when your mind gets side-tracked and says, "Hey, that word looks out of place, and it doesn't make sense in this context...let's take a couple of seconds and try figure out what he means. Oh, I guess it's just a mistake, nevermind then...what were we reading about? Oh yeah...", etc.
Man, snell...your spelling is atrocious. And I'm not talking 90210, here ("My spelling is TV producer Aaron, your spelling is his daughter Tori") :D
ReplyDeleteReading the archives, it happens too often and with too much randomness to be either mistakes or ...I mean, it's isn't as horrifically haphazard as some, who can't be bothered in any way to even care about the structure, grammar and spelling of their words, sentences and phrases (nevermind coherent ideas, themes and streams of thought), but it isn't purposely creative either, as some can and do use to inventive and/or humourous effect.
It's more like a poor, cheap or weird spell-check program that you speed through or don't bother to double-check before you post, and it can really disrupt the flow of some of your enjoyable reads when your mind gets side-tracked and says, "Hey, that word looks out of place, and it doesn't make sense in this context...let's take a couple of seconds and try figure out what he means. Oh, I guess it's just a mistake, nevermind then...what were we reading about? Oh yeah...", etc.
Oops, lol...what the hell happened there? Randomly decided to post itself and do it twice, apparently!
ReplyDeleteEither way, the glaring piece here that popped out and made me say enough was enough re: your spelling was the "Fantastic Four at tiny size with *NEW* powers" bit, which made me almost go back and re-read what I thought I might have missed in the sizeable chunk of post earlier leading up to it (and how I could have possibly gotten so far in without even seeing or recognizing these "new powers"), until I realized that you meant "with *NO* powers"...at which point I was like, "Fuck, snell..your spelling sucks", lol.