FANTASTIC FOUR #262
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
WRITER/ARTIST: John Byrne
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
WRITER/ARTIST: John Byrne
COLORS: Glynis Wein
LETTERS: Jim Novak
32pp, Color, .60¢
U.S., .75¢
CAN, .25p UK (January 1984)
Rated
“T+”
“The
Trial of Reed Richards”
A high-ranking Marvel Comics person
once said that most comic books published before 1992 were bad,
although Marvel is thriving largely due to pre-1992 publications and
creations. I know for a fact that one comic book series that was
no-ways-bad was Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four comic book series with
John Byrne as both writer and artist. After Byrne left the series in
1986, the Fantastic Four (sometimes referred to as “FF”) was
never the same. There have only been a few brief runs since then in
which the series has approached the quality of Byrne's work on this
seminal Stan Lee-Jack Kirby creation.
For some reason, I recently remembered
something called “Assistant Editors' Month.” Marvel Comics
Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and Marvel's primary editorial staff had
taken a month-long trip in the late summer of 1983, supposedly. This
meant that the assistant editors were the acting-editors of Marvel's
regular titles for at least one month. The result of this was that
Marvel's superhero titles with the publication date of January 1984
would drift from the status quo, at least, a little bit. [I think
the Avengers met David Letterman in their title.]
Because I have many issues of Byrne's
run on Fantastic Four, I also happen to have the Assistant Editors
Month issue, Fantastic Four #262. The conceit of that issue is that
Marvel Comics exists in the same universe as the Fantastic Four.
John Byrne, as current writer-artist of the Fantastic Four, often
uses the adventures of the real Fantastic Four as the basis for his
Fantastic Four comics.
As Fantastic Four #262 (“The Trial
of Reed Richards”) begins, Byrne is having a telephone conversation
with Michael Higgins, the assistant editor of the Fantastic Four
comic book and the person currently in charge of getting the book
finished while the regular editor is away. Higgins is pressing Byrne
to deliver some pages, but Byrne is pressed against a deadline
because he cannot get in contact with the Fantastic Four.
Lucky him, The Watcher appears and
takes Byrne far into the cosmos. The Watcher says that Byrne, as the
“chronicler” of the Fantastic Four's adventures, must bear
witness to the trial of Reed Richards. Why is Reed, a.k.a. Mr.
Fantastic, on trial? He saved the life of the planet-devouring
Galactus, and now, victims of Galactus – old, new, and ancient want
to punish the man who kept Galactus living.
I had not read “The Trial of Reed
Richards” in ages. I first heard of it from comic book fans who
swore to me that it was a classic. It may be, but taken as part of
the entirety of Byrne's run on the series, it is one good comic book
among many.
Byrne has previously stated that some
comic book writers, artists, editor, and publishers “don't get it,”
meaning that they do not understand what made certain classic comic
book creations work – what made them “classic.” In the case of
the Fantastic Four, not only in the comic books, but also in the
movies and in television appearances, the writers, artists, and
creative types don't get it.
Many people focus in on the Fantastic
Four as a team that is also a family, and Stan Lee has bolstered that
every time he talks about creating the FF. They're right; the team
is a family. Whatever pulpy roots and TV family examples inspired
him, Lee did create a familiarity amongst the lead characters that
was, at that time, new to comic books.
However, comic books are a
graphics-based and visual storytelling medium, and in the hands of
and by the pencil of Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four had a second
distinctive and crucial feature or trait. This comic book was grand
and big in its scope. The monsters were not just big like those that
appeared in Marvel/Timely's monster comics; there was also something
bigger behind FF's monsters and creatures. It might be tragedy, or a
warning, or even a message. When the Mole Man appeared in Fantastic
Four #1, he was not just a monster wrangler or boss of monsters; he
was a leader and a protector. His mission wasn't mere destruction of
the human world, but the grand notions of the survival and the
prosperity of the creatures that lived below the human world.
Byrne's trial of Reed Richards isn't
just a trippy trip through the cosmos. It is a simple story about
existence, reality, and the natural order, but it was a story spun on
a grand, cosmic scale. Like Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four, Byrne's
is not hard science fiction, but it embraces the sense of wonder
about the great big unknown beyond the planet, beyond the stars, and
beyond myriad dimensions.
Supposedly, sales of the Fantastic Four
comic book has been floundering for years, and the series is
reportedly headed for cancellation. Whatever the politics behind
that cancellation, the Fantastic Four has been a shadow of its former
glory for decades, for the most part. No one has done the Fantastic
Four like Byrne did it since he did it. I am glad I thought of
reading Fantastic Four #262 because it was part of the “Assistant
Editors' Month” gimmick. Thank goodness for back issues, trades
paperbacks, and Artist Editions that we can still read the new
classic that was John Byrne's Fantastic Four, after the original
classic FF of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
A
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux
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