DOOM! One of my all time favorite artists, his life and career mirrors victor von doom and his origin. Cool to see someone bring up DOOM in a comic book channel. You have good taste.
I’m reading the Lee/Kirby run for the first time (currently on omni vol 2) and for someone who could not have cared less about FF as a kid I’m having an absolute blast. It starts a bit slow but by issue 20 or so it gets great and even the early issues of vol 2 look and read light years ahead of what came earlier. Amazing to see the Silver Age basically being invented by the month. I also have the Hickman omni reprint on order and have comixology trades of the Waid/Weiringo run to get to
@Ryan Wilson yeah I wish I’d just bought it when it was in print but I wouldn’t be surprised if it got another reissue in time for the MCU FF film. Hell if Marvel keeps going ham with these omni issues and reprints I might be able to get it even sooner.
Great list, id also reccomend Marvel 2 in One by Chip Zdarsky as well. Even though it mainly just features the Thing and the Human Torch it helps connect how they find Reed and Sue before Slott started his run.
Heroes Return is where I jumped on. Never respected FF until reading this and now I'm hungrier knowing this isn't the best run. I always miscast FF as real-world heroes like DD, Spider-man or X-men, not realizing they're meant to be cosmic & dimensional superheroes. Now I LOVE them
Outside of a random crossover appearance here or there, the Waid & Wieringo run was where I first jumped into Fasntastic Four when I was getting back into comics after a long absence. I was buying up Marvel Essentials on eBay and one of the sellers reached out and asked if I wanted to buy anything else from his auctions to combine shipping. Those 6 TPBs ended up being the first non-Essential collections (or Usagi Yojimbo books) that I bought in a good long while and were the precursor to my foray back into comics. And, years later, I sold them away after I "upgraded" to the omnibus. One could say that without those 6 Fantastic Four trades, I may not be reading comics, buying piles of books I'll never get to before I die or watching Near Mint Condition videos today.
I just jumped onto the current run during the bride of doom story, and was able to catch up within a few issues. Also the ff life story coming out now is pretty good
I missed most of it at the time but I've been reading Claremont & Larocca's FF run lately and really been digging it. Not exactly for beginners but pretty great if you usually enjoy their work.
hey omar ! starting from the very beginning is how it should be read. I am now re-reading the fantasic 4 epics now heading into vol 2. such a good read ! stay safe and keep up the great work !
@Ryan Wilson star trek in the 60's was not serious at all. it was goofy and silly all the way up on till the movies came out. that is when star trek got serious.
I remember being so impressed with the first Byrne FF when it came out. I love that run. The only thing I didn’t like was the split up between The Thing and Alicia. I thought that was an important part of the character. Some things shouldn’t be messed with.
Thanks for this video. I've been wanting to get on board on the Fantastic Four. Also wondering which run I should start with. This has given me a lot of insights on each run.
The first 3 are basically what I would recommend based on my brother's opinions, since he knows *everything* about the FF & I know next to nothing! I ended up starting with the Silver Age stuff & I don't regret it a bit, but I am very eager to get to the Byrne era. I've read a bit of each era now but not nearly as much as the Kirby/Lee, it just gets better & better as I go.
Dang Omar I know it's not titled Fantastic but Marvel Two in One by Chip for me will make the best introduction. Just two characters that lost their family and later even a villain is similarly losing it after so long without his archnemesis. So great. I love that confrontation of the Thing against Reed "The kids!" Ugh manly eye sweat. For younger readers maybe the Moon Girl crossover when she forms her own FF. That was an all ages blast.
I’d love to see a Mike Allred run on fantastic four. I know he drew those FF issues (written by Fraction?), but I think Allred could do a really fun 12+ issue run with Marvel’s first family. Madman is one of my favorite books, and I love his other independent/creator owned projects, but his style and energy fits so perfectly with fun marvel super hero books. For me he was the perfect antidote for all the overdone ultra dark and gritty superhero comics post Watchmen and DKR. Allred on a big Fantastic Four story would be really cool. If he didn’t want to write it himself he could pair up w/someone like Dan Slott.
Great storylines. One that I would've added that I didn't see shown here is Carlos Pacheco's 13 issue run (I believe it was) on the FF. I, to me, was one of those "Back to Basics" approaches that saw the re-emergence of age old FF foes that hadn't been seen nor heard from in years: Diablo, The Grey Gargoyle, Annihilus, the Super Skrull... and even introduced a new villian to the mix, Abraxas. He even threw in an appearance from the Ultimate Nullifier to boot. 😁
Aww man the art... the writing.. the Omar primer... so hyped to start reading my Fantastic Four Omnis 1 and 2... I spy 3 and 4 are presently pretty cheap on amazon O_o
I'm 61 and am older than Marvel and the FF, I read all the classic FF as they came out, but like you i took a break from comics in my forties because life got in the way, now I'm medically retired, I started getting back into comics, I chose Mark Millar's run as a jumping on again point to the main FF storyline (unlike you, I like Millar's writing) after first getting into them again via the Ultimate FF run, I love Hickman's writing too and have followed him to titles i was never into before like the X-men,
I've only been reading the current run of Fantastic Four by Dan Slott and I started last year, got volume 2 this Christmas and bought volume 3-7 since and I'm actually quite enjoying it
My first time reading a fantastic four book was checking a copy of marvel masterworks Vol 2 (first volume with FF) out of the library. Even though it's the very first fantastic four comics I still think it's one of the best. So I guess I started from the very beginning. I actually enjoyed that marvel masterworks volume so much I bought a copy of it that is exactly like the one I checked out. I think that's why I like marvel masterworks in general.
Hello Omar could you convinced David Gabriel to reprint Vol. 1 and 2 of Johathan Hickman's run on F4. I know the Omni is getting reprinted soon but I'm more into thick trades.
Heroes Reborn, Heroes Return, and MK 4 are my major recommendation. I love the 90s run, but there's so much going on it's hard to get into. The worst runs were Mark Millar and Waid's run. I hate, hate, hate Waid's run it's as offensive as it is corny. You have Reed torturing Doom in a sloppy and heavy handed Iraq War allegory that's handled with subtlety of an epileptic gorilla with hammers for hands in a stainded glass factory in one storyline, and then you have Galactus agreeing to not to destry the world because ice crea exists in another. Leather daddy doom fridging a love interest who is just brought on to die, and concluded with the dumbest literal deus ex machina where things are undone with I kid you not a pencil eraser. This run is easily as bad Jeph Loeb's Ultimates 3. I have no idea why it gets so much praise. It is the worst run of Fantastic Four ever printed. The olny redeeming aspect is Wieringo is a great artist.
im sorry u can claim the byrne and lee runs are evergreen but they are not good for modern readers. They are a chore and a slog to get through and would probably turn some fans off from continuing comics. waid, hickman, season one etc are much better
thanks this is really something specifically for the mcu fans to understand and now these characters I do know like most of the basics of the fantastic four basics such as : villains their origins extra nembers etc
