Articles: The Origin of The Fantastic Four

If you're a regular or even semi-regular visitor to this site, you can probably recite the Fantastic Four's origin backwards and forwards. You've probably read the story a few dozen times between recaps, reprints and retellings. But the story I'd like to tell here and now is the origin of The Fantastic Four, the comic magazine itself. How did Stan Lee and Jack Kirby develop such a powerful book? Where did the inspiration for a family of super-powered adventurers come from?

Such a tale is in fact very long if it is to be told in it's entirety. It is tempting to travel back to the origins of comics themselves and even more tempting to start with the introduction of Superman in 1938. But to keep things focused on the FF, let's begin with the introduction of The Flash.

The comic industry was in a slump following the morality campaign against comic books with figurehead leader Dr. Fredric Wertham, the subsequent Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquincy, and the Comic Code Authority. Julie Schwartz, working for National (now DC) Comics, thought about reviving the then-dead superhero motif. Having working on the original Golden Age Flash years earlier, he tried a new spin on the concept. He passed his idea along to writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino and not long after the second Flash made his debut in Showcase #4, cover dated October 1956. The book was considered a huge success and DC followed up on the superhero idea over the next few years with additional Superman books and the revival of the Green Arrow and Green Lantern concepts.

Schwartz: "I have a theory that when you revive a hero, you can base it on the original, but go off in a different track. We decided to come up with expanded activities. I worked out the idea of a whole universe full of Green Lanterns."

All of these superhero books proved very successful, so DC decided to combine them all together as a team. It was a marketing gimmick to help introduce Superman and Batman fans to some of their other heroes. Brave and the Bold #28, cover dated March 1960, featured the grouping meeting for the first time as the Justice League of America, this concept also spinning from the previously published Justice Society of America. The first three JLA stories sold well, and the team soon saw the newsstands in the own title in late 1960.

At the time, Martin Goodman was the publisher of Marvel Comics. They had been having waning -- but still moderate -- success with their varied horror titles. On a May or June 1961 golf outing (golf was a favorite passtime of Goodman's), he was told by National publisher Jack Liebowitz that sales on the first two issues of Justice League were phenomonal. Goodman, who was always known to follow a popular idea in his publications, began to think of how he could capitalize on the superhero team concept. Marvel had a cache of Golden Age superheroes to draw upon: Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Angel, Marvel Boy, and Venus to name a few. But Goodman was in a unusual situation; his distributor was none other than National itself! While National imposed strict limitations on the number of comics Goodman could publish a month, they tolerated working with their competitor probably in part because he published genres that really did not overlap their own.

Having almost certainly looked at several issues of Justice League to discover what was so successful about it, Goodman may well have stumbled across a villanous "flame being" that fought Martian Manhunter in issue #1. This could easily have sparked Goodman's memory to recall Marvel's own flame being from the Golden Age: The Human Torch. As an added bonus, when aflame, the Torch actually fit in very well visually with the monster fare Marvel was then known for.

Goodman began speaking with his editor-in-chief Stan Lee about the idea. Lee, who was then writing several romance books, suggested a female character to try to appeal to girls. From Wonder Woman's famous invisible jet, it must not have been to far a leap to an invisible girl "but with a new twist," Lee says, "she's not just a girlfriend who doesn't know what the hero does."

And to further capitalize on the monster theme, why not add a monster? The Thing joined the team and bore more than a passing physical resemblance to any number of monsters featured in Marvel's horror titles. (Interestingly, one of those creatures in Tales to Astonish #21 is named the Hulk!)

A theme of the Earth's elements was fairly obviously established at this point, so the final member should probably have water-based powers. Although earlier heroes like Sub-Mariner or the Fin may have worked, Lee opted for a new take on the Jack Cole's Plastic Man concept from (by then defunct) Quality Comics.

Goodman still needed a catchy name for their new quartet. He was a strong believer that a good title could make or break a book, so he sought to utilize good buzz words in all his titles: amazing, astounding, incredible, etc. He also wanted to place some distance between his team book and National's, so he had to make sure that names that included league, legion, and society were eliminated quickly. Between those guidelines and Lee's affinity for alliteration, the Fantastic Four were named. It seems almost impossible that Fabulous Four was not under consideration as well.

It was now up to Lee to develop a story for them: "I went home and wrote a two-page outline and sent it to [Jack] Kirby. We talked about it, and he went home and drew it. We didn't know we were doing something that was going to be almost historic. It was just another story."

SYNOPSES: THE FANTASTIC FOUR JULY '61 SHCEDULE ( )

STORY #1, INTRODUCTION, "MEET THE FANTASTIC FOUR"

This story is told in 2 chapters. Chapter one is 6 pages long. Chapter 2 is 5 pages.

There are four main characters:	1) REED RICHARDS.	(Mr. Fantastic) He is a young, handsome scientist. Leader of the four. Invents a space ship to go to Mars. Hopes to be the first man to reach Mars.
	2) SUSAN STORM.	(Invisible Girl) She is Reed's girlfriend. She's an actress. Beautiful, glamorous.
	3) BEN GRIMM.	(The Thing) Ben is very husky, brutish guy. He's a pilot. He falls for Susan also.
	4) JOHNNY STORM.	(Human Torch) He is Susan's kid brother. A teenager, 17 years old. High school star athlete.

Story might open up with a meeting of Fantastic Four. As meeting starts, caption tells reader that we will go back a few weeks to see how it all began...

Reed Richards tells Susan and her brother Johnny that his space ship is finally completed. He hopes to be the first man to Mars. But he needs a pilot. they hire Ben Grimm. Ben is a huge, surly, unpleasant guy who doesn't want any part of the project until he sees Susan. He falls for Susan, and she manages to coax him into piloting ship. Ben is a crackerjack pilot, ex-war hero, best pilot available.

As the four are about to begin flight, they are warned against it by authorities. Told that no one yet knows what effect cosmic rays will have on human bodies so far out in space. But they decide to go anyway. They fear that if they don't go, Reds may beat us to it.

(NOTE: At the rate the Communists are progressing in space, maybe we better make this a flight to the STARS, instead of just to Mars, because by the time this mag goes on sale, the Russians may have already MADE a flight to Mars!)

So, without clearance from the authorities, in the dead of night, they take off for the nearest star -- very dramatically.

In space, on the way to the stars, POOOF! They are bombarded by cosmic rays which penetrate the ship and which affect all four of the occupants. They can't continue the trip -- have to turn back -- are lucky to land alive. But they are all different now -- they sense it -- although they don't yet quite know HOW they've changed.

Suddenly, they can't see Susan! But they know she's there! They can HEAR her. They realize she has become invisible. She can not become visible again. Later, she will buy a mask with a face like the one she had and will have to wear that mask xxxxxxx in order to be seen. Her clothes of course can be seen, so it is only her flesh that is invisible. When she takes her clothes off, she's completely invisible. (I hope this won't seem to sexy in art work. Better talk to me about it, xxxxx Jack -- maybe we'll change change this gimmick somewhat.)

As for Johnny, Susan's brother, whenever he gets excited, he bursts into flame. Becomes a Human Torch. He can fly, as his body gets lighter than air. BUT doesn't last for more than 5 minutes. At the end of five minutes, flame goes out and he becomes normal again, until he gets excited again. But can't flame on for at least 5 minutes after he's gotten back to normal. Comics Association told me he may never burn anyone with flame, may only burn ropes, doors, etc. -- never people. And, he cannot toss fireballs as the old Human Torch. His biggest asset is that he can fly.

They think Reed Richards, the pilot, is unaffected by cosmic rays, as he seems normal -- UNTIL he tries to reach for something. Then they realize his arm has STRETCHED toward the thing he reached for. After awhile they realize Reed's body has become like RUBBER. He can get skinny, elongated, anything that you can do with rubber. He can squeeze thru key-holes, etc. Of course, the more stretched-out he gets, the weaker he gets -- but the point remains that he can twist and stretch his body into almost any shape. (He can even alter the appearance of his face to make himself look like someone else.) BUT it is quite painful to do all this, so he can only maintain the strange shapes for a very short period of ime until the pain gets to be unbearable.

Finally, Ben Grimm steps out of the shadows. They all gasp -- his body has changed in the most grotesque way of all. He's sort of shapeless -- he becomes a THING. And, he's grown more fantastically powerful than any other living thing. He is stronger than an elephant. BUT, he is so heavy that he moves very slowly -- he's very ponderous, and those slow, ponderous movements should make him look very dramatic. He cannot alter his appearance as the others can, so he must wear a coat with turned-up collar, sunglasses, slouch hat, and gloves when he goes out in public. But when takes 'em off, he is a THING!

So much for who they are and ho they got that way. Now, here's a gimmick I think we might play up to advantage! Let's make The Thing the heavy â in other words, he's not really a good guy. He's part of the xxxxx Fantastic Four Four because they all got that way together and they decide to remain a team, and also because he has a crush on Susan -- but actually, he is jealous of Mr. Fantastic and dislikes Human Torch because Torch always sides with Fantastic. XXXX Let's treat him so that reader is always afraid he will sabotage the Fantastic Four's efforts at whatever they are doing -- he isn't interested in helping mankind the way the other three are -- he is more interested in winning Susan away from XXX Mr. Fantastic. (We might indicate that he feels he may return to his normal self at any time, because none of them knows how long their strange powers will last -- or whether or not the effect of the cosmic rays will one day wear off them.)
    Anyway, the four of them decide to form a xxxx unit -- they think it is xxx an act of fate which made them as they are and they think they owe it to fate to use their powers to help mankind. So they adopt their new names: HUMAN TORCH, MR. FANTASTIC, INVISIBLE GIRL, and THE THING, and how to spend their lives fighting all sorts of evil menaces which the normal forces of the world cannot cope with. And, to keep it from getting too goody-goody, there is always friction between Mr. Fantastic and The Thing, with Human Torch siding with Mr. F. Also, the other three are always afraid of The Thing getting out of their control some day and harming mankind with his amazing strength. Occasionally also, you might have The Thing wanting to do soimething for personal profit -- and the other 3 try to stop him. In other words, The Thing doesn't have the ethics that the other three have, and consequently he will probably be the most interesting one to the reader, because he'll always be unpredictable.

So much for the introduction -- the preceding should have covered exactly 11 pages, consisting of 2 chapters (Chapter one: 6 pages, Chapter 2: 5 pages.)

The next two chapters, in which the Fantastic Four undertakes their first case, will xxxx be xxx chapters for a xxxxx total of xx pages -- x xxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx. (3, 5, 5.)

Curiously, despite all of these considerations -- or perhaps because of them -- Lee's idea for the cover of the first issue bears many similarities to the cover of Brave and the Bold #28 and it is perhaps only Kirby's interpretation of that idea that gives rise to the Fantastic Four bearing any major distinction over JLA.

The book hit newsstands on August 8, 1961. Fan mail -- almost unheard of before then outside of EC comics -- began pouring in to the Marvel offices not long afterwards. Readers were demanding more superheroes and costumes for the existing ones. Playing on anything that might have helped the book's comparative success, Amazing Adventures was retitled the following month to Amazing Adult Fantasy and a new logo was designed clearly based on Sol Brodsky's recognizable, if klunky, Fantastic Four logo.

Marvel's precautions paid off, as National paid the book little heed. Following popular fan reactions, Kirby was asked to design costumes for the team with the third issue. It was still a cautious step, however; every member was given essentially the same costume and Goodman could claim they were uniformed heroes, not costumed ones like the Justice League. Kirby created a costume much like the ones we find in the published version, but with two important differences: the chest symbol was two interlocking F's and masks were included.

After presenting the artwork to Lee, it appears there was a bit of a discussion about the uniforms. Lee began playing with chest logo ideas on the back of Kirby's art boards and eventually landed on a simple, extruded "4." He also questioned the use of masks. The Human Torch's and Invisible Girl's would not be seen when they were using their powers anyway. And a mask for The Thing would be ineffectual at best. Lee also had Kirby redraw the Human Torch to follow more in line with Carl Burgos' original, so the character would be more visible and less like a mass of flames.

With these changes, a change in the overall direction of Marvel can be witnessed. After creating another cover prominently featuring the monster du jour and the four heroes taking lesser positions (with only one of them wearing his new costume), Lee asked Kirby to redraw it to highlight the "colorful new Fantastic Four costumes." Lee added the powerful, if not hucksterish, tag line "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!" on the cover as well. Monsters were out, superheroes were in.

Kirby: "Doing those [monster] stories was very hard. It was difficult to keep coming up with different monsters each issue. Hard to keep it interesting, and not silly."

Perhaps both of the creators realizing where the company was going, they not only had the monster in #3 defeated, but utterly destroyed by the up-and-coming genre's protagonist. It was not much longer before Goodman started requesting other heroes to put in their books. The Incredible Hulk debuted in his own title in early 1962, the Sub-Mariner was revived in Fantastic Four #4, and Spider-Man finally saw print that summer.

Lee and Kirby began working well to each other's strengths. Lee relied heavily on Kirby's powerful storytelling and creative ideas, while Kirby allowed Lee to add a decidedly human element with natural dialgoue and emotion-filled characters. Lee's reliance upon Kirby's creativity increased, however, as the two worked more together. In fact, the final script of Fantastic Four #8 is far shorter than the half-issue synopsis of #1.

(5 pages): Thing enters headquarters. Mr. F working on something lab which he doesn't want Thing to see- tells Torch to keep Thing out. Torch tosses up wall of flame between them. Thing gets angry- feels they are keeping secrets from him. Says he's through- storms out. I.G. goes after him- to cool him off. Becomes invisible so as not to attract attention to herself in her uniform- people stare at invisible girl talking to Thing. They suddenly see a guy about to jump off a bridge. I.G. shoots flare over guy's head. Mr. F sees it- tries to reach out of a window to grab the guy. - too far to reach- Torch flies toward guy and saves him. Guy is in a daze- doesn't know why he did it- is a congressman. Across town the villain has observed what happened through binoculars- angry- FF frustrated him. He has a small model of a bridge and a small model of congressman on table- he made congressman walk off bridge by manipulating the small puppet of him. Now Puppet Master will make puppets of FF and destroy them! He has a blind daughter- pretty. (He plans to demonstrate his powers to the world and then sell his services which is the highest bidder).

(5 pages): Puppet Master figures easiest thing to do is let FF destroy themselves- he makes only ONE puppet- the Thing. He will let Thing who is strongest destroy others. He moves puppet to model of his own apartment so that Thing will come to him. In street, Thing suddenly gets into a daze, and heads for Puppet Master's apt., followed by I.G. Thing, under PM's spell, reveals I.G.'s presence, some interesting scenes showing how PM tries to capture her, and he finally succeeds, helped by blind daughter who can sense things unseen. PM commands Thing to return and slay Mr. F and Torch-- he also tells his strange daughter to go WITH Thing, dressed in I.G.'s costume, to throw them off guard. Then, PM makes puppet of warden of state prison- gonna get him to release all he hundreds of dangerous prisoners, to prove his power. IG strains to escape bonds and stop him.

(3 pages): Thing enters FF headquarters with Blind gal. Starts to fight Mr. F- knocks out Torch before Torch can burst into flame. Mr. F runs into lab- Thing follows--gets exposed to artificial rays- Mr. F tells him the rays are what he was working on earlier- to make Thing human- but he didn't want Thing to know until they were perfected- because didn't want Thing to be disappointed. Nor perfected yet- still has to find a way to make results more lasting. Blind gal can't understand- tells Thing she thinks he is handsome- his voice- his character- etc.- while in human form the Puppet Master's spell is broken- he is now ashamed of himself. Mr. F realizes blind gal is not I.G.- wonders where I.G. is - we switch to Puppet Master- he has opened prison gates (thru control of Warden) and is now making a doll to finish off I.G.....

The remainder of the script has been lost over time.

Lee's ideas also seemed more derivative than Kirby's. He introduced The Puppet Master in Fantastic Four #8, a few months after another Puppet Master appeared in Justice League of America. And Marvel's Puppet Master 'died' in much the same way that Mrs. Dolman died in "Voodoo on 10th Ave." from Black Magic #4. The plot from Fantastic Four #9 (where the heroes are enlisted by a film company to make a movie - the catch being that the studio is owned by the villain and the "stunts" the heroes are called upon to perform are very real hazards) appears to have been lifted from a story called "Roman Scoundrels" that was slated for publication in Fighting American #8 circa 1955, but did not actually see print until 1966. The Sub-Mariner and Dr. Doom each appear in four of the ten issues following their respective debuts. And how many 1960s Marvel origins began with radiation?

Debates have waged for several years surrounding who had more influence on the early days of Marvel. Was Lee really the mastermind behind everything, or was that simply his hype? How much did Kirby really contribute to each book? I don't contend that Lee deserves all the credit he gets, but I think that Kirby could not have created the Fantastic Four without Lee's input. Hopefully, this article has shed some light on the creative process that was in place to develop The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!