One of the cool things about celebrating birthdays in comics is that a lot of times the whole concept is that no one knew Comic Book X was going to be so historic when it released, so it wasn’t like people went out of their way to keep track when it happened. These days, with regular release schedules and the internet, it’s very easy to tell when, say, the first issue of The Walking Dead came out (although that too wasn’t an announced release at the time). . However, that being said, the best bet we have for when this goes on sale The Fantastic Four # 1 is August 8, 1961, almost sixty years ago.

Therefore, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, we’re going to be counting down your choices for the 60 greatest Fantastic Four stories of all time. It should be pretty straightforward, as the Fantastic Four have an inordinate amount of great stories, as the Jack Kirby and Stan Lee-led opening alone contained dozens of iconic stories on its own. Then you have acclaimed races like Roy Thomas / Gerry Conway and John Buscema, Marv Wolfman and John Byrne, John Byrne writing and drawing, Walter Simonson writing and drawing, Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan, Chris Claremont and Salvador Larocca, Carlos Pacheco and Jeph Loeb, Mark Waid and Mike Weiringo, J. Michael Straczynski and Mike McKone, Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, Jonathan Hickman and a number of artists, Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley / Mike Allred, James Robinson and Leonard Kirk and the stream led by Dan Slott and a number of artists. You might have a pretty good idea of ​​story number one, but what about story number two? Or # 3? Or # 45? It will be decided by you!

Here is how it will work. I’ll be collecting votes until Wednesday, August 4 (say 11:59 p.m. EST) and then start the countdown on August 8, the nominal 60th anniversary of the Fantastic Four.

1. Vote by sending me your ballot by email to [email protected] Put something like “The Four Most Fantastic Stories” in your subject line. It doesn’t have to be precise wording, but something along those lines. Just so I know your email is your ballot for sorting purposes.

2. You are going to vote for ten comic book stories featuring the Fantastic Four. It doesn’t have to be their own comic book if they starred in a comic you liked a lot. For example, Marvel Team # 100 would be considered a Fantastic Four comic.

3. Rank your ten favorite Fantastic Four comic book stories from # 1 (your favorite) to # 10 (your 10th favorite). I would prefer that you actually number your entry, from 1 to 10 (without the # sign). It’s easier for me to count.

Here is a template you can use as a guide. You can simply copy and paste it into your email:

TOP TEN GREATEST FOUR FANTASTIC STORIES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

ten.

4. Your first choice will be awarded 10 points, your second choice 9, etc.

5. You can vote for simple stories and you can vote for story arcs. Don’t vote for full races. Like “Stan and Jack’s Fantastic Four Run”. Do not do that. Just choose stories. Use your best judgment to determine if a story is a single problem or if it is a multi-problem story. Granted, with Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four it can be tricky, as the Inhumans introduction literally overlaps with the original Galactus trilogy, but I hope you all can understand that these are two individual stories in the purpose of this vote (I would say these were individual period stories, but mostly for the purposes of this vote).

I know you all probably want to vote for Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four as a great story, but you can’t. Break it up! The easiest thing to do is just use the trades. Here are the trades, for your convenience:

“Solve everything” – The Fantastic Four # 570-574

“Primary elements” – The Fantastic Four # 575-578

“The Foundation of the Future” – The Fantastic Four # 579-582

“Three” – The Fantastic Four # 583-588

“Tomorrow” – FF # 1-5

“The Supremor seed” – FF # 6-11

“Always” – The Fantastic Four # 600-604

“All hope is in misfortune” – FF # 12-16

“Foundation” – The Fantastic Four # 605-611

“You are what you want to be” – FF # 17-23

I’ll throw you a bone for those who just want to count Hickman’s Fantastic Four as one round. I’ll let you count the final The Fantastic Four trade (“Foundation”) and the purpose FF trade (“You are whatever you want to be”) like a great story, as they’re actually just a series of one-off epilogues concluding Hickman’s run. So vote for these two as “Foundation / You are whatever you want to be”.

Also, because they are shorter, I will, in fact, allow you to vote for Fraction / Bagley’s The Fantastic Four # 1-16 as one story and Fraction / Allred’s FF # 1-16 as one story. That’s it! Don’t try to make other big races count as one story!

6. The Fantastic Four’s non-continuity stories still count towards this poll. In other words, you can vote for the Ultimate Fantastic Four or Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four.

7. As stated above, FF counts as the main book of the Fantastic Four, but not the most recent Future Foundation miniseries. And obviously all Fantastic Four miniseries count (like 1234).

8. A tricky question is how do you deal with the major company-wide crossovers in which the Fantastic Four are involved? I think most of them don’t count as Fantastic Four stories, other than their respective Fantastic Four issues. As if you wanted to vote for the The Fantastic Four of the Civil War problems, fair enough. Or the Fantastic Four: Secret Invasion mini-series. You can not vote Secret invasion like a Fantastic Four story. The only exception I will allow is Jonathan Hickman’s Secret wars, which is largely a resolution of his Fantastic Four run based on Doom and Reed’s relationship. So if you want to vote for Secret wars as a story of the Fantastic Four, I will allow it. Your call, of course, to find out if you think this is one of the ten greatest Fantastic Four stories of all time.

9. I will make various other decisions in the interests of fairness and, if necessary, post the clarifications here. But it’s all pretty straightforward, I think. It’s just a matter of naming your favorite comic book stories featuring the Fantastic Four. The series has been around for almost seven hundred issues and there is a whole stack of classic stories, so it shouldn’t be hard for people to find ten each.

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