the vynsane asylum

Before the Disney/WB takeovers, the atmosphere at DC and Marvel both seemed more conducive to just having fun. Too bad they seem to take everything so seriously now. There is a happy medium between silly and serious.

Some more FF reads.

Annual 1998. I feel like I read this before, or commented on it. Ben Grimm wakes up in a Marvel U that aged in real time. So the rocket took off in 1962. It now being 1998, Reed and Sue are retired, Johnny is middle aged with a daughter from his wife Crystal. Franklin is married to T'Challas daughter with a baby on the way. You find out Banner died from a heart attack in his 70s, Matt Murdock is mayor of NYC, and Spider-Man disappeared way back in 1973 after Gwen died. Pretty cool What If tale.

Annual 1999. A not horrid Claremont written tale with Ladronn art. Blackheart becomes the new Black King of the Hellfire Club, which forces Hellstorm to become the new White King. And Claremont tried to introduce a new mystic SuperTeam called Shadow Hunters, with a new character called MechaMage(think Iron Man meets Dr. strange). None of that stuck, of course, but it was...not shitty.

Annual 2000. The conclusion to a massive Claremontian saga that I read a few years back, but can't remember the details. It involved Doom's Planet and Doom and Richards swapping bodies, and an alternate reality daughter of Doom and Sue named Valeria, and Doom having a bunch of warlord Lietenants like the Technarx and Dorma of Atlantis backstabbing Doom or some shit. Anyhoo, Claremont's FF run was dookie, and this made my head hurt, even though it was written by Louise Simonson.

Some more oneshots and such.

Fantastic Four:The Legend Handbook style book that came out post Onslaught, Pre Heroes Reborn. Lots of top ten lists, timelines of important issues, and pinups.
FF:Atlantis Risin 1,2. Awful "Event" from 1995 with Acetate covers. I had it already, so I didn't even bother rereading it. Once was enough. I got them again because it was an eBay auction of several FF books and I needed the ones it came with.
FF Special. Oneshot from 2006 written by Dwayne McDuffie. Doom invites Reed to dinner on the anniversary of their first meeting in college. Reed returns a locket of Doom's mother that he left behind. Decent little character piece.
FF 40th Wedding Anniversary. Also from 2006. A future Reed and Sue pluck couples of themselves out of the time stream for a crosstime Anniversary Party. Of course, everybody gets mind wiped at the end. Also reprints FF Annual 3 where they originally got married.
FF ¡Ataque del MODOK! A 2010 oneshot and sequel to ¡Isla de la Muerta! that gets published in English and Spanish. Reed and Sue vacation in Puerto Rico and help local hero El Vejigante fight MODOK and his A.I.Monkeys.
Fin Fang Four Return. Okay, technically not an FF book, but I didn't know that until I read it. And it's got a giant 4 on the cover. A humor book about Fin Fang Foom, Googam, son of Goom!, Gorgilla, and Elektro(the old 50s version, not the Spidey villain). Apparently this is a sequel to some other humor title. It was pretty funny. But then I find most books that point out te absurdities of the Marvel U funny.

Fantastic 4th Voyage of Sinbad. A Squarebound oneshot written by Claremont. The FF gets transported by an evil djinn to an alternate world where they sail on Sinbad's legendary vessel finding mystic artifacts.
Fantastic Four 527 Directors Cut. JMS' first issue with added material in the back.
Cosmic Size Fantastic Four. Oneshot from 2009. Reed and Ben bring a plant back from another dimension which forces the Baxter Building into lockdown. And the spores from the plant make the adults increasingly antagonistic towards each other.
Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius. A kids comic featuring Franklin and HERBIE. Sort of like Peanuts. I looked it up, apparently there's been like 15 different oneshots in this style. I added them to my hunt list.

Because of the sliding timescale of the Marvel Universe, Reed and Sue's first meeting seems a bit more implausible.
Reed was billeted in Sue's parents house while he was a grad student.
Who the hell billets anymore? Especially in the 90s when that would have now taken place?
Oh, also, Sue was like ten years old at the time. Ew. What the fudge?
So creepy 20-something Reed was like "Damn, you're a cutie. I'm gonna look you up when you're legal in a decade and I'm in my mid 30s."

I had left off when Mark Millar started so I dug out those issues & am going for a read. I now recall clearly why I stopped reading - these aren't good issues. The colours are drab & Johnny is written really badly. I'll keep plugging away as Dr Doom has shown up & I only have 11 issues to go before Hickman starts.

Fuck Millar and Hitch. They didn't even bother to finish out their twelve issue run. They farmed the writing and art out to someone else for the last couple issues.

And (and I can't stress this enough repeatedly) Doom calls no man "Master"
Fuck you Mark Millar. You suck your mothers dick.

I read a large portion of John Byrne's FF run over the last week or so. First off, I never realized how long he was on the book. He started as artist only in 1980. Eventually he took over writing as well and stayed on the series until 1986. It's like 75 straight issues, most of them he wrote, drew and inked.
I don't have every issue, so I'll just hit the highlights of stuff and characters introduced during his run.

Frankie Raye started out as Johnny's new girlfriend during the series. Eventually she formed flamelike powers and was briefly referred to as The New Human Torch. Later on she became Galactus' new Herald and took the name Nova.
Also Reed saved Galactus' life.
After years of Ben Grimm referencing his "sweet Aunt Petunia" Byrne turned the preconception on its head. Petunia is actually a hot twenty something brunette, his uncle's second wife.
Doom was deposed and the FF had to help him reclaim his country from King Zorba. During the storyline we are introduced to a Latverian peasant wan and her young son. When she is killed, Doom takes the young boy in. His name is Kristoff Venard.
Then there is long sojourn into the Negative Zone, where Sue gets pregnant with their second child. Eventually she loses the baby, but due to some magic decades later, that baby is born as Valeria.
Later on, the Shi'Ar and the survivors of a thousand worlds destroyed by Galactus put Reed on trial for saving Galactus' life earlier on. It's a pretty powerful issue.
After Secret Wars, the Thing leaves the team and She-Hulk joins. Looking at the 80s I realized Shulk was introduced in her own book in 1980, it lasted 25 or so issues, and then she joined the FF in late 82/early 83. So she was basically a brand new character when she joined the FF.
Terminus attacked Earth for the first time during Byrne's run
Reed's time traveling father Nathaniel was introduced during Byrne's run
Susan Storm officially changed her codename from Invisible Girl to Woman after He amped up her power set and skills over the course of five years. He also radically changed her hairstyle several times. Hello mullet!
He ended Alicia Master's relationship with Ben and started one with Johnny (DeFalco would later retcon it all and had Alicia actually be the Skrull Lyja, but Byrne intended it to be legitimate).
He blew up the Baxter Building and replaced it with Four Freedoms Tower(remember the giant "4" on top?)

It was also fascinating that Byrne wouldn't spend more than an issue or two on one plot before radically shifting to a different adventure the following issue. Given today's standard of decompressing an arc for six issues, it was a lot of fun to read his hyper pacing.
In all, it was a great read.

Next up, I have a bunch of FF minis to finish off. And also FF supporting books like Fantastic Force from the 90s.

80s Marvel needs a topic all its own. Fucking epic. No wonder we like comics.

Just finished the 16 & last of Millar's issues. I don't think I was ever "there" at any point. Reading from a "Jesus, this sucks!" point of view doesn't help with the suspension of one's disbelief.

Next up for me is Hickman's 20 issue run which will lead up to FF. I have read parts of this but am looking forward to seeing it all strung together in order for the first time.

I've stated before, the one good thing Millar did was make three year old Val an Uber Genius. I'll give him that.

Do you have the Fantastic Four:Dark Reign mini series? That's technically Hickman's first arc, and its where Reed's 'Solve Everything' notion begins.

Also, it speaks volumes that Hickman is able to take Millar's crap and use and improve on it during his run. Stuff like Nu-World and Fantastic Force.

Nah I don't think that's here anywhere - and if it is it's totally buried someplace. I never saw how Doom wound up out of jail - I was on a reading hiatus around The Siege when I think this was happening or thereabouts.

If I remember, Doom and Richards were both victims of the Intelligencia plot in Loeb's Hulk series. Doom ended up getting lobotomized or something, which negated his omnipotent powers from the Millar arc. I dont remember the details because in addition to the two ongoing Hulk books, there were like 20 minis and oneshots and two Hulk-centric Events back to back. Of which I read none as it was happening. Fall of the Hulks and World War Hulks (That's Hulks plural, not to be confused with the singular World War Hulk, which is when Hulk came back to Earth all pissed about getting shot into space by the Illuminati).

Marvel? Overexpose a character?

Naaaaaaaah.

I wasn't a fan of WWHulk. WWHulks didn't happen at my house.