Which creative team (or writer) had the best Fantastic Four run for Marvel Comics? I just started Mark Waid’s Fantastic Four run, which the message boards at the time had heralded as “the best Fantastic Four run since John Byrne”. Well, there’s a problem with that statement, and I have the statistics to back it up. [THEY WERE RIGHT, CHECK OUT PART 2]

In the above graph, you can see every creative team that worked 6 or more issues in a row for the Fantastic Four, starting with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961 up through Carlos Pacheco’s run in 2002. (A note on Carlos Pacheco’s run, he actually assumed various duties such as writer, plotter, and artist, and during the run for certain issues teamed up with Jeph Loeb, Rafael Marin, Stuart Immonen, Mark Bagley, Jeff Johnson, and Karl Kesel. However, Pacheco was the head of the creative team and the tone, themes, style, and direction were his, so I labeled the 20 issues as his run.)

I did not include Fantastic Four Annual, Fantastic Four Giant Size, Fantastic Four mini-series, or Fantastic Four specials. Each FF issue was given 1 to 5 stars, just like movies. A five-star rating was given sparingly, and the goal of any writer/artist team should have been be four stars- an incredible, emotionally provoking issue. Three stars is a great comic book. Two stars is standard schlock, the bulk of most comics. One star is a dud/bomb/trash. In addition to the ratings, it is equally important to see the number of issues during the run. This is the level of production. Obviously if a writer worked 6 blockbuster issues in a row, and averaged 4 stars, he could not be given the mantle of best Fantastic Four run of all time, because he just wasn’t productive enough. One final word on my method: it does not break down writer and artist; that is my retirement project; this system tells you if the book was good or bad, it’s as simple as that. No book- no matter how well drawn- was rated high if the story, plot, characterization, or entertainment was poor (thus Jim Lee’s run bombed).

Here are the top Fantastic Four runs that I have read and rated so far (I still have a bunch to read). [Each run will get their own article, and I will have plenty of details, don't worry.]

1- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are undisputed kings of the Fantastic Four. They created all of the Fantastic Four’s cast, powers, themes, personalities, villains, and were extremely innovative in terms of story-telling. They were the most productive (102 issues). They averaged 3.59 stars an issue. To sustain such a high average rating from 1961 to 1970 is mind-blowing. It’s quite simple: no creative team can equal their run or do better.

2- John Byrne wrote and drew the Fantastic Four for around 63 issues (I did not include his 2 issues that he worked on before this official run, and I gave him credit for plotting the last issue of his run) and averaged an exceptional 3.21 stars. Byrne ruled Marvel from 1981 – 1986, and was at his peak. Byrne always implies that he is content with being #2 behind Lee and Kirby, and based on my system he is.

3- Walt Simonson’s Fantastic Four run actually has the highest rating average per issue (3.89) but his 1989-1991 run only lasted 19 issues, which is a shame, since we’ll never know if he would have regressed or sustained this extraordinary level of quality. In addition to writing and drawing most of his run, Simonson’s run benefited by having Art Adams draw 3 very popular issues. I gave Simonson the edge over Pacheco and company’s run because Simonson had slightly more 4 and 5 star issues, and because Pacheco was part of a group.

4- Carlos Pacheco’s run unjumped the shark, sort to speak. Let’s just say that the Fantastic Four went into a quality slump for…oh, about 9 years. Pacheco- not Jim Lee, not Scott Lobdell, and not Chris Claremont was the one to truly make the Fantastic Four a great comic book again, in 2001 – 2002. Pacheco and his aforementioned crew (Jeph Loeb, Rafael Marin, etc)  totally took me by surprise with 20 issues averaging 3.7 stars, in other words, we were blessed with a modern Walt Simonson run again. No doubt it is the most underrated Fantastic Four run, and it should have continued.

Well, in future posts I will analyze all of the runs on the graph. The above top four runs all average over 3 stars, and the other runs are generally unspectacular with a couple of exceptions.  I will also read and rate the runs from 2002 to the present, so stay tuned. CHECK OUT MY NEXT ARTICLE, WHICH HAS MARK WAID’s RATING, PLUS TWO COMIC BOOK METRICS TO COMPARE RUNS.