Tuesday, June 16, 2015

It MUST Be Different! It Must--It MUST!


In this comparison between Fantastic Four #107 and its counterpart in the title's reprint mag, Marvel's Greatest Comics, it's certainly not difficult to spot the major difference between the two at a glance:



Namely, that the staggered transformation from Ben Grimm to the Thing is given greater depth by having the forms of Ben still caught in the throes of change descend from the rear, rather than appear to be on level ground as on the original cover. The new presentation doesn't detract from the Thing's final image, which the cover's bold caption emphasizes in either case; and the newer look seems to make better use of the overall cover space, which otherwise only has a solid background to catch the eye and help sell the issue.

As in most cases involving original artwork being repeated on a cover of MGC, the company banner and additions to the title have forced the images to be somewhat reduced in size; and with the caption of the story's title being forced lower, as well, the images of the Thing were resized accordingly, along with being placed closer to the bottom of the page. Yet the end result--Ben's startling transformation--is still effective, with no significant sacrifice.

The MGC cover is also taking a different approach to Ben's three shifting forms, having them closer in density to the final figure--whereas the original cover gives them a more faded look in order to presumably bring more attention to the Thing, who's frankly the moneymaker on this cover. (Though since the Thing and the background coloring are also darker, perhaps that's mostly a result of giving everything more saturation.)  Overall, there's still a lot to like about the changes on the MGC version, which does reasonable justice to the original while adding some nice qualities of its own.

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