In the 1990s, Steve Englehart returned to Marvel to write Silver Surfer, Vision and Scarlet Witch, West Coast Avengers and Fantastic Four. In 2001 he returned again to write the Avengers (Celestial Quest) and the Fantastic Four (Big Town). I recently read his Fantastic Four and Celestial Quest, which has put me in the nood to read Big Town. Here is what Englehart himself has to say about the series.
"An almost total disaster.
"Conceived as a gift to Marvel - a new franchise with unlimited possibility - it ended up edited by people who couldn't understand it (and it ain't that hard). It was approved as six issues, plotted as six issues, and then cut to four. The first issue was printed with pages out of order and characters dumbed down. The title was changed to FANTASTIC FOUR: BIG TOWN, even though it featured all the major groups. And then #4 had non-sequiturs edited in for no reason anyone's ever been able to explain. (My favorite is a caption, "The very core of the earth," as the Silver Surfer soars into New York.)
"Nice covers, though."
Doesn't sound very promising, does it?
THE PREMISE: "This is not a 'What If?' story, where one fact changes but the universe stays the same. this is not Earth-X, where alternate versions of heroes live but the real heroes still exist. This is a story about a universe which was exactly the same as ours, until the night that Reed richards took his friend, his girl and her brother into space. Back from the phosphorescent starrs came the Fantastic Four -- and that changed everything. Superheroes made the universe expand. And the center of the universe if the -- BIG TOWN."
I will pause here in case anyone has any thoughts on the series he would like to share.
Replies
I think we have to consider the publication dates here.
Going by the cover dates, this came two months after the first book of the Ultimate Universe ("Ultimate Spider-Man #1") and two months before the second ("Ultimate X-Men #1"). Also about three years after the end of "Heroes Reborn" and almost a year after Bill Jemas became Marvel's EiC. Word has it that Jemas was a big force behind the very existence of the Ultimate Universe.
So I strongly suspect that this is in truth Englehart's pitch for the Ultimate Universe. Except that Jemas and other editorial chose not to publish it as such. Perhaps significantly, this series does not seem to feature Spider-Man or even Peter Parker in any way, yet it does a lot with several of the most recognizable X-Men. It can't be reconciled with Earth-1610 continuity, but perhaps Englehart did not know that at the time.
I'm no fan of the Ultimate Universes, but I can see that writers might want to play with a continuity that does not feel any duty to follow decades of previous stories and often outdated sensibilities while also using very recognizable (and marketable) characters. Englehart had felt stymied by editorial aversion to novelty before, so if anything he would be more interested than most.
Odds are that Jemas simply did not choose to support Englehart's vision of an alternate Marvel continuity, favoring Mark Millar's "Ultimate X-Men" instead.
There seem to be some interesting ideas at work here, but apparently the mutants were not reimagined in very interesting ways.
So I strongly suspect that this is in truth Englehart's pitch for the Ultimate Universe.
Interesting theory. I hadn't considered that.
ISSUE #1:
INTRODUCTION: "Reed Richards -- member of the superhero group the Fantastic Four and dubbed Mr. Fantastic by millions. A man of incredible brilliance, Reed has time and time again used inventions of great technology to defeat the super-villain menace. Fellow genius, Tony Stark -- head of Stark Industries and known as the avenging hero Iron Man to the world, has also created a showcase on unimaginable technology. As a consequence of their constructions, the city of New York and civilization as a whole has taken a great leap forward. The city and its people showcase ultra-modern super-hero technology. Mankind need not ask 'What If?' any longer!"
Steve Englehart my not consider this series to be a "What If?" but I can't see how it can be anything else. It opens on the ten-year anniversary of the Fantastic Four's flight into space. New York City is now a futuristic utopia. That alone would keep it out of continuity, but here are a few more of the many (many) changes: the "X-Squad" is a super police force, run by Charles Xavier and Henry Pym, whose powers are granted by scientific means; the five original X-Men are now a street gang called the "Mutts"; Magneto's "Brotherhood" is Storn, Havok, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Wolverine; also, Doctor Doom, Magneto, the Red Skull, the Hulk, sub-Mariner and Ultron conspire together.
There are some smaller scale differences as well: Johnny Storm is engaged to be married to Sally Juarez (who comes with a whole family of new supporting characterrs); there is no Alicia Masters or franklin Richards; Spider-Man has retired; Hank Pyn and Janet Van Dyne have an open marriage, and Jan is sleeping with Tony Stark (because this is a Steve englehart book).
ISSUE #2:
This issue plays Mr. fantastic off against Dr. Doom, and Magneto off against the Red Skull. Thor's activity in the present day has led to an "Odin Cult" of White Supremecists who see him as a "White God," which puts the Black Panther and thor at odds. Also, Sally is pregnant. It is at this point, in 2001, I dropped this series. That's odd for me. Once I decide to buy something, I usually stick it through... unless it's so bad I drop it after the first issue. It's unusual for me to buy the first half of a series, then quit. this particular story just has nowhere to go.
ISSUE #3:
I can tell by the post-market sticker on the bags that I bought #3-4 as backissues, but I'm not sure I ever read them. In this issue, Sally is leaning toward an abortion, Johnny away from one. The Red Skull is revealed to be the leader of the Odin cult (fittingly), but it up to Don Blake/Thor to protect the Black Panther from them when they attack (ironically). By the end of the issue, Sally has decided to have the baby.
ISSUE #4:
Sue is revealed to be sterile (due to a side effect of one of Reed's experiments). We get our first glipmpse of severla characters we have not yet seen: Dr. Strange, Daredevil, Iron Fist and Captain Britain Captain Euro. In the first issue, Mockingbird killed a bad guy, which upset Hawkeye. In this issue, she has the chance to kill Quicksilver, but subdues him with a non-lethal method instead. Then Quicksilver breaks loose and [SPOILER] kills Hawkeye. At this point, in this universe, Ultron has constructed, but not yet activated, the Vision. In exchange for his freedom, he offers to transfer Hawkeye's brain patterns into the Vision's body. Sally dies of some sort of unspecified complication from her pregnancy.
You know, I have read this before. I specifically remember the scene Englehart cites on his blog in which the caption reads, "The very core of the earth," as the Silver Surfer soars into New York. I remember being confused at the time, but I gave Englhart the benefit of the doubt that he was speaking metaphotically or something and I just didn't get it. I know something about how comic books are made, and I really can't wrap my mind around just how this mistake happened. I mean, it's obviously not what Englehart intended. Someone, for some reason, would have had to purposely change it.
I think I'm through with my FF/Englehart kick now.
This is timely! While I was searching the archives for one of the Baron's old threads (JSA) and one of CK's old posts (Jonah Hex), I came across a previous (2010) discussion of Big Town, which I myself had initiated and completely forgotten about. It clears up much of the "brain fog" that has accumulated in my head over the course of the past 15 years. Here's what I had to say about it in 2010.
"I bought and read the first two issues when they were first released, but based on my twin tenets of comic book collecting (“Don’t buy what you don’t read” and “Don’t read what you don’t enjoy”), I didn’t buy issues three and four of what I considered at the time to be nothing more than a “What If?”... Big Town tells the story of a Marvel Universe that diverged from the one we know on day one. The “Big Town” in question comprises the five boroughs of New York plus Newark, NJ, melded into one huge city that is the backdrop of the tale. I dropped this title because it told the story of an MU wholly unrecognizable to me, but I find the mainstream Marvel Universe of today to be wholly unrecognizable, so I thought why not read about a utopia rather than a dystopia? Besides, with talents such as Englehart and McKone producing the series, how bad could it be?
"Over the weekend I picked up issues #3 and #4 and read all four start to finish. It was neither as bad as I remembered nor as good as I had hoped. I was hoping I could pretend I was reading a story set in the present day MU after a gap of however long it’s been since I lost interest in the hyper-continuity morass the MU has become, but I couldn’t do that, really. For one thing, it’s not as “utopian” as I recalled. I expected conflict, sure, but there were too many changes for me to readily embrace. For one thing, Sue Richards was rendered sterile by one of Reed’s experiments gone awry, so there’s no Franklin. Sub-Mariner and the Hulk are villains, fighting alongside of Doctor Doom, the Red Skull, Magneto and Ultron; inexplicably (because they were never gathered together by Charles Xavier), the five original X-Men are banded together (as “Mutts”) in New Jersey; Magneto’s “Brotherhood” is composed of Wolverine, Storm, Havok, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch; artificially enhanced police officers patrol the streets as the X-Squad; the Silver Surfer is under mind control by Doctor Doom; the Avengers are led by the Swordsman. All in all I enjoyed it more than most stories set in today’s Marvel Universe, but I wouldn’t want a steady diet of this reality, either."
Here's what Rich Steeves had to say about it: "I remember being very excited about it at first, then vaguely dissatisfied."
Here's what Captain Comics had to say about it:
"It's been nine years, so I don't recall much specific about Big Town -- except that I disliked it.
"I've argued for many years that almost any one of the major (or minor) miracle inventions of the Marvel Universe would transform the world. From boot jets to Pym particles, from shapeshifting clothes ("unstable molecules") to the Fantasticar, the technology to do these things would spread far beyond their original use and change everything. Pym particles alone could cure world hunger and make traditional transportation almost obsolete. (An ordinary man could shrink enough food to feed a continent, put it in his pocket and fly to Mombasa -- and feed all of Africa in a day.) "Unstable molecules" would make it possible for a man to move from land to sea to outer space without changing clothes. Boot jets would put Detroit out of business.
"But I don't really want the necessary effects of Pym/Richards/Stark tech to change the Marvel U. It would become so divergent from my own reality that it would become irrelevant. Reading Marvel Comics would be like a 12th Century Chinese man reading Newsweek -- a world so different from his own as to be almost gibberish. Why would he care about American politics, for example -- when that political system hadn't been invented yet, that country hadn't been founded yet, the North American continent unknown to him, America's primary religion (Christianity) not terribly familiar to him, the major events underpinning the opinions not yet occurred, the personalities not yet born? That's not what I want for Amazing Spider-Man.
"So Big Town seemed a gift to me. I'd finally get to see the effects of Pym/Stark/Richards tech after it escapes from Avengers Mansion, the Baxter Building and Stark Industries (which it necessarily would). But it would leave the "primary" Marvel U unchanged.
"And what did I get? A standard What If that was badly executed and rather stupid.
"Why are the X-Men not founded? What's that got to do with the premise? And even if they aren't, why would they suddenly act out of character and be bad guys? Frankly, I'd think anti-mutant paranoia would be close to non-existent in a world where people can give themselves super-powers (Pym particles, for example). Now that's an idea worth exploring.
"And why is Silver Surfer mind-controlled by Dr. Doom? To artificially even up the sides, of course. But why are there sides? Why is there a Dr. Doom? He likely would have been rendered irrelevant in a world where technology is leaping forward every 20 seconds, and the concept of superheroes virtually meaningless. It wouldn't have been the "end of history" -- the very concept is idiotic -- as some other counter-balance to American political/superhero hegemony would necessarily rise. But it probably wouldn't be a mad scientist from an East European backwater country that barely has running water. Whatever he invented, some 16-year-old in Bolivia would probably be inventing something better at the same time -- and somebody else in Beijing would do the same 20 minutes later. So control of technology would not be a factor in any country's superiority -- whether American or Latverian.
"So what would be important, game-winning factors in a world run amok with virtually magical technology? That's a story I want to read. Not a half-baked What If with a predictable ending."
If had only remembered reading #1-2 in 2001 and #1-4 in 2010 I wouldn't have had to read it a third time. In the future, even if I don't remember the detauils of this story, I will remember that I need not read it ever again.