Books : Fantastic Four Visionaries - John Byrne, Vol. 3

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Rating:

- Early experiments
3-1/2 stars. I consider volumes 3, 6 & 7 in this series to be about average to slightly above average in quality. If the 2nd paperback was a solid step forward in figure drawing, this 3rd edition almost seems like 2 steps back? What happened?...

The end of the 2nd edition gives us Byrne's famous issue #249, to this day some of the best artwork he's ever produced. You'd think he would continue on to bigger & better things. Instead, Byrne gets highly experimental in both story and art here, perhaps as a reaction to seemingly reaching his artistic zenith. This isn't a bad collection of experiments; it's just that my expectations for this volume were for something so much better.

Included in this 3rd volume: about 5 issues dealing with the Negative Zone, Franklin & Annihilus, one having a sideways layout for the art; Daredevil & Avengers as brief guest stars dealing with Annihilus; a Thing solo story; a Galactus, Nova & Skrulls conflict; and a FF Annual with pencils & colors only (no inks).

The experimental nature of this edition is obvious. That sideways issue and the annual with no inks are both out of the ordinary. Byrne's inks too take on a new direction: being now a little more loose & unrefined, a bit like Frank Miller's eighties Marvel work. The Negative Zone story arc has an early Sci-Fi/ Star Trek feel to it. It's not that any of this stuff is really all that bad. It's just that I consider the other volumes in Byrne's run to be that much better.

Included in this volume:
*Issue #251- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Issue #252- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Issue #253- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Issue #254- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Issue #255- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Avengers #233- John Byrne breakdowns & co-plots; Joe Sinnott finishes
*Issue #256- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Thing #2- John Byrne writes & inks; Ron Wilson pencils
*Issue #257- John Byrne writes, pencils & inks
*Annual #17- John Byrne writes & pencils; no inks

Rating:

- More F.F. hijinks courtesy of John Byrne
This third collection of Fantastic Four stories produced by John Byrne in the 80's is as fun and engaging as the first two volumes, and then some. Byrne does some interesting things here, including a multi-part epic set in the weird "negative zone", a kind of anti-matter alternate universe to our own. What's different from the F.F.'s past trips to the negative zone is that instead of featuring one story and one villain during the negative zone excursion, Byrne gives us a series of stand-alone stories, some longer and some shorter, that all just happen to be set in the negative zone. Though some of the negative zone stories had a better set up than ultimate pay off, they were all worth the time to read them.

Another fun aspect of this volume is the increased interaction between the F.F. and other Marvel Comics heroes. In fact, an entire issue of "The Avengers" is included, showing how other Marvel heroes help out when the villainous alien Annihilus escapes from the negative zone and threatens Earth. I also liked the inclusion of Fantastic Four Annual #17, which is essentially a nice long horror story- and a good one, too- set in a small town in upstate New York.

Finally, some big developments with past F.F. antagonists Galactus and the Skrulls round out the volume and point the way to some especially meaty developments in volume four! So, all in all, if you enjoyed the past volumes of John Byrne's F.F. stories, you shouldn't hesitate to pick this one up, too.

Rating:

- Reproduction values not entirely up to par...
The stories and artwork in this volume are classic, but I find it disappointing that a substantial chunk of the book suffers from poor, muddy reproduction of the linework. This is not a minor point since (1) Byrne's artwork is detailed, and easily suffers from dropouts and blotchiness if it isn't reproduced carefully and (2) the original publication dates of these comics wasn't so long ago that there isn't any reason not to put out a top quality job. Fortunately, only a portion of the reprints in this edition suffer from this problem, and the other volumes in this series have crisp reproduction throughout (as of this writing, Volume 5 is the most recent volume to be published).

Rating:

- John Byrne Fires Up the F.F. Again
The Fantastic Four used to proclaim themselves "The World's Greatest Comic Mag(azine)" Well under Byrne's helm it could rightfully be said so.

The trick of revitatalizing a franchise is to know what to take, what to emulate, what to improve upon and what to leave behind. Byrne is going full steam ahead.

Byrne builds on the characters without forgetting their roots. He touches on the great FF epics while telling new stories. It looks like a combo of Stan and Jack with a litle Larry Niven style science fiction thrown in.

The book starts out with a trip into the Negative Zone. Along the way they encounter many a science fiction twist while all the time trouble is brewing in the Baxter Building that brings in no less than the Avengers (another series Byrne worked on).

This book includes the famous "widescreen" version that had to be read sideways (but alas the free tattoo inserts are not reprinted).

With Annihilus and Galactus as villians and a case that leads right back to the second fantastic four adventure way back in F.F. #2 how could you go wrong??

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