A New Kind of Family: Fantastic Four Runs/Issues Not Featuring All Four Members of the Fantastic Four

Today (assuming this is Wednesday) marks the start of a new volume of Marvel’s Fantastic Four, featuring James Robinson on writing duties and Leonard Kirk on art. It also marks about a week since the Internet melted down over a skinny guy being cast to play the Thing. Wait, that wasn’t the scuttlebutt, was it? Was it about the guy from That Awkward Moment playing the smartest man in the Marvel Universe? Ah, it’ll come to me.

Fantastic Four is praised regularly for the unique family dynamic of the book – husband and wife Reed and Sue, younger brother Johnny, children Franklin and Valeria, Ben the creepy rock monster uncle – but just like the Justice League, the Avengers or the X-Men, it’s still a team book, with new members rotating in every once in a while to switch up the dynamic and keep things fresh.

So if you think you had problems with Hollywood’s casting of the team, check out these other incarnations of the Four that were, shall we say, differently Fantastic.

Four minus one equals Any Inhumans Lying Around?: Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing … and Crystal/Medusa (Fantastic Four #81-? and #132-159): The FF were probably the first superhero team to write maternity leave into their health plan. During Sue’s pregnancy and later after Franklin was born, she was replaced on the team by the two most prominent female Inhumans: Crystal, one of Johnny’s many, many, many girlfriends over the years, and Medusa, who, being queen of a race of people and all, you’d think would have more important things to do.

Four minus one equals SWEET CHRISTMAS!: Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and … Luke Cage (Fantastic Four #168-170, 1976): When the Thing reverted to plain old Ben Grimm, Reed replaced him as the team powerhouse with the original Hero for Hire. Makes sense, considering in 1973, Cage famously confronted Dr. Doom regarding services rendered by demanding “Where’s my money, honey?”

Four minus one equals H.E.R.B.I.E.: Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing and ... H.E.R.B.I.E. (Fantastic Four cartoon, 1978): Chalk this one up to rights issues. At the time that NBC wanted an FF cartoon, Universal had optioned a Human Torch project. And because it wasn’t 30+ years later, when NBC and Universal are part of the same company, the cartoon had to go Torchless. Enter H.E.R.B.I.E., a Lee/Kirby creation that was not at all a flaming teenager. H.E.R.B.’s presence spawned the legend that Johnny was pulled from the show because execs thought kids, inspired by the Torch, would try to light themselves on fire. Decades later, H.E.R.B.I.E. would be one of the funnier characters on Marvel’s “Super Hero Squad Show” aimed at younger viewers.

Four minus two equals Date Night!: Human Torch, Thing … Crystal and Ms. Marvel/She-Thing (Starting in Fantastic Four #306, 1987): Every couple hundred issues or so, Reed and Sue leave the team to try to save their marriage. During this phase, they were replaced by Crystal and Sharon Ventura, a professional wrestler who eventually is transformed into a Thinglike creature. You can almost picture Johnny and Ben looking at their respective teammates/dates, looking at each other, and slow-nodding while that song from the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off plays.

Four minus four equals New Fantastic Four: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider (Fantastic Four #347-349, 1990): Holy hot characters! When the original-recipe FF is kidnapped by a Skrull named De’Lila, a new Four forms to rescue them, made up of what were arguably Marvel’s most popular characters in 1990. (Yes, Virginia, there was a time when Ghost Rider sold comics) Together they took on the Skrulls and the Mole Man, all well-rendered by Art Adams, with story by Walt Simonson.

Four minus two equals the post-Civil War 4: Human Torch, Thing … Storm and Black Panther (Starting in Fantastic Four #543, 2007): The superhero Civil War did a number on Reed and Sue’s marriage (again, something that appears to happen every few years), so they took some time off and replaced themselves with Wakandan royalty. T’Challa, of course, is no slouch in the science department himself, and Storm is … a woman. So see, it all balances out!

Four minus one plus one equals The Future Foundation: Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing and … Spider-Man (Starting in FF#1, 2011): The Human Torch, who was killed-but-not-really in the Negative Zone, willed his spot on the team to Spider-Man, because the two were friends, and also because they’d essentially be replacing a younger, wise-cracking blond man with a younger, wise-cracking brunette. Hey, beats getting replaced by H.E.R.B.I.E.! Eventually, Johnny got better, and he and Peter became roommates for a time, allowing writer Jonathan Hickman a wealth of opportunity for Odd Couple jokes.

Four minus four equals FF: Ant-Man, She-Hulk, Medusa, “Miss Thing” (Starting in FF#1, 2013): While the Richardses went on a time-travel adventure somewhere near the start of the Marvel NOW! era, they appointed an additional four superheroes to mind the store in their place, including a science guy (Scott Lang’s Ant-Man), some muscle (She-Hulk), a mother lion (Medusa; again, don’t you have a race to rule?) and … a pop star who slept with Johnny Storm. This iteration of FF has the dubious distinction of being the book Matt Fraction left in a hurry so he could write Inhumans, but it also has fun art by Mike Allred.

Four minus three equals Ultimate FF: The Invisible Woman … Iron Man, Falcon and Machine Man (Starting in Ultimate FF#1, 2014): This one’s not even on the stands yet, so there’s little to say about it other than writer Josh Fialkov and artist Tom Grummet are using the latest refreshening of the Ultimate Universe to craft a version of the team never seen before. And good on them.

Super Hero Marriage and Maturity: The Short Sighted Path

I had a hard time coming up with a title that didn't make this sound like I was in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, so I removed defense from the title to begin with, as this post has nothing to do with gay marriage. Well, a little, since the Batwoman issue is what cued it, but that's only the most recent symptom of a problem I have seen expanding over mainstream comics the past few years. I want to admit up front, since this is an op/ed piece, there is more focus on a problem in the industry then something to celebrate, but I will be talking about some really great comics along the way, with probably a little section at the end about some of my favorite married superhero stories, and this is something I feel pretty strongly about.

For those of you who don't follow the comics news sites with the religious fervor that I do, this past weekend it was announced the creative team of DC's Batwoman title were leaving due to editorial interference, much of which had to do with DC not wanting the character to get married to her partner, GCPD Captain Maggie Sawyer. Yes, Batwoman is gay. And the main hue and cry has been that DC is afraid of pissing off people by having a gay character get married, or are themselves homophobes. I'm not going to speak to either of those points, since I am not acquainted with the people involved and don't want to cast aspersions. But what I see here is something more systemic than Batwoman and Maggie (who are a great couple, by the way, and I was hoping they'd get married), but has more to do with the second half of that two part phrase; "marriage" is more of a dirty word in mainstream comics than "gay" right now, and that is symbolic of one of the industries real problems. And for the benefit of the uninitiated as well, I'll be talking about The Big Two in this essay, meaning Marvel and DC. They are pretty much the focus of what I'm saying, so no one give me a comment about change, marriage, and maturity with a list of indy books after this, since I know and read plenty of comics that embrace the solution to the problems I'm gonna be talking about in DC and Marvel.

In the late 80s and 90s, there were a rash of superhero marriages. Spider-Man married Mary Jane, Superman married Lois Lane, Flash (Wally West) married Linda Park, Cyclops married Phoenix (the real Jean Grey, not a clone or cosmic doppelganger), and quite a few others. These were usually pretty big deals, especially the Spider-Man and Superman ones. These were major changes to status quos; things that had been etched in stone for the majority of the character's existence had been rewritten. And there, my friends, is the real problem that we have here: CHANGE. Super hero comics embrace the illusion of change, but the real thing causes all sorts of stress amongst fans and professionals, and frankly most, if not all, professionals started out as fans.

So, as is the way with nearly all real changes, these were slowly phased out. Spider-Man sold his marriage to the devil to save his aunt from dying (because the people they were worrying about offending by a divorce would have no problem with deals with the devil). Phoenix died. And the New 52 meant pretty much all DC heroes were younger, and thus not married, or like poor Wally West didn't exist anymore. And the reason that was given for this was usually that the creators/editors/whoever wanted the characters to be more relateable, and they felt the demographic they were looking for couldn't relate to a married hero.

Now some could argue that there are still married heroes left. Let's look at the few married heroes. Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four is not meant to be the character that is the reader proxy in that title. He's aloof at times, manipulative at others, and is the father of the family; readers are meant to associate with either Human Torch or The Thing. Animal Man's family has basically been hostages and targets since the inception of the New 52, which is fine from a story POV, and his daughter Maxine now has her animal powers, and so the book is as much about her growth into that power as Animal Man's own superheroic struggles. Frankly, as mature superhero books go, Animal Man is one of the best examples I can come up with, dealing with family, loss, fame, and heroism.

And in that last sentence there's the key word: maturity. Superhero comics started out as adolescent power fantasies. If you look at the majority of creators of the earliest superheroes, they were sickly, outcast, oddballs, and people seeking to find their power. So many Golden Age creators were Jews in a time where a shadow was being cast over their European families, no wonder they looked for a simple answer (Curious to learn more? Check out Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book for a great history of the golden age). But that was seventy-five years ago. And while comics have come a long way, dealing with all sorts of issues that Siegel, Shuster, Kane, Simon, Kirby, and Eisner never would have, so much about mainstream superheroes haven't.

Change and maturity are two very different things, which is something the Big Two tend to confuse. Mature is not a comic that has boobs and violence; mature is a comic that deals with people as people and sees them grow and change into something more than what they are at the beginning of their story. DC's Vertigo imprint has published some very mature comics, and one or two of Marvel's MAX  titles have also been mature, but many are just labeled as "Mature readers" to allow for things that might possibly offend a parent who might stumble upon a comic their kid bought.

When you look at life, there are some very clear marks of maturity; graduations, marriages, and the births of children come to mind. The sliding time scale of the superhero comic allows aging to be avoided rather easily, but these kind of milestones are signs of changes in life, and when they happen the character is changed. I feel like the creators of Marvel and DC comics are doing their readers a disservice. I work in a comic shop, I see the audience, and the mainsteam superhero comic isn't being consumed by seven to twelve year olds. The Big Two wants to appeal to an older demographic, but they're doing it by appealing to the lowest common denominator, the people who associate boobs, blood, and barbarism with maturity.

The issue where Cyclops and Phoenix got married stands as one of my favorite X-Men comics of all time, and I know plenty of others who feel the same way. And while the Superman Wedding Album was clearly rushed due to DC's having to line it up with the wedding on the Lois & Clark TV show, there are still some golden moments in it. And the married Superman and Lois Lane worked brilliantly together. Their relationship was a partnership, and when written properly, she brought out the best in him and vice versa. They grew together, and became different and interesting characters. It's how I first really encountered them (the first Superman story I read was the one where Clark proposed to Lois), and I think there's a lot to be said about what really grounds Superman, and I think it's a lot of what is missing in his New 52 characterization. Exploring how life is different can make for interesting stories, more interesting than rehashing the old will they/won't they. I will give DC credit for not immediately dipping into that well again by pairing Superman with Wonder Woman, but as long as Lois is there, everyone will know who Superman is meant to be with.

So, where does reverting thee heroes really get us? The short sighted path. The idea that we now have the same swingin' single Spider-Man of the 60s and 70s is fun, but when another writer gets the idea to really hook Spidey up with someone who means something to him, are they going to do it, knowing that whatever happens Mephisto can pop up and it will be rewritten by an editor who doesn't like the idea. When Superman and Wonder Woman get too close, are they going to split to give him and Lois a chance to dance the dance they did for fifty years? I'm not naive enough to believe that most of the people involved in these characters lives' aren't in it purely for the money, but at the same time, the industry can only alienate existing readers so many times before they call it quits. Growth and continuity aren't the same thing. You don't need to have read thirty years of Superman to understand his relationship with Lois when it was written well. A married couple is a couple like any other, and by the way, anyone who says a married couple can't have adventures, on their own or separately, and that there's no conflict left once you've "settled down," is so utterly unfamiliar with what real relationships are like that I feel kind of sorry for them.

So, what can be done about this? I wish I could tell you. I won't say you should all drop Batwoman, since I think Marc Andreyko is one of the best and most underappreciated writers in comics, thanks to his work on Manhunter (and, for those of you who are interested, one of the few publicly gay writers in mainstream comics) and I think he's going to do some very smart and mature work with the character, married or not, and dropping a book before you give it a shot is anathema to my beliefs that trying a comic before badmouthing it is the way to go. But what you can really do is support books that reward character as much as action. Batwoman has done a great job of this, as has Wonder Woman, Batman & Robin, Hawkeye, and the late, lamented X-Factor.

Oh, and if you like stories featuring your superheroes married, you might want to check out some of the following: Adventures of Superman by Greg Rucka collected in three trades, Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix by Scott Lobdell and Gene Ha, Mark Waid or Geoff Johns's The Flash, and anything you can track down featuring Ralph and Sue Dibny, DC's Elongated Man and his wife, my favorite superhero couple. And if you want a story of a superhero growing up and maturing set within one of these universes, try James Robinson's brilliant Starman.