60's Fantastic Four vs. 60's Amazing Spider-Man

[The Confessor]

OK, I'm just putting down some random thoughts here to see what other folks have to say about them.

To give my comments some context, although I wasn't born at the time they were published, I love Silver Age comics (particularly Marvel Silver Age comics). Since history of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s is something of a hobby-horse of mine, I find them enjoyable on two levels; as ripping good comic yarns and also as an incite into the mindset and sociology of the times.

I'm currently working my way through the Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 2, which covers the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby period from 1964 to 1967. Although I'm really enjoying it, I can't help but have an opinion reinforced that I first formed while reading the FF Omnibus Vol. 1...and that is, that the Amazing Spider-Man comics of the same era were much more intelligently written.

By that I mean, that if you compare those old Lee/Ditko ASM issues to the Lee/Kirby FF issues of the same period, the ASM issues seem to hold up much better to a modern audience and just seem much less dated somehow.

After giving it some thought, I think that there are two main reasons for this...

Firstly, because of the cosmic nature of the FF's adventures, all those highly dubious, pseudo-scientific explanations of Mr. Fantastic's gadgets and the other technology present in the books is apt to elicit incredulity in a modern reader and make the books seem much less serious.

Add to this the numerous, highly improbable uses of the team's super-powers (particularly the Human Torch's) and I think you’ve got a comic that is much more likely to receive disbelieving sniggers from a modern reader than Spider-Man's more street level adventures.


Secondly, the overt sexism exhibited towards the female characters in the Fantastic Four comics...particularly towards Sue Storm, really dates the comics. Although I have to say, she certainly seems intent on living up to the "weak female" label.

Whilst there were certainly sexist moments in ASM, I don't recall them being quite so "in your face" as they are in the Fantastic Four. I realise that obviously times have changed and what is an acceptable way to portray women has also changed but still, I don't believe that you get this same level of sexism from the Spider-Man comics.


As an additional point, I have to say that the majority of the dialogue in the Fantastic Four seems to be very corny indeed when compared to the dialogue being used in Amazing Spider-Man at the same point in time (although the ASM dialogue is certainly corny as well). This strikes me as being peculiar since the same guy wrote both comics.

Anyway, I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m knocking Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four…that certainly isn’t the case. I’m really enjoying reading these old issues (I’ve just read the marriage of Reed & Sue) and the book really seems to be hitting its stride now.


So, anybody got an thoughts? Comments?

Violence?!?! :wink:

[MichikoS]

The more I read about Ditko's significant contributions to the early ASM look and feel, the more I am willing to ascribe the difference between it and contemporary FF to Ditko's influence. I think Ditko tended to curb some of Lee's more bombastic plot devices and cornball dialogue (not that there wasn't plenty of that in early ASM). Ditko had a much more grounded and real-world take on Peter Parker et al than did Stan, I believe, and that resulted in a more emotionally resonant storyline.

Just my .02. Doing lots of reading and thinking about Ditko these days, following my reading of Blake Bell's new book and my purchase of numerous DITKOMANIA fanzines by Rob Imes.

Michi

[Cei-U!]

What annoys me about the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four is how rarely the FF were allowed to actually win a fight. If the Watcher wasn't bailing their asses out or Reed inventing exactly the right frammistat to save the day, the bad guy was as likely to get away as not. Hell, Alicia beat the Puppet Master in his first outing! The Silver Age Spidey, on the other hand, tended to win his bouts fairly unequivocally (which is not to say he didn't have to work for his victories or that he often paid a steep price for the win). I think that's why, for all the epic imagination on display in FF, the Lee-Ditko Amazing Spider-Man is the more viscerally satisfying read.

Cei-U!
I summon the contrast!

[TVComicsFan]

Ben Grimm was my favorite FF character. I liked him because he was the
strong, silent type. While Reed Richards was a bit long-winded with his
scientific jargon (or pseudo-scientific, if you prefer), Ben was succinct:
"It's clobberin' time!" The Thing and the Hulk were Marvel's answer to
John Wayne. Men of few words but you always got the message.

[InfoBroker]

A quick request for clarification before I add my commentary.

When you say "if you compare those old Lee/Ditko ASM issues to the Lee/Kirby FF issues of the same period" is your comparison aligned to issue numbers or date of publication? And by date of publication, I mean the month and year, not just that they were published in the 60s.

-jb the ib -

[The Confessor]

I think Ditko tended to curb some of Lee's more bombastic plot devices and cornball dialogue (not that there wasn't plenty of that in early ASM). Ditko had a much more grounded and real-world take on Peter Parker et al than did Stan, I believe, and that resulted in a more emotionally resonant storyline.


You know, you could well be right because the Fantastic Four isn't the only Silver Age Marvel title that doesn't hold up as well as Amazing Spider-Man does from a modern stand point. There's a few other Lee/Kirby comics like Iron Man and the Human Torch adventures in Strange Tales for instance, that suffer from similar problems I feel.

Dr. Strange on the other hand, doesn't seem to so much. So maybe it was Steve Ditko's input that improved those comic books? It's certainly an interesting suggestion.



When you say "if you compare those old Lee/Ditko ASM issues to the Lee/Kirby FF issues of the same period" is your comparison aligned to issue numbers or date of publication? And by date of publication, I mean the month and year, not just that they were published in the 60s.


My comparison is more to do with date of publication really. For instance, last night I read Fantastic Four #44 ("The Gentleman's Name Is Gorgon") which was published in November 1965 and immediately afterwards I dug out my copy of Amazing Spider-Man #30 which came out the same month. Again, I was struck by how much less corny and dated issue #30 of ASM was when compared to FF #44. Amazing Spider-Man just seems a bit grittier and the characters seem to be more fleshed out or dare I say it, slightly more intelligently written. But, really my comments are pretty much concerned with any given issue from the period 1963 - 1967.

I should say though that FF #44 is a great issue...it's the first part of the story arc that introduces The Inhumans and as I said in my earlier post, Lee and Kirby are really firing on all cylinders at this point in their run.

[spoon_jenkins]

I also prefer Silver Age Amazing Spider-Man to the Fantastic Four.

Part of it is the sexism. It's ironic that super-powered Sue Storm isn't as compelling as the non-powered women in Spider-Man. Spider-Man had a different romantic dynamic than many Marvel Comics - with Spidey having more than one love interest. That may have helped the creators to avoid falling back on the cliches in some other series.

ASM also has more charismatic characters. In FF, Ben Grimm is very likable, but the others are less so. Reed can be annoying at times and Sue can be a cliche.

On the other hand, J. Jonah Jameson is a great character. Because he's a hybrid supporting character/villain (of sorts), this allows him to repeatedly appear as an antagonistic in a way supervillains can't.

[Sir Tim Drake]

One very specific thing that bugs me about the Lee-Kirby FF is the number of times Johnny gets exposed to asbestos. It seems like in every other issue, some villain uses asbestos to turn Johnny's flames off. I guess one of his powers is immunity to lung cancer.

[Slam_Bradley]

I also prefer Silver Age Amazing Spider-Man to the Fantastic Four.

Part of it is the sexism. It's ironic that super-powered Sue Storm isn't as compelling as the non-powered women in Spider-Man. Spider-Man had a different romantic dynamic than many Marvel Comics - with Spidey having more than one love interest. That may have helped the creators to avoid falling back on the cliches in some other series.

ASM also has more charismatic characters. In FF, Ben Grimm is very likable, but the others are less so. Reed can be annoying at times and Sue can be a cliche.

On the other hand, J. Jonah Jameson is a great character. Because he's a hybrid supporting character/villain (of sorts), this allows him to repeatedly appear as an antagonistic in a way supervillains can't.


Spidey's supporting cast is one of the book's great strengths. J. Jonah Jameson is one of the great characters in comics history.

It also helps that most of the love interests are teens. So when things get a little sappy it's easier to forgive, because kids are supposed to act that way. With adult charactes, it's much less forgiveable. (When Cap and Agent 13 pull it...it drives me insane).

[Shellhead]

Comparing issue with issue, yeah, those early Spider-man issues were more enjoyable to read. But those corny Fantastic Four issues of the same time period were ultimately more important, because Lee and Kirby laid down a big chunk of foundation for the entire Marvel line in those FF issues.

Some key characters, locations, and concept introduced in Fantastic Four:

Mole Man and his subterranean world.
the Skrulls and the Super-Skrull
the re-introduction of Namor established a connection to the Golden Age
adventures of Timely comics.
Doctor Doom and Latveria
the Inhumans and Attilan
The Watcher
Galactus and the Silver Surfer
Black Panther and Wakanda
Blastarr, Annihilus and the Negative Zone
the Kree, Ronan the Accuser, the Sentry robots
Adam Warlock, originally known as Him
the Microverse
Agatha Harkness

And yeah, a bunch of other villains. But the ones that I listed above expanded the boundaries of the Marvel Universe, giving subsequent writers a lot to work with. By contrast, Spider-man's stories fleshed out NYC a little, and added a bunch of street-level villains that could also be fought by Daredevil. But the best Spidey villains tended to be reserved just for his own adventures.

EDIT: look at it this way... how many monthly titles were spun out of the Kirby/Lee FF tales, versus the Ditko/Lee Spidey adventures?

FF:
Sub-Mariner
Captain America, the other popular character to benefit from the connection to Timely established in FF #4
Super-Villain Team-Up, featuring Doctor Doom and Namor
The Inhumans
Silver Surfer
Black Panther
Captain Marvel (the Kree captain)
various comics featuring Adam Warlock
Marvel Two-in-One
The Thing

Spider-Man:
Spectacular Spider-Man
Marvel Team-Up

[spoon_jenkins]

One very specific thing that bugs me about the Lee-Kirby FF is the number of times Johnny gets exposed to asbestos. It seems like in every other issue, some villain uses asbestos to turn Johnny's flames off.
You should read his solo adventures in Strange Tales (if you haven't already). Lee goes nuts portraying items as made of asbestos to confound the Torch. It reminds me of Silver Age DC (GL faces the Shark, who has an invisible yellow force field :confused: ).

Spidey's supporting cast is one of the book's great strengths. J. Jonah Jameson is one of the great characters in comics history.
I think I listed JJJ in my top 10 when CBR ran a poll of favorite comic characters.

[Rob Allen]

All of you JJJ fans should read Fred Hembeck's blog (http://www.hembeck.com/FredSez.htm) entry for September 15, 2008. You'll have to scroll down & find it; Fred doesn't do URLs for individual posts.

Short version: Jameson's name may have been inspired by a character introduced in the newspaper comic strip Mary Perkins On Stage in 1960: a TV programming genius named J.J. Jonah.

[The Confessor]

Comparing issue with issue, yeah, those early Spider-man issues were more enjoyable to read. But those corny Fantastic Four issues of the same time period were ultimately more important, because Lee and Kirby laid down a big chunk of foundation for the entire Marvel line in those FF issues.


Yeah, agreed...the Fantastic Four's adventures are much wider in scope. The stories take them all over the world and far, far beyond which enabled Stan Lee to develope a whole galaxy of characters and continuity which provide, as you rightly pointed out, the foundations of the Marvel Universe.



You should read his solo adventures in Strange Tales (if you haven't already). Lee goes nuts portraying items as made of asbestos to confound the Torch.


Isn't the whole of the Human Torch's bedroom made of asbestos at this point too? I'm sure in one of the early Fantastic Four issues (or maybe in Strange Tales) there's a plan of Johnny Storm's room and pretty much everything's made of asbestos...pillows, curtains, carpet, bedclothes etc, etc.

[benday-dot]

Isn't the whole of the Human Torch's bedroom made of asbestos at this point too? I'm sure in one of the early Fantastic Four issues (or maybe in Strange Tales) there's a plan of Johnny Storm's room and pretty much everything's made of asbestos...pillows, curtains, carpet, bedclothes etc, etc.

How is the Human Torch not riddled with cancer?

[benday-dot]

I agree with a lot that has been said so far. I think it comes down to a matter of moods to me. The Spider-Man soap opera gets me one day, but the Fantastic Four space opera will have me another.

A large part of the FF appeal to me is Kirby's dynamic. But Ditko's moodier experiment of the drama of the quotidian is also something I cannot get along without.

[Scott Shaw!]

I agree with a lot that has been said so far. I think it comes down to a matter of moods to me. The Spider-Man soap opera gets me one day, but the Fantastic Four space opera will have me another.

A large part of the FF appeal to me is Kirby's dynamic. But Ditko's moodier experiment of the drama of the quotidian is also something I cannot get along without.

That's a differerence I've been meaning to point out, benday. Strip away the superheroics, and the Kirby-Lee FANTASTIC FOUR was a sci-fi adventure series starring a heroic family right out of a pulp magazine (DOC SAVAGE in particular), while the Ditko-Kirby was a teenage soap opera, a fact that Kurt Busiek exploited to ARCHIE-like proportions in UNKNOWN TALES OF SPIDERMAN. (I mention the cartoonists first because, although Stan had a GREAT ear for dialog, due to the so-called "Marvel method", both series were essentially artist-driven.) As a nascent cartoonist, I was immediately drawn to Kirby's art (and without knowing it, storylines), while Ditko was more of an acquired taste, and the repeating Aunt-May-is-sooo-sick schtick got old fast, even for me. The FF rarely repeated a situation for its first 60 issues or so.

I love 'em both, but the first 102 FFs constitute my all-time favorite run of any superhero funnybook.

Aloha,

Scott!

[Budman]

I love them both, too, but I have to give the nod to the FF. Lee and Kirby's imaginations went wild in that book and in Thor. Even with the corny dialog and dated feel to these stories, they are still entertaining and awe-inspiring today. Spider-Man was certainly cool and fun, but the soap operas with Aunt May and "everybody hates Peter" and "I could live a normal life if I didn't have to be Spider-Man" sometimes got a bit much.