Fantastic Four #563

Stan Lee gets a lot of well deserved praise for the comic books he co-created, along with industry innovations such as the "Marvel style" of creating a comic (creating a rough plot, then writing scripts to the artist's pencils).

He also deserves a lot of credit for being the face of (and promoter-in-chief for) the comics industry - his marketing skills are amazing.

But one of the things he usually doesn't get much credit for is the style of writing he branded Marvel's comics line with. It was, to put it simply, based on soap operas.

Here's how it worked: each issue featured a Main Plot, which was either resolved or partly resolved in that issue. At the same time, there was a Character Plot going on, which focused on one or more key characters in the issue in an emotional sense - romance, thwarted romance, problems with loved ones, that sort of thing. Each issue also continued Sub-Plots from previous issues, wrapped up dangling plot threads, or set up one or more for future issues.

The upshot is that there were several stories running through each issue, and if one didn't catch your interest, perhaps another one would. It also meant that each issue kept things moving along briskly - a very good thing in a monthly comic.

That all brings us to the latest issue of Fantastic Four, wherein we can see that writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch have studied Stan's methods.

In this issue we resolve the threads left behind by last issue's funeral for the Invisible Woman, see the family's reaction to a big announcement by The Thing, and learn a little more about an upcoming, unstoppable threat.

So while it's an issue where not a lot of action happens involving our heroes, it's one that moves the story forward and sparks our interest in the next issue (although I'm not sure how crazy I am about the idea that Dr. Doom learned how to be a super-villain from someone else - he always struck me as a self-made man).

It doesn't hurt that the art is amazing as ever. Hitch provides incredible visuals here, including an insanely detailed look at New York after... well, that would be telling.

But you really should be reading this comic.

Grade: A-