Marvel Monsters: Fin Fang Four

    (Marvel, 2005)
™ and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Leave it to the Fantastic Four to think they can help everyone—including rampaging monsters like Fin Fang Foom and Googam. Reed Richards “helps” them by securing gainful employment for all of them, but can a supremely powerful, world-conquering beast be happy parking cars? The answer, of course, is no, and when they accidentally unleash an even greater threat on the world, the Fin Fang Four are born! Perhaps the monsters can be redeemed after all.

Nothing like a dragon in a chef’s hat to set the right tone for this one-shot, which is part of the “Marvel Monsters Group” event featuring the return of some famous monsters to the Marvel Universe. This title also reprints the original Fin Fang Foom adventure, drawn by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, from 1961.

— Andy Richardson

From the Comics Buyer’s Guide:

The various Marvel Monsters one-shots generally update Marvel’s classic monsters and fold them into the Marvel universe. (Devil Dinosaur isn’t really a classic Marvel monster.) While all of them are pretty wacky—as were the monsters’ original appearances—Fin Fang Four exceeds the wackiness of all the others combined.

In this tale, Reed Richards decides to rehabilitate the monsters. This includes shrinking them to human size and giving them jobs in the Baxter Building. Foremost among the monsters participating in Richards’ pilot program is the eponymous Fin Fang Foom. Fin has made his way around the Marvel universe, clashing with the likes of Iron Man, Thor, and the Exiles. Here, he becomes a chef in a Chinese restaurant.

Backing up Foom are the alien Googam (Son of Goom), apish Gorgilla, and the robot Elektro (with his “mighty 32K computer brain”). When it hits the fan, watch The Four pile into the Fantasti-Car and fly into action.

Backing up this delightful diversion is a reprint of Fin Fang Foom’s fabulous first foray. In a word, Fin Fang Four is fun.

— Jack Abramowitz
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#1

December, 2005
Cover Price: $3.99
2 copies available from $9.00 		Scott Gray, Roger Langridge, Stan LeeRoger Langridge, Jack Kirby