FANTASTIC FOUR #1 FACSIMILE EDITION (UPDATED)...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

If you've long-yearned to own an original issue of FANTASTIC FOUR #1, unless you win the Lottery, the closest you're ever likely to get is this amazing facsimile edition just released by MARVEL COMICS.  It even reproduces the original adverts in a stunning clarity that avoids the poor photocopied look of the earlier (1990s) MARVEL MILESTONE edition.  As well as the complete original issue, there's a bonus section in the back of the mag with lots of extra goodies.  This is a 'must have', and you should buy your copy now before the price escalates to ridiculous levels on the collectors circuit.

Incidentally, if you own any of the previous individual reprints of this issue published over the years, this one is sourced from superior proofs with no clumsy 'touch-ups' like its predecessors.  It really is the best single reprint of this cataclysmic classic produced to date.  (A planned TRUE BELIEVERS reprint of the issue was cancelled so as not to impact on the sales of this incarnation.)

But this wouldn't be a Crivens! review unless there's an element of criticism about it.  STAN LEE's introduction from ORIGINS Of MARVEL COMICS is included, but where he refers to himself as 'yours truly', it's been rendered as 'you truly', thereby compromising the sense of the sentence.  The FF Omnibus also made this mistake, but I alerted them to it several years back so there's no excuse for repeating it here.

And, a minor thing perhaps, but I'd like to have seen the 'Continued After Next Page' line restored to the pages preceding the ads, just for the sake of authenticity.  Not too much to ask is it?  Having said that though, it really is 'The World's Greatest Comic Facsimile'!  Buy one while you can. 

Bonus:  As mentioned in the comments section, below are the three scans that Barry Pearl sent me, taken from his very own original issue of The Fantastic Four #1 which he bought back in 1961.