The Missing Fantastic Four Issue.

11 February 2007

Back when Jack Kirby was moving from Marvel to DC comics the issue of the Fantastic Four that was supposed to be scheduled to run as issue #102, which would have been Jack Kirby's last issue prior to launching New Gods, Mr. Miracle, Forever People, and The New Adventures of Jimmy Olsen (better known as the Forth World series) at DC, the story was rejected by Stan Lee at the pencils stage, then shelved and cut up later to form part of issue #108. This was released following Jack leaving Marvel and was interspersed between the newly drawn panels created with the reworked story, drawn by John Buscema, who had taken over pencilling the Fantastic Four when Jack relinquished the chores.

Well the exciting news is that John Morrow of TwoMorrows Publishing having tracked down most of the missing pencils to the unused version of Jack Kirby's pencils and reassembled them, indeed published them in issue #9 of The Jack Kirby Collector, back in 1996 has now arranged something even better.

Marvel Comics editor, Tom Brevoort, in an inspired move, has arranged for Stan Lee to finally dialogue Jack's pencils, with Joe Sinnott inking them. John Morrow says he has seen the inks and to quote him "Joe hasn't missed a beat in the 37 years since he was inking Jack on the FF".

The book will also contain a current Marvel writer and inker, reinterpreting this original version, and the printed issue #108, plus Jack Kirby's original pencil version, uninked. The book will be a one-shot special.

This is a very important book and will be THE last time ever that we can truly say we are buying a "NEW" Fantastic Four story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

The book is scheduled for release this coming summer. 

Here is the link to the TwoMorrows Blog on the upcoming book:

http://twomorrows.com/blog/tnt/fantastic-four-lost-and-found/