Fantastic Four: Grand Design

Fantastic Four: Grand Design #1-2

by Tom Scioli

Because you demanded it! The bestselling GRAND DESIGN franchise continues with Marvel's First Family! Brought to you by critically-acclaimed cartoonist TOM SCIOLI (GØDLAND, TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE) in the sole-authorship tradition made famous by ED PISKOR'S X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN trilogy! Join the Watcher and witness how it all began...Plus appearances by your faves: Doctor Doom! Black Panther! Namor! Galactus! Mole Man! The Inhumans!

COLLECTING: FANTASTIC FOUR: GRAND DESIGN 1-2, FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 51

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2020

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my god, that was awful. I expected something along the lines of what Ed Piskor did with X-Men: Grand Design, what I read was a bunch of nonsense. It starts off well enough but as the book goes along there's no transitions from scene to scene. It's just half-baked attempts at recapping issues in one panel, most of them out of order. As it goes on, it gets further and further away from continuity with Sue cheating on Reed with Namor. By the end it had devolved into Black Panther gathering his family into forming Voltron with black panther robots instead of lion ones to fight Galactus. So dumb!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the Fantastic Four is the story of the Marvel Universe!

Despite not really being into super teams, the Fantastic Four is one of my favorite comics. I was a subscriber for five or six years and have hundreds of FF issues in the totes downstairs. When I saw this coming out, I was intrigued since it sounded like Luis from Ant-Man telling the story of the entire Lee & Kirby run of the Fantastic Four in two issues. Once the treasury edition came out, I snapped it up and devoured it.

I wasn't familiar with Tom Scioli before picking this up but I intend on diving into his back catalog because I really dug this. The art has a retro, Kirbyesque feel, although a little more cartoony than the King. The 25 panel per page grid is insane! I'm glad I have the treasury edition because I would have needed a magnifying glass to appreciate it in standard size. The paper has a matte finish and looks old and weathered, giving the book a somewhat timeless feel.

The writing is a distillation of Marvel history, centering on the Fantastic Four. Honestly, I was expecting a straight up retelling but Scioli made some course corrections. The changes seemed minor but wound up creating an avalanche of awesomeness.

As I said earlier, the Fantastic Four has been one of my favorite comics for decades but it has been limping along, never really achieving its past glory, since Jack Kirby left. Scioli gives the saga an ending that's true to the spirit of the book. There are also some FANTASTIC touches along the way, like spoiler having a kid with spoiler, spoiler becoming herald of Galactus, Galactus giving spoiler a Bane-esque backbreaker, and Black Panther and company forming a Wakandan spoiler to take on Galactus.

Fantastic Four: Grand Design is Tom Scioli's love letter to Marvel's First Family and one hell of a great read. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Y'know, I get what they're going for there on the cover, but it feels wrong and ticks me off.

As for the rest of the book, it started out fine at the dawn of time as a chronological retelling of events from the first 80 or so issues of Fantastic Four, showing us how the cosmological events referenced in the series actually weaved together, but by the end of the first half it had pretty much fallen into a boring rut of recapping all the individual issues. Sure, there were little tweaks here and there, bringing in stuff that didn't happen until much later in continuity or in other media and turning the Reed - Susan - Namor love triangle into something darker, but the relentless recapping wore me down. And did we really need the Power Rangers/rainbow of Panthers nonsense?

And including a reprint of Fantastic Four #51 just went to show how much better, wilder, goofier and screwed up the original source material is.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on issue 80 of the original Kirby/Lee run so most of this book was a reminder of what has happened so far, and a bit of it was spoilers! But it was also illuminating to read the summaries of comics I hadn't read... and I think this comic really won't appeal to people that haven't read the original comics! I just think this will feel like a fever dream to read without context.

The first 3/4 of the book was great for me. Scioli starts with a cosmogony of the Fantastic Four universe with all sorts of odd things like The Watcher, smart dinosaurs, Kree, Atlantis+Attilan, Lemurian deviants, Rama-Tut of Egypt (and a few of the other time travel FF stories). We get the origin of Doctor Doom all before being introduced to the FF.

We get a sort backstory of each of the characters and a beat-for-beat recreation of the very first FF issue. After the first few issues, most issues only get a panel or two... so it becomes a pretty rapid sequence of odd images that probably won't make a lick of sense to the uninitiated. I kind of wish it was organized where we see which issue the panels are in reference to.

Also included is an Ed Piskor recolor of FF issue 51 "This Man This Monster". Can Marvel please just pay this man to do all the 60s Marvel comics!? Even just to have digitally would be nice. But comparing this to my FF Omnibus version - this version really shows the realism that Kirby's art has which I think we forget about when it's presented in blinding bright colors and glossy paper.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slog to get through. The narrative is all over the place. No transitions. But...if you can follow the through line, I really appreciate the thought and time and research that went into creating a sort of unified timeline of the Fantastic Four. It is really well done and also not a very fun read at the same time.

[Kyle Dinges · Rating 4 out of 5]

These Grand Design books work very well, but I think there's some caveats. The biggest one is mainly that it's a straightaway nostalgia play. That isn't a bad thing, it just means if you don't have a working and pretty expansive knowledge of Fantastic Four history, this is probably not going to make much sense. It's very dense and Scioli fits so much in that entire issues from the first few decades of Fantastic Four are condensed into a single panel at time.

But if you do love the Fantastic Four, it's a really fun ride. Recruiting Scioli to do this was a good choice (much like Piksor on the X-Men: Grand Design books). Additionally, I love how they make it seem like old and faded issues that have been sitting in a long box in your parents' basement for 20 years. Pretty simple, if you like the FF, definitely read it. If you don't like the FF, or this is your first FF book, I think you may want to start elsewhere.

[Alex Sarll]

When X-Men: Grand Design came out, the perpetrator made disobliging remarks about Squirrel Girl in an interview promoting it, meaning he was clearly a snooty twat trying to pass off a hackwork continuity-tidying project as some kind of grand auteur statement. But the second Grand Design book is by Tom Scioli, a man who managed to wreak deranged genius from a Transformers/GI Joe crossover, and as such *obviously* it's a grand auteur statement. Somewhere between pop art and outsider art, it's based off a 25-panel grid (and I swear some pages had more), meaning these two issues are considerably more information-dense than some six-issue trades – Hell, some sixty-issue series. And no wonder, given they're a whistlestop reworking of Jack and Stan's hundred issues as they might have been if they were good, also grabbing ideas from elsewhere in the run as and when they take Scioli's fancy – so just at the points where I'm starting to feel he's playing it a little staid, he'll throw in a combination of both Secret Wars, or go off on something of his own invention like Black Panther turning up to twat Galactus with a Voltron-but-panthers combiner robot. Plus, because they're Marvel's founding heroes, he can legitimately say "The story of the Fantastic Four is the story of the universe" and grab whatever else he fancies from other comics. Still, I think my favourite bit may have been the way he played up the Sue/Namor subplot, particularly when she talks about wanting to stay with Reed but keep Namor in the Baxter Building pool. Especially coming hot on the heels of the obvious, overdue resolution to to the Jean, Scott and Logan love triangle in X-Men, one might almost draw conclusions.

[Billie Tyrell · Rating 1 out of 5]

A UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE BUT NOTHING CONNECTS TOGETHER

I'm into disjointed stuff but not when it's so unartful. I reckoned that after reading X Men Grand Designs this would be good fun, because the Fantastic Four are supposed to be more fun than The X Men. But all you get is a load of seemingly random disconnected panels, each one probably representing a different story arc of the Fantastic Four, but sometimes they'd represent a bit of fanwank that Scioli has introduced. So one page of this book would go like "The Fantastic Four fight the Mole Man and then Doctor Doom turns up and shrinks them and sends them back in time and they are on a pirate ship and they are now back in the present and Sub Mariner wants to marry the Invisible Woman and then the Magma Monster breaks through the church and eats the Thing but not before the Skrull come down and blast them and now they need to go to 9th Dimension where they meet the Care Bears, haha! Didn't expect that did you? I'm Tom Scioli and check out my childish cultural references to shit I liked when I was four years old!" all of this is complemented by deliberately bad drawings which are delicately coloured with crayons. I don't want to take a massive turd on all the effort put into this, because the art of X Men Grand Design had a similarly misleading simple art style used for conveying tonnes of information to the reader... but gosh, this is a pure deluge of everything and nothing at the same time. Though let's be fair, that's Marvel all over isn't it? A universe where everything is possible but nothing connects together.

Hmmm... have I become a culture snob because I've been reading too many artsy comics lately? Yeah, probably. (walks away embarrassed)

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read for a life long comic reader, for me who grew up reading the monthly adventures of the Fantastic Four. In a larger than comic book format, much like Ed Piskor did for the X-men, Tom Scioli has summarized the FF universe by weaving characters and events that were first presented in disparate titles over more than 5 decades into a straight-forward chronological story. While the early pages are some strange stuff that was cooked up later to explain earlier things, once this book begins to tell the FF story as presented in the comic books it was a great reminiscent experience. This is largely because most of the panels are reprinted from the original comics. Some issues are skipped, some are summarized by a few panels, while key issues get a significant moment on this stage. I felt at times like I was reading again some of my favorite issues from the late 60’s and early 70’s. For instance, issue #51, “This Man, This Monster” is 20 pages long (and one of my favorites and reprinted in its entirety in the final pages) but is retold in this book by 43 panels.

But while this trip down memory lane was fun, it wasn’t as good as reading the real issues and had to, by intent and design, tell aspects of the overall story that are a bit strained and uninteresting to me. It is a tribute to Stan Lee’s creative ability to keep spinning his stories on and on no matter how outlandish they became at times.

[Chadwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to sit on this for a while, but technically it's a pretty marvelous thing. And the little tweaks that he brings to his mostly faithful rendition of the FF saga really make it pop.

[Gabriel Pavão · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-Men Grand Design made a whole convoluted timeline into something easy and fun to read. Hulk Grand Design made a nice evolution from the grey beginnings to the Maestral finale of the Emerald Goliath.

This made the FF history into an even more convoluted, hard to read, mess.

Oh boy…

[Δημήτρης Μπ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like the design of this series. The thickness and the rough feel while touching the pages is something that I haven't seen in a long time. The old-school Marvel art style is a nice choice, too.

As far as the story goes, it is just a series of panels that depict the participation of the Fantastic Four throughout the marvel history with some -not so successful- changes (the silly Panthers/Voltron machine for example) being made by Scioli. These panels have little to no actual relevance to one another, and aside a few jokes here and there, they make for a boring read.

[Nacho Fregossi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aplaudo que Marvel haya decidido seguir la línea "Grand Design" (que comenzó con la trilogía de los X-Men de Ed Piskor), ahora dándole las llaves de los Fantastic Four al capo de Tom Scioli.

Con el sello de la casa, que hace de Scioli uno de los autores integrales más interesantes y fácilmente reconocibles del medio, F4:GD es un viaje a 1000 km x hora por la historia de los 4F. La cantidad de información (visual y textual) es apabullante y no da respiro, y logra, a su manera, transmitir esa sensación de maravilla y sorpresa que seguramente sentían los lectores de los 4F cuando mes a mes se encontraban en cada revista con un mundo totalmente nuevo y desconocido hasta ese momento. Es que Kirby estaba inventando el cómic de superhéroes tal como lo conocemos hoy día, y acá Scioli le rinde homenaje y le declara todo su amor.

Mención especial para el formato "treasury", que con su dimensión extra large permite que Scioli meta 20 o más viñetas por página. Una fiesta visual.

[Rumi Bossche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvels first family, after the Grand Design Xmen from Ed Piskor,  which i still need to read, we got The Fantastic Four from Tom Scioli, i have these singles for ages but finally read them,  i loved Scioli's graphic novel about Kirby and this one was great aswell. The style, with greases and paper that looks old is gorgeous and the small panels are very well done,  this is a true love letter to the Fantastic Four and Marvel and alot of love is poured into it. The FF really stands at the center of the universe that Kirby and Lee started 60 years ago and its a blast to fast forward to these first most important years of Marvel history. We get to see The Watcher, Black Panther and Namor. We see Spidey and the X-Men and Galactus and The Silver Surfer, all in just two issues. And in Kirby's awesome style. Scioli does everything and i always love that, he writes,  draws, lettered, inks and colored everything himself and i think thats mindblowing on its own. At the end there are lots of end notes and info and these two issues are just a  great  compact history of one of Marvels best periods.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first read this in single issues, I found the 25 panel grid and extreme compression rather exhausting. My reaction was basically:
1. Whoa, this is cool. 2. Nah, this is just a bunch of stuff squashed together. 4. Hmm, the minor changes are cascading into major ones. 5. Ahhhh, I see what you did there!

On second read, and in the collected Treasury size format, I found it much more enjoyable. Some combination of the larger size giving each panel more room to breathe and knowing the overall shape of the story helping keep me from being distracted by minor changes.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's obvious what Marvel was doing with this. X-Men Grand Design was very good, although mostly enjoyable to somebody already familiar with the franchise. I liked that comic, and figured that this would be amazing because I LOVE Fantastic Four. And, truly, I didn't hate this comic because of my love for the characters. But this comic was objectively bad.

Most pages had over 20 panels. It was common to have two or three 25-panel pages in a row. The art wasn't bad. In fact, there were some pages I would have sworn Jack Kirby did had there not been process pages in the back of the book. But the number of panels per page was just too much.

Also, it did not tell the overarching themes of the fantastic four. It was more about plot from the individual comics. It's like each issue of Fantastic Four took up two of these tiny panels per page, so if you didn't already know what was going on there wasn't much to grab on to. Especially because there was no introductory page so readers didn't know what was going on. The exception is the Galactus story. That got several pages and over a hundred panels. That was the best part, I wish more stories got that kind of attention.

I was hoping reading this comic would fill in the gaps I have from not reading all of the classic FF comics. But it was kinda boring. I kind of enjoyed it, but it was nowhere near the level of the other Fantastic Four comics. This is supposed to be the first of three, so I hope they make the next two more cohesive with less panels per page. And I hope the editor opens their eyes (there was one page where Johnny Storm says "I forgot to apply to college. What a boner!" I couldn't believe that made it in. And why is Alicia black? She was not, and is not currently black. I don't understand that decision.

EDIT: I was a little harsh before. The art was quite good. And there were a few thoughtful touches (like panels resembling famous covers). I brought it from 2 stars to 3 stars.

[Molly Lazer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this. The beginning of this volume was particularly good, as Scioli told multiple stories in one, in chronological order. It was fun to see how the different elements of the time-traveling FF fit together. But inconsistencies started to creep in between this book and the actual stories, all of which I have been reading over the last year or so (I happen to be up to almost exactly where this book cuts off in terms of Stan and Jack's original FF fun). And I'm not sure why Scioli would choose the deviations he did and make it seem like certain stories played out differently. There are quite a lot of deviations in the second half of the book, some of them not even remotely close to what actually happened. But the most egregious of these is the characterization of Sue. While she is, technically, a socialite at the beginning of the FF's story, she is never portrayed in the way that Scioli portrays her here, being ambivalent about being in the FF at all and still in love with Namor all the way up to the point where it seems as though she has an off-page physical affair with him. Scioli all but says in print that Franklin is actually Namor's son. Why? This does not benefit Sue's character in any way--especially when Sue's characterization was already suffering in those early FF issues as compared to the men on the team. Additionally, the team as a whole didn't feel like the family they are throughout any of the book. They are a family, real and found, and this book just doesn't show that. Elements like this took me out of the story here. The first half was mostly great, but the more those inconsistencies crept in, the more I didn't enjoy the second half as much.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what to think of Marvel's Grand Design line. I love the idea of handing name-brand characters over to indie cartoonists, and if anyone should tackle a Kirby-stamped book like the FF, it's Tom Scioli (Godland is essentially a Kirby riff), but Fantastic Four: Grand Design didn't go as far as I wanted it to. I certainly respect the idea of crafting a pop art item that recaps the Lee-Kirby run in fast-paced 25-panel pages, with quirky dialog and a stream of consciousness approach to story-telling, as well as the occasional Kirby art steal. If you're a comics fan, you'll recognize so of the poses. But it's still a big recap despite the modern recontextualization and references to alternate media FF. Where it gets fun for me is when Scioli walks off the map towards the end - things get weirder and weirder as he allows himself these deviations - until we're basically in a parallel universe. Worth it for these reinventions, and you know, I didn't mind the bits that were "Marvel Saga on speed". This was two very dense issues, so to make it heftier, they threw in the classic FF story "This Man... This Monster!", a fine tale that is also retold in the body of the work. Plus art pieces and bibliographical notes.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has never read any Fantastic 4 or any marvel comics really I found this book to be a good introduction to the universe/recap of the original issues.

The stories move at a clip with whole arcs being covered in a few panels which was initially quite overwhelming, however, once I got over this hurdle and settled into the format I enjoyed seeing backstories of characters I'd only heard mentioned in passing previously.

The visual style gives off classic and whimsical vibes which match the tone of the writing. The paper has a faux grain to simulate the original paper quality which adds to the classic style. The book also ends with a reprint of a classic story which was briefly covered earlier in the book which I thought was a surprising but good addition.

The main negative is the lack of transition between some of the panels which led to me having to backtrack and try to figure out what was happening a few times.

Overall though I enjoyed the book and thought it was worth the price.

[Ruz El · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

Scioli follows up Ed Piskors X-MEN Grand Design series, and frankly it's a tall order. The first part is a bit of a blur, and honestly hard to follow as it packs in so much detailed history that's it's hard to follow. Having never really read the X-Men, I never had much problem following Piskor's series, but having been familiar with FF history, especially Kirby material, that first part is a real challenge. Part too is a big step up as Scioli has more room to actually tell a story instead of hitting as many important historical points as possible. It's a shame really, I love the art and everything is hear to be absolutely great. I wish Scoili had the same number of pages X-MEN GD got with 3 complete volumes to really dig into the material. As it is, it's impressive as hell, but a little lacking in story for the first bit.

[Sheldon Wiebe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a huge waste of $40 (cost plus Gravy-Sucking Tax).

This retelling of the Fantastic Four's history by the Watcher is sketchily written (and frequently incoherent) - with art that would have been considered bad during the '40s. With the oversized format, one would expect a few mind-boggling splash panels but, instead, we get relatively tight grids of way-too-frikkin'-many panels on most pages.

Also, because it might wreck the binding if you open the book too wide, a lot of the text has to be read real close and under a bright light to get it all.

Then we get the borders. Instead of the usual white space, we get a kind of speckled crap brown space that is not at all attractive. Plus, the book actually smells bad.

I give the book a single star for including a reprint of the classic tale 'This Man, This Monster' from FF#51.

[Spencer Condon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Scioli's work, but this one just kinda didn't do it for me personally. I can admire the extremely dense page layouts as a pure technical marvel, but it makes the book really tough to read. One thing that both Hulk and X-Men Grand Design had going for them was that they didn't rely too heavily on the comics' dialogue, it was more about the narration to bridge the gaps in time and storylines. This one has WAY more talking, and the little fragmented sentences that jump from one scene to another are kind of just annoying to get through.

Visually, it's absolutely fantastic (pun somewhat intended). Scioli's style is definitely divisive, but I'm personally way into it. It sometimes leans further towards someone like Fletcher Hanks than Jack Kirby, but I think that roughness around the edges adds a ton of personality to the shapes and images.

[Tommy Grooms · Rating 4 out of 5]

The “Grand Design” designator is unfortunate, because at first I was expecting a continuity-conscious retelling much like Ed Piskor’s work on the X-Men - it took me too long to realize that Tom Scioli’s treatment on the Fantastic Four is more of an extended homage/riff that freely pulls in elements from other books and adaptations (e.g. Alicia Masters is Black like in the Mangaverse and one of the films) and makes changes for the sake of poetry or silliness (e.g. Daredevil is the defense attorney during the trial of Reed Richards). Once I realized what this was, it was a fantastically fun and funny ride, and Scioli’s Kirby-esque style serves the love letter effect well.

[Adam Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yum yum yum delicioso. I think what I love so much about this format is that it caters excellently to people like me with a lot of ephemeral comic book knowledge but not a lot of clarity on where to place it or how things actually developed. All the benefits of a sparknotes without the burden of having to read hundreds of comics. Packs a real punch and the art is a stand out. I wonder if it would read well for someone with no FF knowledge. Also gives me context to appreciate Full Circle and everything that book was doing far more. Never realized how foundational that issue is for Kirby’s art and the Thing’s character. Very excited to keep reading

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art. Scioli is a really astute writer, but unfortunately he spends way too much time mentioning every single battle in single or two-panel form here. We end up with a mess that feels more like "and then they fought this guy, and then they fought this guy, and then the Thing went for a walk, and then they fought this other guy." It's too bad because I like Scioli, and I like the Grand Design format, but I would have rather excised half of the characters/fights and focused more on the major events that shaped this team.

[Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 85/101 for 2024. So apparently this is a thing Marvel has done before, taking the whole sweep of continuity for one of their foundational properties and condensing and collapsing it into a volume you could read in one sitting. On the one hand it kind of makes the ups and downs and wild swings into a singular cohesive whole, but on the other hand, it completely obliterates any nuance and interiority at one end or grandeur and spectacle at the other. It's just Cliffs Notes in flattened, cartoony panels. Interesting, but not good.

[Ethan Tupts · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite part of this was the artwork. I didn’t know going into this book that most pages were excerpts from multiple comics. I was reading and getting confused until I made it to a story about Ben Grimm “the Thing”. This was great and I really enjoyed it.
At the back of the book there’s “additional reading” and it outlines each page/strip to let the reader know where these excerpts came from. I wish I would’ve known about this, then I would’ve read the background information first and then read the strip. Hope all this made sense.

[Mike Hviid · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally love Fantastic Four comics. I enjoy them as a concept.

This was not it. I couldn't get into this. It was a mish-mash of scenes that didn't even transition well into each other.

I'm also annoyed that it massively played into the "Susan is so into Namor the Sub-Mariner that she will cheat on Reed with him" situation. Honestly, in canon F4 comics, Namor does have his eyes on Susan, but it's very one-sided to the pointy where he's r4pey about it. Susan and Reed are very loyal to each other, and I enjoy it.

[Timo · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are things that make me go "the fuck is going on" and "why" when I read them. Especially "why" is the question that should be asked when a project is started.
This was one of those things. Crappy art although it was mostly in stamp size so it was only irritating. Story that was told too many times in different and more successful way,
Maybe I should have asked myself "why would you read this".

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scioli's Kirby-esque art is perfect for the Grand Design retelling. I also loved the 25 panel grid used throughout. The problem with this one is that, even with those crowded pages, there's just too much story for 2 issues. It ends up being nothing but recap with multiple original issues squeezed into almost every page. X-Men Grand Design had some space to let the story breath and do an actual retelling, not just a summary.