As a lifelong fan of both the San Francisco Giants and the Fantastic Four, I'm no stranger to disappointment writ large. My earliest introductions to both came on the crest of unbelievable momentum, and since then it's been a rocky road, to say the least.
When I came to love the San Francisco Giants, they were heading into the NLCS against the Cardinals with Jeffery Leonard puttin' one flap down and raising the ire of the entire town of St. Louis. Two years later, my favorite baseball player of all time, Will Clark, was having the best season of his career and leading the Giants over the Cubs to the world's first, and only, Bay Bridge World Series against the Oakland A's.
Then there was an earthquake.
The Giants have had plenty of good seasons since then, and have even nearly won a World Series before flaming out in Buckner-esque fashion to truly cement their place as the perennial West Coast Red Sox. But I'm not here to talk baseball.
No, I'm here to talk comics.
There's something about being a Fantastic Four fan. If you love it, you're going to have to get ready for disappointment on pretty much a yearly basis. Do you love the way a particular artist draws The Thing? Fuckin' strap in, because they won't be around long. Are you really digging the way someone writes Susan Richards? That's great, because it just so happens that said writer is leaving the comic to write their own creator-owned series about a dude who sodomizes people for justice. It's his super power.
I came to the Fantastic Four at (what I later found out was) the tail-end of Walter Simonson's unbelievably awesome run on the book. I went back and picked up as many back-issues as I could find. (The age before the advent of the trade paperback, heh.) Turns out that Walter Simonson's lengthy run and John Byrne's multi-year stint on the book were awesome all-around. The arcs, the writing, the artwork, everything during those two runs was incredible. I took great pains trying to convince my friend that the covers didn't lie: this truly was The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!
What I didn't realize was that Walt and John were either two lengthy exceptions or the end of an era, or both. I tried not to notice that the periods between the two creators were filled with lackluster creative teams like Frenz ‘n’ Sinnott (a joke about George W. Bush) and featured such villains as a cybernetic Arab! But I latched onto Fantastic Four and never let go. Sadly, I didn't know what I was in for.
It turns out that writers and artists really love the Fantastic Four. They really do. They were the first superheroes created by arguably the greatest creative team in history, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The characters are among the best and most nuanced you'll find in all of comicdom, and their relationships with one another and with nearly every character in the Marvel Universe is full of decades of wink-nudge cameraderie. So writers and artists come into the FF like "AWESOME SPACE TRAVEL AND DOCTOR DOOM SHOOP BA WHOOP" and after a couple months basically go "aw nertz what now i guess reed uses math again this sucks whar them x-mans at" and leave to go make a pile of money by having Firestar blow Captain America or something.
It's a pattern that continues today. For every year of Waid and Wieringo that the FF fans get, we have to sit through fucking Dwayne MacDuffie and Black Panther putting a rear naked choke on the Silver Surfer. Sure, he's imbued by the Power Cosmic and can tear worlds asunder but PRESSURE POINTS
But the ultimate black hole of the Fantastic Four came immediately after Walt Simonson had Doctor Doom and Mister Fantastic performing a time duel, which you had to read independent of the rest of the linear comic by flipping back and forth according to time codes included in the Doom/Reed panels. Simonson left the book and Marvel's Editor-In-Chief at the time, Tom DeFalco, decided to try his hand at writing Marvel's First Family.
At the time, I enjoyed DeFalco's run, because when you're a teenager you are an idiot, but I liked Rob Liefeld, too. So.
But even I was going "what a horrible story" at several points. You have to give DeFalco credit for trying to create new villains for the FF, but at the same time, no you don't because fuck you Tom DeFalco. He gave the world such storylines as THE WILDBLOOD, a short, pink, four-fingered Lemmy who escaped from THE INNIVERSE and the nefarious clutches of OCCULUS. Yes, Occulus, a dude who has an orange diamond for an eye. THE FIEND. You can tell he is bad because his right-hand man's name was DANGOR. look out fantastic four i think you might be in dangor
you are in such dangor that his very name indicates it
I mean, Occulus. Really? That's like a name Tenacious D comes up with after a particularly giggle-inducing bong rip. How the shit can you even introduce a character like that's backstory? Are we to believe his name was Occulus before he got a touch of the diamond-eye? Wacky coincidence? Because I'll be god damned if a dude gets a magical gem for an eyeball and is like "Shit yes son, OCCULUS up in this bitch~" Even "Diamond-Eye" is better than "Occulus." "Diamond-Eye Man."
"Professor Diamonds Face"
DeFalco also decided that the Human Torch's wife Alicia (The Thing's ex-girlfriend) was actually a Skrull named Lyja. Lyja the Lazerfist. LYJA THE LAZERFIST. Way to go, DeFalco, you took two awesome, potentially intimidating things and made a crap sundae.
So where's the real Alicia? MUST BE ON THE SKRULL HOMEWORLD I FIGURE. YEP, HERE IN A TUBE. IN THE FIRST PLACE WE LOOKED. HOORAY WE ARE AWESOME.
So from this we get about a year or two of OH MAN LYJA IS EVIL. BUT NO SHE REALLY FELL IN LOVE WITH JOHNNY. OH NOW SHE MADE HIM SO ANGRY HE EXPKODED HIS COLLEGE. In the midst of all this we also get such treats as Reed Richards dying; Susan Richards getting possessed by Malice, and to let us know she's evil she starts dressing slutty; a colony of bird-people living in Latveria; Ant-Man and Namor joining the Fantastic Four; Franklin Richards getting kidnapped by his grandfather and showing back up as early-20s Fraklin Richards wearing Daniel's exo-suit from Trans Formers: The Movie; The Thing and the Human Torch fighting a symbiote-possessed gorilla!
Actually a lot of comic book writers have written gorilla stories. In fact, an issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four a few months ago featured an evil gorilla. It is a staple of comic books and every one of those monkey stories suck. Frankly, I am sick of the comics industry's anti-simian agenda.
A "highlight" was Wolverine cutting The Thing's face open so The Thing has to wear a helmet for a year. THE THING IN A HELMET! BOY I TELL YA THIS BOOK'LL ROCKET TO THE TOP'A THE CHARTS!
Need I mention that DeFalco's entire run was drawn by Paul Ryan, whose artistic style mostly involved people either grimacing or with their mouths open, and any panel of The Thing talking resulted in him looking like an enormous orange guppy. Also, it was the 90s so Johnny Storm was wearing a lot of denim.
But really I think the problem with the DeFalco run and really, the problem with Fantastic Four in general, is personified in Tom DeFalco's most Tom DeFalco creation, Devos the Devastator.
FEAR ME
oh man a deranged notion of peace that sounds serious
Now I am a fan of shitty villains. One of my very favorite villains is The Shocker, a villain whose super power is two in the pink, wearing a sweater and vibrating. Why do I like The Shocker? Because a writer recognized that he sucked and added some serious character development to him, making him so paranoid that he is constantly fearing he will be killed that he becomes unpredictable in his fear, and only through his neuroses and recklessness does he become any sort of threat.
Okay so Devos. Devos the Devastator. His deal is that he feels peace can only be achieved through the destruction of all races, because all races are capable of waging war. So he is like Hitler and Predator. Predahitler.
Gee do you think Predator was an influence on Ryan's character design? I mean in all honesty, that picture of there is just Predator wearing tan slacks. The head is changed into like a generic robut head but beyond that Paul Ryan was like "doodle doodle doo ugh drawing is hard," and then looked at the cover of Predator Enthusiast Quarterly and went, "Sayyyyyyyy..."
Devos also had a menagerie in his wacky spaceship which housed, in glass balls, one living specimen of every race he had eliminated. Two things about this: 1) the majority of the specimens were not humanoid in nature, so I guess there are scores of planets out there of planets populated solely with beasts. Beasts capable of WAGING WAR. 2) Devos the Devastator has single-handedly killed hundreds of planets' worth of living creatures, presumably capable of combat. With a handgun and a two-claws. Therefore Devos the Devastator and his pleated Dockers are a galactic force to be reckoned with and surely this genocidal (homicidal, suicidal) maniac is the most fearsome foe that the Fantastic Four have ever faced. Surely
oh wait, Sue let all the animals out of the cages and now Devos doesn't know what to do. How about KILLING INDISCRIMINATELY, Devos? That has seemed to be the game plan up until now. Devos the Devastator is the worst character ever made. Yes, worse than Big Wheel.
So the creatures get loose and Devos' ship blows up and it's just like a two-issue arc. Tom DeFalco guffaws and eats another pastrami sandich and wipes his hands on hundred-dollar bills.
Hey, did I mention that Devos's ship is filled with robot henchmen named Servators? Yes, they drew the Predator and then NAMED HIS ROBOTS SERVATORS. uggggghhhhhhh devos you are the worst
Devos actually came back recently in the galactic "Anihilation" crossover, but I don't read space opera comics except for FF because they usually bore the shit out of me. So here's hoping he listened to an American Indian laugh at a snatch joke and then pulled Mac's spine out. Alternate joke: Here's hoping one of his victims had time to bleed.
So me and the rest of my poor Fantastic Four fans have to suffer year in and year out. As I write this, Millar and Hitch have just started a run on the title. Mark Millar is arguably the best writer in comics at the moment and Bryan Hitch is the incredible talent that drew the first two series of The Ultimates. I don't anticipate they do more than 12 issues before bowing out and we get fucking Pacella and Panosian or something. And yet another writer will say, "Hey, DIABLO! The Alchemist guy! No one remembers THAT guy! This is going to be awesome!" and none of the editors will see fit to tell the dude that Diablo has been the first villain in the runs of like the last six writers.
Maybe when the next creative team comes in, they'll bring back Occulus and make him EDGYYYYYY. And then they'll sign a bunch of veterans to build the team around Bonds because Brian Sabean is a fucking idiot. GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING I LOVE SO SHITTY
Painting of Devos by B. Stroud, courtesy of the private collection of B. Hanstock