Marvel's Classic Corner Boxes: Fantastic Four Vol. I

 

Nine years ago, the PPC briefly took a look at those eye-catching corner boxes which once graced the left corner of issue covers and featured the character(s) which starred in the comic you took home to read. At the time, we explored the subject within the context of where the art for the characters might have originated from; but during this week, we'll expand our look to showcase an near-entire run of a title's first volume of corner boxes in all their mini-glory, from beginning to end. And why not begin where Marvel began, in the comic which set the standard for its new line of super-hero books?

It took a year and a half for the first corner box to appear in the Fantastic Four comic since its launch--but with variations, that box would endure for the next four years and appear in nearly fifty issues.

The first subtle differences in these floating head boxes were mostly due to Sue's shift to the "middle" of the group shot and whatever hair style she had adopted. Later, Marvel began to profile itself more prominently--eventually including both the price and the issue number in the box as a handy reference for interested readers, while the Thing's features were slightly altered to have him project a less surly (but still powerful) impression.

I imagine most readers of classic FF stories are, like myself, most familiar with the boxes which appeared in mid-1967 which not only featured a group shot but would spotlight each FF member on a rotating basis--a world of difference that offered a more action-based approach to the team's appearance as opposed to mere head shots which did little to tempt the comics browser.

(Sorry, Reed--apparently the designer of these particular FF corner boxes didn't consider the stretching power of Mr. Fantastic all that fantastic.)

Those boxes would be dispensed with in late 1971, when Marvel briefly (as in the blink of an eye) experimented with shifting many of its titles to a larger format as well as bumping up their price tag 10¢. The following month, the company backed off those plans, but leaving intact other changes to the cover format: Pricing had been reduced 5¢, and full-page cover art was sacrificed to bring more prominence to the book's masthead. As for corner boxes, any characters now featured were left to fend for themselves--floating beneath a new Marvel banner, the borders of which extended but only included the price, issue number, and, eventually, the Comics Code stamp.

What that meant for FF members is that the Thing would receive the lion's share of exposure in that spot, trading off with the Torch on occasion but never featuring the Invisible Girl (maybe she was just invisible) or Mr. Fantastic, who were seemingly deemed non-marketable.

Apparently Marvel was pleased with those changes as they went on for the next three years before being altered in mid-1975, when a new group of floating heads replaced the standalone character and were positioned to balance an equally new masthead.

The style enjoyed a surprisingly long run of nearly five years--though with apologies to John Romita Sr., who had made an impressive showing as the book's fill-in artist following Jack Kirby's departure and who presumably rendered these head shots, the images, while sufficiently presentational, come off rather listless in appearance and offer no distinctiveness. Obviously, however, the design was doing its part to sustain sales of the book, something Romita in his position as Art Director for the company would have been mindful of.

During the transition from John Byrne's initial work on the book to the run of artist Bill Sienkiewicz, the corner box made a comeback, sporting images that hearkened to earlier issues drawn by George Perez and offered a more pleasing appearance to the still-bodiless FF. But Byrne's reappearance in the title, this time a triple threat as writer, penciler and inker, would soon bring to the corner box a dynamic aspect it had never before experienced (not unlike what he brought to the book itself).

Just short of two years later, however, Byrne would settle on a more static group shot image, which would extend for nearly a year after his run ended in 1986 and would be adjusted in the Thing's absence to include the She-Hulk.

When writer Steve Englehart began his stint on the book, the Thing would return to lead the team in a lineup which would replace Reed and Sue with Crystal and Ms. Marvel (as herself and, later, the so-called She-Thing). The box would see the return of the "Perez heads" to some degree, more noticeably when Crystal was jettisoned in favor of the return of Reed and Sue and, for a time, left us with five members of the Fantastic Four.

With his arrival at the tail end of 1989, Walt Simonson, as writer and penciler on the book, would pare back the members of the FF to four by returning the Thing to human form, while more or less adhering to Byrne's concept for the corner box display. That's not to say that he didn't adapt the box to special circumstances on occasion, even when other art was featured in the issue.

The boxes became less consistent in the Tom DeFalco years which took us to the end of the book's Vol. I run. For the most part, the box either featured no characters at all or returned to Byrne's group shot; but there were a few Paul Ryan contributions which made the cut before the final thirty issues reduced the box's design to a simple portrayal of the number "4" during 1994-1996. (Curiously, the Sub-Mariner, who was all but an unofficial member of the group during this time, was never featured in the box.)

The corner boxes would reappear during the 1998 incarnation of Fantastic Four for its first 40+ issues and, at that point, fade completely (aside from a variant cover or two) for the duration of that volume--replaced for a time with a recycling of Romita's masthead head shots refitted with updated art (looks like Bryan Hitch's work to me). Perhaps one of you scholars on the subject would chime in with any indications of a return to regular use from 2011-20.

NEXT: Another look at classic corner boxes, featuring two of Marvel's heaviest hitters!