Something has compelled me to write a rant today. I'm not sure what, but it's something. I'vebeen reading a lot of the Silver Age Fantastic Fur stories, through the Marvel Masterworks and essentials books lately, and i've been enjoying them. Stan and Jack certainly great storytellers. They've created some great characters, each with a different personalities. Kirby does some great work on these books with big dynamic spreads and emotion in each panel. I'm sure I'll go on to Avengers after finishing all the FF stuff, but i've only read about 20 issues or so. One of my favorite things about the book has been the Thing's inner battle with himself. He's always struggling with being so strong, yet his appearence being so monstrous. He's a hero who feels like he's a villain. i also liked witnessing how the Invisible Woman becomes a more valued member of the team. Sure, she's helped the team in the first few issues, but she's not as powerful as the other team members. She becomes a lot more self aware as the series progresses. The book is very fun to read. my one complaint, is Reed Richards. From the start I never really liked him. For starters, he self appoints himself the leader simply because he initiated the mission into space. And he doesn't really know what that means. Reed is always seen bossing his teammates around. Out of all of them, Sue gets the blunt of it. Whenever Sue tells him to come out of his lab, he yells at her and tells her to leave. Pretty rude to tell that to your significant other. Of course Ben isn't far behind. Whenver Ben charges into a battle without thinking, reed tries to stop him, and always has to get the 'I told you so" in when Ben is hurt. reed is completley obvlivious to what anybody says. The best thing is that whenver someone is hurt the rest of the FF will be concerned. Of course, Reed says "No time to worry about Johnny now, he's only dying". This seems like ti takes away from my reading expierience, but it really doesn't. Writers are supposed to give characters personalities. He's given reed a great personality, even if it's one I don't like. Stan has defintley succeeded. But all in all they're great books. I would defintley recomend them to superhero fans. Feel free to disagree(or agree for that matter)