Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Volume 1 Tpb

I read all the great Marvel titles in the late 70's and early 80's. This book chronicles the beginning of John Byrne's masterful run with the Fantastic Four. Byrne's art was revolutionary at the time and still hold up well today, his stories were just as good. This masterful book includes Doctor Doom, the Puppet Master and the introduction of a second human torch; only hotter this time. :) The only Marvel run that compares to Byrne's FF was his collarobration with Chris Claremont on the X-Men IMO. I absolutely loved this, I've already ordered volume 2!

loved the collection, i only wish the printing process had been corrected, there is a rather distracting effect on the pages from the dot coloring that was corrected in subsequent issues. loved the work though.

Byrne's F.F. run was the lynchpin of my childhood comics reading, and his stories are second only to the Lee/Kirby run in their wit, charm, and excitement. A must-read book for any super-hero fan! Excelsior!!!

Ok years ago I had never heard of fantastic four, my father brings home a comic for me and it was trial of Galactus, it was an amazing read and hooked me on the F4, well for years i could never get any of the issues of Byrnes other than the trade, now marvel comes out with this collection that is i hope one of many. it's amazing as i read it i can see the little set up he was making, i'm sure at the time it may not have seemed as epic as F4 liked but when the puzzle falls into place it's amazing. Byrne has lost his art and writing talent in recent years, some people may be scared off by that, so if you read his recent JLA tenth circle or spider-man year one don't worry, this was back when he was the best man around, he was writing the best superman, F4, and co-writing x-men among others, it was like he could do no wrong, he understood what made them tick. they are a family and they are not crime fighters liek a batman who patrols the city, they are explorers and that is what is great, we get great sci-fi stories of living planets and aliens aplenty. if you have never read the F4 then this is the perfect place to start, then pick up the second volume to see where the set up goes and fine more wonderful stories. also this book is great for kids and adults, i would give this to a kid just was my father gave me the byrne issues so long ago, now reading the issues again i see there is much more there to enjoy like bens struggle with being a monster, reeds struggle with having caused it...and much more.

I've always loved the Fantastic Four. To me they represent the very best of what the Marvel Comic universe is all about. Created by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four formed a thematic bridge between the Timely Comics era of B-movie style sci-fi/horror and the Sixties superheroics of the Marvel Age. They were pulp adventurers fighting aliens and subterranean monsters -- but with superpowers. They didn't even wear costumes in the their debut issue! Lee and Kirby did their best work on the book, introducing characters like Doctor Doom, the Inhumans, Galactus and the Silver Surfer to name just a few.After Kirby left the art chores on the book and Lee later stopped writing, The Fantastic Four took a long (decades long), slow slide into complete generic mediocrity. In 1981 long-time comics fan-turned-pro John Byrne, hot off a pencilling stint on the ascendant Uncanny X-Men, decided to try his hand at his old favorites...The Fantastic Four. This was made more interesting by the fact that he intended to write and draw each monthly issue alone, with only a letterer and colorist assisting. Although he was a top young talent at the time, not many people believed he would keep a monthly schedule, let alone make the book interesting enough to read. But Byrne had a plan..."Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne" collects the first eight issues of his triumphant five-year run on the book, and highlights Phase One of the Byrne FF Plan: Get Back to the Basics. For his first several issues of there's not even a visual cue that the book isn't set in the Sixties; the street clothes, dialog, art -- even the coloring! -- is straight out of the Lee/Kirby days. In effect, it's retro yet so bereft of irony that it's classic! These issues are a love letter to the days when the book was great and also a little work therapy to get Byrne (and the book) in fighting trim for the real battle: returning the Fantastic Four to it's rightful spot as "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine". The pinnacle of this phase is the return of Doctor Doom in Byrne's now-classic 20th anniversary story, "Terror in a Tiny Town".Byrne's sixth issue marks the beginning of Phase Two: Shake Down the Status Quo. After declaring that he's finally found a cure for Ben Grimm's disfiguring transformation into The Thing, the stretchable super-genius Reed Richards proceeds to screw him up even worse -- and permanently -- by 'devolving' Grimm back to the even uglier lumpy orange oatmeal look that he had immediately after his initial cosmic ray accident. Then the Inhumans are forced to move their entire homeland, to the Moon to escape death from the pollutants in Earth's atmosphere. Oh, and Johnny Storm's shy girlfriend turns out to have flame powers almost as powerful as his own!My singular complaint with collection is that it ends just when Byrne is hitting his stride on the book and just before Phase Three of his Master Plan: Really Big Changes. Being arguably the best work of