Meanwhile, over on Tom Brevoort’s blog, he surprisingly shows no signs of collapsing post-week-of-answering-Rama-questions, and is instead remembering how he ended up a Marvel fan in the first place:
Why did these comics hook me when all earlier attempts at reading Marvel had failed? A few reasons, I think. First of all, I had three issues all at once–typically, the Marvel books I had encountered previously were all continued, and I could never be certain of being able to get the follow-up issues. But here, I got what amounts to a two-parter in the first two books (with a major cliffhanger) and the immediate follow-up to it, which was a large enough chunk to digest all at once.
Secondly–again, especially the first two-parter–this was one of the wackier FF stories done in this era, with the FF captured by the Frightful Four, who then hold open American Idol-style auditions for their fourth member in the Baxter Building. So the content was more upbeat and fun, while still being dramatic, which gave it more in common with the DC books of the time that I liked.
Thirdly, the artwork was much cleaner and more engaging that what I’d encountered in the Marvel books up till this time. Partly that was due to the work of George Perez in the first two issues, but even more of the credit, I think, has to go to Joe Sinnott. Joe’s just about my favorite inker ever, whose work always added a clean, sleek finish to any assignment he worked on. A fixture on FANTASTIC FOUR for something in the neighborhood of fifteen years, he kept the characters looking and feeling like themselves throughout, despite any changes of penciler along the way.
I included that last part mostly to try and stoke the fires for Marvel Visionaries: Joe Sinnott one day in the future…
