We’ve got another lucky dip and oh look, it’s the Fantastic 4 Life Story #1. The Spider-man Life story mini-series was fantastic and brought me round on Chip Zdarsky after being less than impressed with his Jughead run. But this story isn’t by Chip Zdarsky, not is it a spider-man run, instead this story is written by Mark Russel, responsible for the 1970s reboot of DC’s Prez, and the Wonder Twins series as part of Brian Michael Bendis’ short-lived Wonder Comics imprint. The art is by Sean Izaakse with Nolan Woodard on colours. But enough preamble (going into the details of the aims of the Life Story series would be counterproductive to the nature of this format), let’s take a look at this.
It's April 1961, The Americans are losing the space race to
the soviets, 3 attempts have been made, all 3 unsuccessful. And a common idea
in this part of the story is that good ideas are a product of inspiration, bad
ones the product of desperation, and the US is now desperate. To that end
they’ve brought in the fresh mind of Doctor Reed Richards, one of the smartest
men on the planet. He’s not welcomed by everyone though. Doctor Ricardo Jones
was promised the project but since his previous designs have ended in failure,
Reed is given the President’s blessing, though Doctor Jones remains in charge
on the ground to keep Reed in check.
Reed’s design is unconventional, a more space-ship like
design, not particularly aerodynamic but with Reed’s anti-matter fuel solution,
that won’t be necessary. Reed answers a call from Sue who’s working at the lab
whilst also entertaining her kid brother, Johnny. Unfortunately, they hit a
snag, they don’t have the technological capability to even test the fuel before
sending it up with the rocket, and Jones won’t approve a launch until it’s
tested, he estimates that will take till 1982, the ship is due to be dismantled
the next day, but Sue encourages him to take it up now, with her volunteering
as part of the crew and Johnny coming along because he wants to, and he
threatens to report them, he also knows a guy who can serve as their pilot, Ben
Grimm.
Ben Grimm is at a bar, having been fired from military
service after a… fracas. It couldn’t come at a worse time, he’s engaged to love
of his life, and without a job their dream honeymoon is out of reach. Still,
he’s a pilot and Reed needs a pilot so he’s in. They put on the traditional Fantastic 4 suits, they’re "inflammable". I think they meant flame retardant,
inflammable and flammable mean the same thing.
Despite the lack of instruments, Ben knows he can fly it but
as the opening said, a bad idea is born out of desperation, and something
no-one could consider is a cosmic storm interacting with the anti-matter fuel,
Jonny is on fire, Ben turns into rock, Sue turns invisible and Reed stretches
to hit the abort button that sends them back to Earth. As he does so, he sees
something, is briefly, Galactus, the devourer of worlds, though he doesn’t know
that yet.
The 4 wake up in hospital, Johnny has to be put out with a
fire extinguisher and Ben sees his new look and almost strangles reed. Still,
on the plus side for PR, the president can affirm they’ve launched a rocket
into space. Ben is still livid about everything, but has to play along for a
while, first attending a parade and then helping the team against Mole Man.
As life moves on, Reed and Sue get married, Johnny joins the
marines, Sue joins a protest movement and Reed can’t stop thinking about
Galactus. So much so, he sets up a meeting with the President, unfortunately the
President is more consumed with matters of the present, like the Vietnam war
and Jones convinces him it’s just a psychosis from their space trip.
Sue consoles him as Ben attempts to reconnect with his other
half, but he can’t bring himself to see her. In 1967, Reed and Ricardo are on
TV together, talking about the existence of aliens. Both agree that the galaxy
must be teaming with alien civilisations but the question becomes ‘why haven’t
they made contact’ Reed thinks it’s a self-defeating question. The only
civilisations that survive do so because of their own obscurity.
Anyway, Reed’s been working on a subspace chamber, a way of
recreating the circumstances of his first Galactus vision, something Sue is
clearly worried about. Ben isn’t with them because Doctor Jones has shown up at
his door, offering him a ‘cure’ for his condition. Ben agrees but part of the
deal is that Jones received that power and uses it to infiltrate the subspace
chamber, another idea born out of desperation.
Jones reveals he wishes to kill Reed, believing that he
stole Jones’ place in history with his trip to space, and popularity in the
present with his lies about Galactus, the latter is quickly disproven though as
both now see the entity, who here is formally identified as Galactus, who says
that he’s coming for them.
Seeing that he was wrong, Jones flings Reed back out of the
portal, accepting his own fate. Now Galactus knows about Earth, thanks to this
bad idea born out of desperation. Ben is using his cure to try and reconnect
with his wife but when Jones dies, he reverts back to his rock form and runs off.
In 1969, just as Reed and Sue give birth to their first son Franklin, and man
walks on the moon, Ben pays them a visit, finally accepting himself.
So that was Fantastic 4 Life Story 1, the 60s and it has the
hallmarks of a great Fantastic 4 story, it tells the origin story of the famous
family and is an entertaining read along the way. The focus is mostly on Reed
and Ben, with Reed having to rebel against authority and making and more and
more desperate bad decisions that ultimately have dire consequences.
Ben has to work up the courage to accept himself, a process
that takes years and is far from complete by the end of the story. Johnny and
Sue don’t get much to do, Johnny in particular is really underutilised, but
this is a 6-part series so there’s still time.
The backdrop of the space race is a good one for this
particular origin story, given the space-related part of their origin story,
there’s not much real-world history beyond that and a vague mention to the
Vietnam war, the protests are vague enough to have come from any era. The
artwork is fantastic, not really much else to say there.
I will say that Doctor Jones was not all that developed a
villain. He was already an antagonist but him resenting Reed to the point of
trying to kill him in the climax is not developed well at all.
Rating 3.5/5 Stars
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