Just because it was first serialized in a periodical of the time doesn't mean it's not a novel. (Just ask Charles Dickens.) Collected Concepts looks at some of the best graphic novels to have lost the staples and taken their rightful place on the bookshelf.
Fantastic Four: World's Greatest
Writer- Mark Millar
Artist- Bryan Hitch
Marvel Comics
HC 196 pgs $24.95
When you think of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch you think of widescreen major motion pictures. I'm talking about the Cinemascope of old. Bold action told against epic vistas. Ultimates and its sequel Ultimates 2 certainly had that sense of grand scale and action. Now this modern team supreme tackles the book created by Marvel's ultimate team supreme of Lee and Kirby. Do they measure up to past glories? This volume collects the first half of their proposed sixteen issue run on the title. So far, so good.
At heart, the Fantastic Four is the story of a tight-knit family of adventurers. They don't go on patrol to fight crime. Their explorations involve them in the conflicts that propel the story. The relationships of the characters ground the narrative and make them relatable to the reader. Lee and Kirby used this book to launch their most outrageous and cosmic concepts, including the Inhumans, The Silver Surfer, Galactus and Him. Throughout their fast-paced introductions of mind-bending ideas the humor and caring shown by the Fantastic Four themselves made the reader care even more about the high stakes of the current story. Many subsequent creative teams treated them as just another super-hero team fighting super-villains. For the FF concept to truly work you need big, imaginative ideas grounded by the relationships between the characters. Millar and Hitch get the concept and make it work for them.
This hardcover collects two four-part stories. This first comes to a satisfying conclusion, but concepts from it become a major part of the resolution to the second story. This is the way to build upon the mythos of the series. Each of the four has their own personal story going on, and those stories weave in and out of the major conflicts. In this way the characters become characters, not just a superpower to throw into a fight scene.
The artwork by Hitch is equally bold and epic and quiet and personal. Characters have individual faces and body language. The quiet moments give us a sense of personality and place. When the action explodes across the page, and explode it does, it is all the more effective in contrast. Hitch may have sacrificed a small amount of detail compared to his Ultimates work, but he has more than made up for it in the energy of his work.
In the long history of Marvel Comics few creative teams have really done justice to The Fantastic Four, and it has cost them in the number of devoted fans. Millar and Hitch are only halfway on their run and have already established themselves as one of the best of the heirs of Lee and Kirby. I'm looking forward to the next half, which includes a crossover with Millar's mega-popular Old Man Logan story from the pages of Wolverine.
Bill Love / Novel Ideas Columnist
Bill spent ten years in television production then ten years teaching production and journalism at the high school level. He has over a decade of comics retailing experience and has written, edited and done interviews for Sketch Magazine and other Blue Line Art publications. Together with Bob Hickey, Bill created Graphic Novel Scene to serve the library community as a selection tool in choosing graphic novels for their growing collections.
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