Avengers vs. Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four (1961) #25-26, 150, 255-256, Annual #19

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby (Illustrator), Gerry Conway (Writer)

Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Marvel's First Family share some of their greatest adventures! First, it's the battle of the century - the Hulk vs. the Thing! And it'll take the combined forces of both teams to stop the destruction! Worlds collide again when Ultron-7 crashes Quicksilver and Crystal's wedding! And the Avengers and the Fantastic Four each have roles to play in cosmic encounters with Annihilus and the Skrulls! Then, on a break from the FF, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman actually join the Avengers for the Super-Nova saga! The New Avengers and the Fantastic Four face the Kree - but why are Hank Pym and the Mighty Avengers breaking into the Baxter Building?! COLLECTING: FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #25-26, #150, #255-256 and ANNUAL #19; AVENGERS (1963) #127, #233, #301-303 and ANNUAL #14; NEW AVENGERS GUEST-STARRING THE FANTASTIC FOUR; and MIGHTY AVENGERS (2007) #25-26.

Genres: Graphic Novels

384 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2019

About the author

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was an American writer, editor, creator of comic book superheroes, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Reviews

[Blythe Penland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so shocked by the amount of similarities between the Avengers in the 60s and the MCU projects in the current age. Galactus and the wedding of Crystal of the Inhumans and Quiksilver, Pietro Maximoff. I loved seeing so much of Monica Rambeau as Captain Marvel, too. There was so much more diversity amongst this cast of characters in the earliest crossovers than I thought there were.

Even the Skrull and the Kree storylines were much older than I thought. It's interesting to watch how the font evolved over time, but wild to realize that the block shapes and the format of the pages stayed the same until the 21st century. The one thing that will always haunt me is that the copy I read was from my local library. You figure it's really too expensive to be bought, so you can still read it by borrowing. Thing is, of course my library's copy would have missing pages in the middle of the book and I wouldn't realize it until I've read up to the missing pages.

Imagine my surprise when page 210 jumps to 247. I mean, it doesn't even make sense because it cuts in the middle of one story to the middle of another. Go ahead and subtract 37 pages from my overall year total on Goodreads. Although, I'm not sure what exactly I missed. Anyway, I also find it interesting that the Hulk used to speak normally while hulked out and Thor used to use such medieval language. I'm definitely interested more in the lore of certain characters now. And Avengers mansion with Tony Stark and Jarvis is like Batman and Bruce Wayne and Alfred, which I find hilarious. I recommend this book to those looking for some original source material of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. (Most of it was even written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby!)

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nice collection of various stories where the Fantastic Four and the Avengers either fought each other or meet and it pretty cool seeing these stories. It does go over a pretty long length of time from the sixties to more modern times of the early 2000s.

[Ron · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this trade paperback.

The problem is too many of the stories required knowledge of previous events.

I was somewhat confused by many of the storylines