Fantastic Four (Penguin Classics Marvel Collection) - Softcover

Lee, Stan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014313583X ISBN 13: 9780143135838

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2023

Synopsis

Illustrated throughout, The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents specially curated cartoon anthologies of the world's greatest superheroes

hroughout the 1960s, the Fantastic Four was both the flagship title and the creative laboratory of the Marvel Universe. In each issue, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced dozens of new characters and concepts, all while expanding the emotional bandwidth and visual vocabulary of the superhero genre. Collected here are the very best stories and most historic moments. A foreword by Jerry Craft and a comprehensive introduction and notes by Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of the Fantastic Four and classic Marvel comics.

The Penguin Classics black spine paperback features full-colour art.

About this title

About the Author

Stan Lee (1922- 2018) and artist Jack Kirby made comic book history in 1961 with The Fantastic Four #1. Lee oversaw the adventures of many super hero creations for over a decade before handing over the editorial reins at Marvel to others. For the remainder of his long life, he continued to serve as a creative figurehead at Marvel and an ambassador for the comics medium.

From the Back Cover

The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy

Collects Fantastic Four #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 48, 49, 50, 51, and Fantastic Four Annual #6. It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.

Throughout the 1960s, the Fantastic Four doubled as the flagship title and the creative laboratory of the Marvel Universe. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced dozens of new characters and concepts in its pages, while expanding the emotional bandwidth and visual vocabulary of the Super Hero genre with every issue. This collection gathers some key tales from Lee and Kirby’s lengthy tenure―from their first experiments in generic hybridity to the remarkable fusion of the cosmic and the quotidian that is the “The Galactus Trilogy.”

A foreword by Jerry Craft and scholarly introductions and apparatus by Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of the Fantastic Four and classic Marvel comics.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 014313583X
• ISBN 13: 9780143135838
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400