Stan Lee's The Last Fantastic Four Story

[kingdom warrior]

I picked this up Yesterday and Read it on my way home from work...I was hoping that this was going to be interesting.I had skimmed inside and liked what I saw with Romita Jr's art...but when I got to reading this I was like what the heck? Stan Lee just can't write a decent story anymore.He's trying to write like he did in his heydays and man was this Fluff. FF start rethinking why they do what they do and want to disolve the group..just then an Alien race wants to eliminate the Earth (wow there's an original Idea) Sends an All Powerful Being that no one and their Mother can Beat.

FF has to resort to getting the Silver Surfer and Galactus to Help. Would have been great if there would have been a Great all out Battle but nope.It was Lame.and at 4.99 I felt like i wasted my money.

Stan should just stick to being Stan sign autographs... he continues to prove that after he stopped working with some of marvels greats Like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko etc. He has never been the same.

[The Toyroom]

I passed on this one...didn't figure it was worth the $4.99.

[Comic Book Geek]

Jerry West is a hall of fame basketball player, but even in his prime he'd probably not even make it to an NBA bech today.

Stan was the man in his day, but his day is over.

[The Toyroom]

It's more and more obvious over the years that a lot of Stan's success came from the artists he was paired with (Kirby, Ditko, et al)...his "solo" stuff lately is little more than the hyperbole we've always got from him but without any of the substance.

[kingdom warrior]

Stan never wrote anything of substance after Kirby left and I don't think he created anything great also......Unlike Kirby who moved on to DC and created the New Gods and when Kirby came back he created the Eternals and many other characters.Also Kirby wrote his own stuff without Stan. Kirby's creations were always more Epic so you can clearly see his influence on the FF and other marvel characters.

[jds1911a1]

I love Kirby's artwork but I am not a fan of the 4th world or the eternals (which in my opniion he simply recreated the new gods in the marvel universe).
I think it is a prime example of the generational gap. Stan's era was 30 years ago and while he was the first to address issues like racism (olbiqely via xmen) or teen angst in Spiderman the bronze age was a simpler time. I grew up reading comics in the 70's but if I wanted a 70's style story I gave thousands of comics I can reread

[Adam West]

If I am not mistaken, didn't Kirby draw the story boards first and then Stan Lee would write the captions afterwards?

Regardless, I like Stan Lee's campiness.

[Earth 2 Chris]

If I am not mistaken, didn't Kirby draw the story boards first and then Stan Lee would write the captions afterwards?

That was the way it worked at least later on, after Marvel took off, and both FF and Spidey were in their heyday. Kirby and Ditko would do the majority of the plotting, draw them, and then Stan would dialog them. I believe when Ditko left, Stan got more hands on again with Spidey.

It's all a bit fuzzy, and with Kirby gone, Ditko a recluse, and Stan a hyperbole machine, the entire truth may never be known. But needless to say, Kirby and Ditko at least equalled Stan's input on their co-creations, if no surpassed them.

I haven't read this new story, but Stan's last few attempts at comics didn't do much for me. The magic just couldn't be reacaptured.

Chris

[johnmiic]

I read it and wasn't too thrilled. It seemed rushed and at times un-original. I think Stan's greatest asset is continuity. He can't build up a great story in one issue. Plus he hasn't written these characters in so long he lost the ablitity to internalize them. When they talk it's just dialogue. I don't hear any of their voices really.

For years there was the Marvel style of writing. The writer would write the plot. Sometimes this might be as tight as panel to panel but usually it was just a description of the action that took place in the issue. The artist was left to figure out how best to fit it in. After the art was done the writer comes back and fills in the dialogue and narration. This seems to be a very loose way to work out a comic but it produced many classic stories. It is a real trapeeze act; a real collaborative effort.

The only person who ever really spoke about how Stan works was John Romita Sr. In an interview in Back Issue he said Stan was a real pain in the *****. He would ask for things to be re-drawn and say that's not what I wanted-you have to fix it. He would push good artists really hard to give him perfection but so-so artists he would leave them be. Jr, Sr doesn't mean anything by what he said in the interview he just was saying that's how it was.

[Adam West]

I'm sure he did it because he knew Romita could do better work than he was turning in.

I do this all the time when managing employees. I hold different people to different standards depending on what I know they are capable of.

At the end of the day though, I reward those that are the superstars and hopefully, Romita was adequately compensated for his work.

[kingdom warrior]

I love Kirby's artwork but I am not a fan of the 4th world or the eternals (which in my opniion he simply recreated the new gods in the marvel universe).
I think it is a prime example of the generational gap. Stan's era was 30 years ago and while he was the first to address issues like racism (olbiqely via xmen) or teen angst in Spiderman the bronze age was a simpler time. I grew up reading comics in the 70's but if I wanted a 70's style story I gave thousands of comics I can reread

I never thought Kirby's Eternals as recreating The New Gods.I always thought of it as a continuation of what he was doing Just it was now at Marvel.He Kept those Ideas going even when he did work at Pacific Comics in the early 80's. As a matter of Fact the New Gods are a continuation of what he started when he created Galactus and the Silver Surfer. Kirby Credited his inspirations coming straight from reading the Bible.

I think of it as like to When the Beatles recorded Rubber soul and Revolver very similar in sound because they were recorded almost at the same time same with Sgt.Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour.