Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #SilverAge
Most recents (1)
In Jack Kirby & Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four #51 (1966), no one punches anyone and few characters use their powers. There’s no world-ending threat and no one defeats a villain or even fights one. Which is precisely what makes it one of the best single issues of the #SilverAge. 1/12 
Everything that happens in Fantastic Four #51 happens because Ben Grimm is sad. He’s specifically sad about being the Thing. In other words, he’s sad about being a superhero who fears he’s a monster. Thus, the inciting incident is an existential crisis about identity. 2/12
Within a genre that celebrates masculine aggression, the Thing’s utter despondency remains unusual—and striking. As does Kirby’s art, which uses framing, posture, and rain as symbolic (and melodramatically excessive) tears to heartbreakingly humanize a lump of orange rocks. 3/12
