I still find those early Fantastic Four comics very fascinating. The FF werent celebrities, they were freakshows. Conservative America hated them. They were unexpected and unsettling. And for the first time in superhero comic history, there was a real continuity from issue to issue. Somewhere along the way, the characters were codified into cliches, and their "best" stories(the one's held as the creative peak) introducing Black Panther, the Negative Zone, the Inhumans, the Watcher, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Dr Doom...it became more about the adventures they got into and not the protagonists themselves. I think that's why its a concept that frequently feels like its on the edge of breaking and needing reinventing or being cancelled outright(as it is now). Its like this embalmed period piece that became about spectacle and its just haunted the comic ever since. Everyone always constantly in the shadow of Jack Kirby's creativity.
