Category Archives: Genre

Fantastic Four #51 [1966] – This Man, This Monster

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Boy, will you look at that. Beautiful, no? Scans of covers and splash pages are going to be the exception in this weblog (except for books where the only Kirby art is the cover), since I think the heart of Kirby’s work lies in the actual panel-to-panel story-telling, and because you can find scans of covers all over the place. But this cover is a particular favourite.

Figure it’s best to start with one of the best, FANTASTIC FOUR #51. Inked by Joe Sinnott (cover and story), and right in the heart of the classic run of the book where in one year you saw Kirby introduce the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Black Panther, the Negative Zone and more.

This is considered by some to be the best of that run. I’d agree with them.

 

This is very much the ultimate Ben Grimm story, where we look into his relationship with the team and with Alicia, and his feelings about being the Thing. Ben is always the most fascinating member of the team, as well as the most visually interesting, so any story with a lot of Ben is going to be a good one.

Published June 1966