Fantastic Four

Author: Stan Lee

Marvel needed a team. The Silver Age was in full swing, and the Justice League of America was the biggest deal in comics. Stan Lee was the head of Marvel at the time, and when told he needed to provide a team title, he decided to make the kind of comic he'd like to read. Writing the story, along with the already legendary Jack Kirby doing the art, Lee came up with a team that went into space and after being blasted with beta-rays, gained powers. The Fantastic Four was thus born! No other team comic better played with the science fiction themes of the danger of space along with the potential effects of it on humans. Fantastic Four looked at a team of very different individuals, Reed Richards, the somewhat stuffy intellectual super-scientist, played off the gruff muscle-head Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. Susan Storm, the Invisible Girl, reasonable and somewhat maternal in nature, is the yin to her brother Johnny's hot-headed Yang. The stories were huge, sometimes big enough to want to devour the planet, but they were always firmly rooted in the science fiction tradition of space, super-science, and high technology. Why it's on the list: Not the first Silver Age Super Team, but without a doubt the best.