This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four Volume Three. After reading Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, this volume felt like a letdown. Mr. Kirby’s art looks rushed in places here, there’s no meta story, and the issues have a ‘villain of the month’ quality. We have a single science fiction tale about a young godling, but the rest is mostly battles with the team’s growing rogue’s gallery – Doctor Doom, The Mole Man, The Red Ghost and his Super Apes, etc, etc., etc.
The highlight of this volume is the Thing’s battle with the Hulk. The not-so-jolly-green-giant invades Manhattan, because reasons. Most of the Fantastic Four is either sick or injured by the Hulk, so it falls to the Thing to fight the jade giant. And fight him he does, in a great battle sequence that lasts nearly an entire issue and ends with the Thing getting knocked on his ass. Never fear, the rest of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers join the fray in the next issue. It’s a great two-parter.
Other developments worth mentioning: the creators give Sue Storm the ability to cast invisible force fields, which gives them more to do with her character. Prince Namor arrives to propose to Sue, except his idea of proposing involves kidnapping and imprisoning her in an enormous bubble until she agrees to marry him. Reed Richards, feeling his manhood threatened, rushes to fight the Sub-Mariner, which is interesting because he’s usually written as a pretty mild guy. Afterwards, Sue puts Namor in the Friend Zone – actually he should be in the Don’t-Come-Within-Two-Hundred-Feet of my House Zone, but whatever.
This volume is a slight step back from the first two books, but the Hulk two-parter is a classic and worth the price of admission. Recommended.
Abandoned Places 