10 Amazing Comic Books That Should Have Flopped
6. Fantastic Four #1
Legend has it that Marvel publisher Martin Goodman was playing golf with DC’s publisher, and that publisher was bragging about the recent massive success of the Justice League of America. Goodman returned to the Marvel offices and told Stan Lee that Marvel needed such a team.
Stan initially hated the idea, but his wife Joan told him to do the story the way that he wanted for once. Rather than create a team of existing heroes, Lee created a very different kind of team. They argued, fought, and had financial and neighbor problems. They weren’t superheroes, they were adventurers and explorers.
First, Lee decided to put a monster on the team so if it failed he could claim he was still doing monster comics instead of trying to resurrect superheroes. But in the same breath, he did resurrect the Human Torch. But instead of the Golden Age android, Torch was a cocky teenager obsessed with cars and girls. Rounding out the team was the overly verbose Reed Richards, a surrogate for Stan himself, and the “token” girl, Sue Storm (who would go on to be the team’s most powerful member).
This collection of characters shouldn’t have worked and yet it did spectacularly. The FF became Marvel’s most popular comic at the time and spawned the resurgence of Marvel’s publishing of superhero comics.