u/Lucky_Strike-85

On paper, Grant Morrison on Fantastic Four sounds like it should be magic: cosmic weirdness, high concepts, emotional sincerity, family dynamics, metafiction, science-as-mythology... all things Morrison excels at.

Fantastic Four: 1234 leans too far inward and is a little too dark for the FF. Instead of leaning into the optimistic side of the FF, it’s more of a cold psychological deconstruction. Morrison approached them from an opposite angle of the best FF writers... Lee, Byrne, Waid etc. which clashes with what makes the team so special.

The FF generally works best when the tone balances adventure, scientific imagination, family dynamics, and cosmic wonder.

Morrison can often can do that... especially in his DC Comics work.

But 1234 landed closer to late-90s Marvel moodiness. It’s almost anti-Kirby in spirit. And the FF without that Jack Kirby tone, the wonder, and sense of joyous optimism feels fundamentally wrong.

That said, I still think Morrison could have given us an incredible FF run if he had embraced optimism and the high sci-fi and cosmic Silver Age fantasy.

What did you guys think of it?

So, this is gonna sound silly but I was just looking for clarification about the title of this masterpiece...

Turns out that, apparently, most of Waid's stories went untitled because Waid's Daredevil run initially had a faux Daily Bugle newspaper at the start of the comic that worked as a credits for the comic and a recap, but as a result, the stories weren't titled. I didn't know this and was curious about what the story was called...

When I checked CBR forums, someone said the title was:

"A Christmas Journey" - Fair enough, I guess... it fits!

Then to confirm I went to Comic Vine and asked and they said the story was called:

"The Blind Orphans of Cresskill!" - that also fits and has a nice ring to it.

Then, when I went to Marvel forums, they informed me that it was officially untitled BUT that Marvel used the title of the newspaper headline as the official title which was:

"Daredevil Faces Off with Five Crime Organizations at Once"

which may be related to the previous issue because it has nothing to do with this one. Anyway, mystery solved...

Waid's masterpiece issue, #7, officially has no title.

Sorry for being anal retentive and weird about it!

Whenever I scour back issue bins at my LCS, I have serious FOMO... I come online to get recommendations for 70s and 80s Marvel (beyond the usual O'neil/Englehart Batman/Frank Miller Daredevil/John Byrne FF)... I'm looking for hidden gems.

All I ever see anyone recommend is either the latest stuff, stuff from 15 or 20 years ago... and if it is older, it's marquee stuff.

How do I find old, hidden gems and why is comic book fandom so shortsighted?