I like how the human torch just melts through the top of his car instead of just stepping out of it and flying away! :)

I was a dealer from the 80's till the 2000's and I had almost every Marvel book and I never owned an FF #1. I just looked through a box and found two copies of this Milestone Edition. Sitting down with it over coffee.

I'm older, so I read reprints in Marvels Greatest Comics,, Triple Action, Marvel Tales, etc.

11:41 - You speculate on the faithfulness of the coloring to the original comic - I have the "44 Years of Fantastic Four" DVD Rom from GIT Corp which, I believe, contains scans from the original issues (including all pages - ads, letters pages, back covers, etc.). I took a look at that particular page and no, the colors are not faithful. Scanned panel 1: rocket is yellow with redish exhaust. Scanned panel 2: costumes are blue with white gloves, Ben and Johnny are solid red and orange, respectively. Scanned panel 3: figures are yellow against a red sky Scanned panel 4 and 5: blue costume with white gloves Scanned panel 6: blue sky Scanned panel 7: blue costumes, no white in Reed's hair Scanned panel 8: Sue is solid yellow; Reed's hand is solid orange; background is purple. I took a look at a few other hardcopy reprints I happen to have: Origins of Marvel Comics (1974): different coloring than both the scan of the original and the Marvel Milestone Edition. Hardcover Marvel Masterworks Volume 2 (1987): looks to be the same re-coloring used in the Marvel Milestone Edition. Fantastic Four Omnibus (2005): coloring seems to match the scan of the original issue.

The recoloring in this may be by Glynis Oliver? She's credited in the Fantastic Firsts tpb, which has the same palette as this Milestone.

Were doing a fantastic four by kirby reread in the kayfabe Facebook group!

It's always a delight to look at Kirby's comics. Thank you Cartoonist Kayfabe!

The 616 episode on the marvel method was so fascinating. Apparently, Dan Slott is one of the only writers who still use it, and I think everyone hates him for it.

Comixology has a 94% off sale on the Marvel Masterworks digital edition until 1/31

It had to have been a jolt to kids who'd been reading DC superheroes, where even Green Arrow was a clean-cut millionaire, and the rest of the Justice League (which partially inspired this) were aristocrats or exceptional citizens of some sort, Atlantean king, Amazon princess, police scientist, military pilot etc. All part of the establishment, admired by Americans everywhere. Here you had superheroes, if that's what they were, who were not only terrifying to normal folks, but to themselves. To be able to portray such cliche powers as invisibility and stretching as freakish and disturbing took some insight. All those pages of monster comics that preceded really gave these guys the chops to sell it. Or maybe they couldn't have done it any other way.

I've heard the Mole Man half was an unused Atlas story and was cut up here to include the FF. It would be a clever idea since there's many panels where Mole Man is talking to two men completely shrouded in baggy suits.

My first time reading this was mid 70’s and I got the first 6 issues in paperback form. I was totally blown away.

Wow, looking back at those sixty year old drawings, Kirby was so brilliant. The highly imaginative design of the monsters, the realistic weight shifts of the characters as they move, the panel to panel flow of the story, it is just amazing. Artists today are still trying to all equal this.

Worth reviewing the Origin of Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, if for no other reason than to see these comics not on glossy paper, much closer to the newsprint. Really great, was my first intro to these heroes as a kid.

Cool episode! I have to point out that these colors are different in this reprint from the original, their spacesuits were actually blue (sorta like their regular uniforms) not magenta and some other things stand out. The volume 1 FF omnibus has the original colors if you want to compare.

I bought the Incredible Hulk milestone edition, it was mind blowing to see what the Hulk was in his first appearance vs the time I found the Hulk when I was a kid.

Informative as always. Love this channel!

Funny that they kept the ads but I think this is recolored.

you guys never dissapoint. Everytime I wonder if there is a new episode out, there is one :)

Every panel is a work of art, stunning.

it was mentioned several times about how strange parts of this issue is/would be at the time. cant help but think about how with another marvel first xmen 1 we get the tagline right away "strangest super heroes of all", and also dr strange.. definitely something marvel was leaning into and it worked!

I can't recall a time when I came to that story fresh. There were always the Collector Item Classics as well as the Alan Class mags / Wham / Mighty World Of Marvel etc here in the UK so those stories were, for me, always there. Still love looking at that story and even now there are still bits of it that jump out and you think, never saw that before or I didn't think about that or this scene in that way. Definitely always felt like an Atlas comic for most it, the Mole Man especially and his monsters. Was always surprised it took so long for Captain America (as well as Vision / Black Widow etc) to come back into the Marvel Universe. My favourite is always the cover, together for the first time, which always suggested to me that they were in separate adventures before this release (as the Human Torch was). Wonder if it would have worked as well if they had just come out with the Fantastic Four being Cap, Namor, Torch and Venus (or Whizzer) ?

That Norm thing kills me every time!

Regarding the rocket flight, in FF issue 11 there's a story called "A Visit with the Fantastic Four" that functions partly as a de facto Part 2 of the FF origin story. According to material on pages 6 and 7 of said story, Reed Richards funded development of the rocket himself, and for reasons that are not sufficiently explained, the government hadn't listened to Reed in time, nor heeded his warning -- presumably, this meant, "the government didn't green-light a test flight of the rocket, despite Richards' urgent pleas that they do so." Thus, the Reed Richards-built rocket sits idle on its privately funded launching pad, ready for privately funded takeoff. Ben is an exceptionally skilled combat pilot, and when Reed decides "I'm taking my personal rocket on a test flight -- to beat the reds into space," Ben is the logical choice to helm the controls. Sue and Johnny plan to go along to show Reed that they're not afraid, and when Sue says as much, right to Ben's face, it's the last straw. Ben declares that he'll fly the privately funded rocket. There's no specific indication how much time elapses between Ben's acquiescence and the rocket blasting off. I'm consulting my "Marvel Visionaries: Stan Lee" book for the reprinted story, BTW.

Hey guys, hope you see this. This comic is COMPLETELY recolored from the original, and badly. I have scans of the original and the difference is stunning.

Marvel Milestone Amazing Spider-Man #1 was my first ever comic, I got it in the late 90's when I was 5 or so. I still own it, means everything to me

"...by Jack Kirby..."❤️

I read somewhere that Kirby wanted to make the torch more of a fire monster than modeled after the Golden Age torch. In issue 3 you can see a panel where the finisher made the old style torch and eventually Kirby relented.

The Marvel Milestone Edition of Amazing Fantasy #15 i found at my local pharmacy blew my young mind. I probably wouldn't be committing on this or reading comics today if it wasn't for that find. For us back, this was essential.

These reprints were great. Had this issue and the Giant Size X-Men reprint!

Another great reprint series Marvel put out was the Essentials series where you got to see all this great art in black and white. Could you guys take a look at some newpaper comics sometime? Some Milton Caniff or Noel Sickles would be great!

I used to get gift cards to book stores from my Uncle for Xmas. I wasn’t really a ready at the time, but I used it to get Marvel Master Works Fantastic Four vol.1 this is what got me really interested in comics and reading.

Revolutionary for its time, a superhero team who didn’t bother having secret identities. Who’d argue with each other and weren’t so much a team but a family.

GREAT JOB breaking these down gentlemen!!! PEACE family of the pen.

Still love the cover with the 'Together for the first time' ... that baffled me, did they have separate comics beforehand (clearly not). I loved the Invisible Girl as a socialite, that sort of never got touched on again. I loved those ads in those milestones, pity they don't include some of those in the omnis or epics. I always felt it was two separate stories in the mag. The Mole Man was an odd choice for the first villain, definitely following on from the monster books but then again so were the Skrulls. Yes, the Human Torch really looked more like the original HT at that point. Always surprised they never brought back more of the old GA heroes at that point into the FF such as Captain America / Destroyer / Vision / Whizzer / Venus etc as guest appearances (and not to with that terrible re-discovery of Cap). Hope they bring out a similar facsimile in 2021 but in hardback with tons of extra features

I could swear I got these out of cases of Capri Sun or Hi-Ci juice boxes when I was a kid. I just can't find any info on them being packaged like that

And more Moore!

I think I missed out on this one, but I did get the Milestone reprints of X-Men #1 and Giant Sized X-Men #1 that were released alongside Jim Lee's X-Men #1. However, I did get the reprint of the FF's Galactus Saga (FF #48-50), and years earlier I read some of the books that Stan Lee wrote in the 70s that were a mix of Stan's reminisces and reprints of old Marvel books at the library. Another way for me to read older comics was checking out the old Power Records books that originally came with records (but not all of the books that I got to read did) Finally, one of my favorite library books was a copy of Superman: From the 30s to the 70s, that I did manage to find a copy of in a little shop for a reasonable price. Because of this, when I got a chance to get a copy of the related Batman book, I leapt at it. But growing up in the 80s, sometimes the only way to read comics was to find what was available at the library. There was a mid-80s series called Marvel Saga that told the chronological history of the Marvel universe with snippets from old comics.

I still own my copy bought when I was 10 years old for a dime.

My dad had tales of suspense 1st iron man milestone, X-Men 1 and 1st asm gave the reprints to me when i was young

Love the title. Well played.

This was the true golden age of marvel comics

I love flip through videos especially when it's about beloved characters. Somehow I get the feeling that the idea/inspiration responsible for the creation of the FF is not only Jack Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown but also Bonanza, the western show. I see a few similarities here and there like the four family members protecting their territory (Earth) Ben Cartwright is Reed Richards, the leading father, Hoss is obviously Ben Grimm, both as a comic relief and as a tragic figure especially when he's bickering with Little Joe (Johnny Storm). Poor Adam is the lucky one to receive a sex change and turn into a beautiful blonde. Maybe, just maybe Stan and Jack were avid Bonanza fans, at least one of them..

The reason why they hijack the spaceship is because they want to beat the cosmonauts! They needed to be first.

🔥💙🔥

Found this one for like $2-3 bucks at a con. Love me a good facsimile.

Its too bad they changed a lot of the coloring on this version. Had to check against my Marvel Masterworks.