Welcome to the First Issue Bin, where I — Ethan Kaye — randomly grab one of this week's comics that’s just starting up and give you the details on whether it should get added to your collection … or remain on the comic shop shelf.
Fantastic Four Fanfare #1
Writers: Mark Waid, Alan Davis, Andrew Wheeler
Art: Ramon Rosanas, Alan Davis, Sara Pichelli
Color Artists: Neeraj Menon, Matt Hollingsworth, Federico Blee
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Editor: Tom Brevoort
I love it when an old gem gets some new polish. This week it's the latest revival of Marvel Fanfare, an anthology series that Marvel launched in 1982, ran for 60 issues, ended in 1991, relaunched in 1996, ran for 6 issues, and ended once again in 1997. It was an okay anthology series, usually three stories per issue, never really groundbreaking in any way, but a good read for a rainy afternoon.
In 2025, to coincide with the Fantastic Four film coming out this summer, and the FF-centric comic event, "One World Under Doom", Marvel is bringing the three-story anthology back for an appropriate four issues, with all stories focusing on Marvel's first family. That's a long sentence. Anyway.
The first story is Mark Waid + Ramon Rosanas + Neeraj Menon telling a tale about a one-sided war of pranks between Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, and Ben Grimm, the Thing. Ben's done some property damage in NYC again and is sentenced to not losing his temper for a whole week. Johnny sets out to do everything he can to piss Ben off, from siccing a robot Annihilus on him while he's taking a shower to launching dozens of fireworks while he's trying to sleep. Waid, the grand database of comic history that he is, sets every prank up as a full-page pin-up, reminiscent of the pin-ups that graced the pages of many '60s and '70s Marvel books (and, in fact, Marvel Fanfare #45 was nothing but pin-ups).
Alan Davis + Matt Hollingsworth unite for a fairly straightforward action adventure story, with the Fantastic Four discovering an alien ship underground and fighting off an attack from some diminutive aliens. Like Waid, Davis gives the nod to the FF's past by drawing the aliens in the style of Marvel's artistic lodestone, Jack Kirby. Great faces on these guys. Made me feel like I was reading an old Marvel monsters book. The whole tale feels like it could be lifted from the days of comics gone by, and Davis's artwork is very well suited for this task.
The third story is my favorite, and will probably be yours as well. Andrew Wheeler, who hasn't done a ton for Marvel but I'd like to see him do a lot more based on this, teams up with Sara Pichelli and Federico Blee for a comedy tale with a nice action payoff.
Johnny Storm gets himself on a Love Island-themed reality show but his game is thrown off constantly by the Mole Man, who's annoyed because the filming location of "Isle of Love" is only several hundred miles from the "Monster Isle" where he's living with a bunch of, well, monsters. (I loved this vague explanation because "several hundred miles" is so nonspecific that it shouldn't even matter to Mole Man. Baltimore is 200 miles from New York City, and believe me, we New Yorkers do not really care what Baltimore gets up to.) After one of the monsters, a giant cicada named Googada, charges at the Isle of Love set, Mole Man and Johnny Storm team up to lead it safely away from the amorous couples.
The pacing and tonal difference between the stories is really something. Davis's work is straightforward Silver Age FF, with fighting, aliens, and the implication of SCIENCE being done by SCIENTISTS. Waid swings big, with large panels of action filling your eyes with a single gag, wrapping up with a visual punchline. Wheeler's many, many jokes are contained within the dialogue, making it a longer read, but also really satisfying to dig into. You'll want to devote your time to it, and the fact that it's a story about a love-themed reality show means the stakes aren't dire and dreadful.
The Fantastic Four are a lot like Superman, who I wrote about a few weeks back. They're Marvel's "old guard" of heroes that too many people overlook because they think they know all there is to know about them. Fantastic Four, yeah, they're a family of heroes, do science stuff, big villains who get beat by science and punching and fire all the time. But the Fantastic Four comics, and spin-offs like FF or Marvel Two-in-One, have been delivering some seriously great stories for years. Ryan North's current run is a blessing to comic books, with short stories and arcs perfect to get in front of casual readers. Fantastic Four Fanfare gears all these stories for an even shorter attention span.
I'm a nut for continuity, so out-of-canon anthology stories are usually met with indifference from me. But these were so well done — Wheeler's story especially — that I found myself disappointed that it's running only a mere four issues. Ah well — at least it's a thematically appropriate number.
Number of stories: 3/4
Snappy patter: 4/4
Newfound affection for Mole Man: 4/4
Desire for Andrew Wheeler to take on a Marvel book full time: 4/4
Satisfaction in seeing Johnny Storm shovel horse manure: 3/4
Verdict: Not my usual cup of tea, but it's a banger that's in good hands. I'm going to be picking up the rest and hoping they maintain this momentum.
