Set Description:
Synopsis: This is a complete set of 109 books with a minimum grade of 9.4.
Background: The Fantastic Four debuted in Issue #1 in November 1961. It was the first superhero team created by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and editor/co-plotter Stan Lee. Reportedly, Lee was ready to leave the comics field at the time, but the positive response to Fantastic Four persuaded him to stay on. When the title began to receive fan mail, Lee started printing the letters in a letter column with Issue #3. With that issue, Lee also created the hyperbolic slogan "The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World!!" In Issue #4, he changed the slogan to "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!" The slogan became a fixture on the issue covers into the 1990s.
Issue #4 (May 1962) reintroduced Namor the Sub-Mariner, an aquatic antihero who was a star character of Marvel's earliest iteration, Timely Comics, during the late 1930s and 1940s. Issue #5 (July 1962) introduced the team's most frequent nemesis, Doctor Doom. That issue has become one of the most valuable Silver Age keys. These earliest issues were published bimonthly. With issue #16 (July 1963), the cover title dropped its The and became simply Fantastic Four.
Kirby left Marvel in mid-1970, having drawn the first 102 issues, which is the run covered by this set. Thereafter, Fantastic Four continued with Lee, Roy Thomas,Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman as its consecutive regular writers, working with artists such as John Romita Sr., John Buscema, Rich Buckler and George Pérez, with longtime inker Joe Sinnott adding some visual continuity. Jim Steranko also contributed several covers during this time.
The four members of the Fantastic Four gained superpowers after exposure to cosmic rays during a scientific mission to outer space. Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic, is a scientific genius and the leader of the group, who can stretch his body into incredible lengths and shapes. Sue" Storm-Richards, the Invisible Woman, is Reed's girlfriend and later wife, who can render herself invisible and project powerful invisible force fields and blasts. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, is Sue's younger brother who can generate flames, surround himself with them and fly. And Ben Grimm, the monstrous Thing, is a former college football star, Reed's college roommate and a skilled pilot, who possesses tremendous superhuman strength, durability and endurance due to his stone-like flesh.
Since their 1961 introduction, the Fantastic Four has been portrayed as a somewhat dysfunctional, yet loving, family. Breaking convention with other comic archetypes, the members squabbled, held grudges both deep and petty, and eschewed anonymity or secret identities in favor of celebrity status. They are also well known for their recurring encounters with characters such as the villainous monarch Doctor Doom; the planet-devouring Galactus; the Kree Empire's ruthless and tyrannical enforcer Ronan the Accuser; the Negative Zone's ruler Annihilus; the sea-dwelling prince Namor; the spacefaring Silver Surfer; and the Skrull warrior Kl'rt.
The Fantastic Four have been adapted into other media, including several video games, animated series, and live-action films none of which have been box-office successes. Now that the franchise is owned by Disney, I am anxious to see whether they can release a movie that captures the book’s popularity.
Our Collection: FF was probably the first book I started collecting back in the 60s. While this set has been compete for many years, we still pursue upgrades when feasible. Currently, 80 books in this set are 9.8s, 24 are 9.6s and 5 are 9.4s. Eighty-seven of the books in this set are highest graded examples with two holding that distinction alone. Also, 26 of the first 55 issues in this set come from pedigree collections.
The goal here has long been to assemble a 9.6/9.8 run, but I highly doubt it will happen in this lifetime, as many of the early books in those grades are locked away, beyond our means or don’t even exist. With respect to those 22 issues where we lack a top-graded example, 10 of them are topped by a single copy. My guess is that we will never see any of those books on the market.
This collection has topped the registry since 2016 and won best Silver Age Set in 2019 and Best Presented Set in 2020. While I appreciate the Best Silver Set award this set received, we certainly know that someone out there most likely has a far superior set, as there are a number of books in the census that we have never seen on the market. As most long-term collectors know, there are a couple of huge collectors who have never registered their books here, so these awards really signify very little. I have no goal of having the best set in the world, just the best we can put together with our limited resources. So if you have a book that would be an upgrade for us and are interested in selling, we would love to see if we can make a deal.
2024 Update: We went after three upgrades over the past year, winning two and losing one. The first was the single highest graded copy of Issue #9 9.8, which we were frankly surprised to see on the marketplace. We went after it aggressively, but lost it in a CL Auction where we finished runner-up in the last second buzzer bidding. We later won a nice Issue #13 9.8, upgrading our pedigree 9.4, which was our last 9.4 in this set in terms of publication date and one of two third highest graded examples we had remaining in this set. The other upgrade was the acquisition of the WP 9.8 Curator copy of Issue #15, which is the nicest copy of that book in existence and which replaced the WP 9.6 we acquired in 2020 from Colorado Comics.
Current Stats:
109/109 Books
80 9.8s-78 Highest Graded
24 9.6s-9 Highest Graded
5 9.4s
53 WP
50 OW/W
6 OW
2 Single Highest Graded
87 Highest Graded
22 Second Highest Graded
1 Third Highest Graded
31 Pedigrees
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