Essential Fantastic Four Vol.1 Review

A Skrull Walks Among Us

Originally from : Fantastic Four #18
Writer : Stan Lee
Artist : Jack Kirby

Ever since I saw the Fantastic Four : Rise of The Silver Surfer trailer in theaters, I have this urge to read some cosmic Marvel stuff. Since I'm still waiting for the Annihilation Vol.1 hardcover to come out, I decided to glance through my old Essential FF vol.1 copy and see if anything caught my eye. Towards the end of the book, I stumbled upon this issue featuring the Super-Skrull. Considering this character has an important role in Annihilation and considering I never read anything about him, I thought I'd give Fantastic Four #18 a shot. I wasn't disappointed.

Long story short, the Skrulls sends an all-new skrull super soldier to Earth to destroy the Fantastic Four. This aptly named "Super-Skrull" possess the abilities of every FF members, from The Thing's strength to Sue's Invisibleness, while being more powerful than each of them. So the Super-Skrull gets to earth and claim the planet in the name of the Imperial Skrull Empire. The Fantastic Four get there and the fight begins.

That issue was way better than what I remembered those early FF tales to be. It had good art by Kirby, bearable dialogues by Lee, the action was fun and most of all the villain was cool ! I always had a soft spot for the Super-Skrull concept (every FF rolled into one odd-looking alien) and this story made me like him a bit more. Granted, he's not the sharpest tool in the box, but he still managed to give the FF a run for their money. All in all, this was a rather nice silver-age tale that made me want to read more of the Fantastic Four adventures. Guess I'll get the new printing of Vol.3 coming up in March. After all, you can't go wrong with Galactus and the Silver Surfer. I'll keep you posted on that.

Grade : B+