Mad #456 (John Ficarra) - Fantastic Four Issue - August 2005

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four comic book for Marvel in 1961 to counter the success that DC was having with The Justice League of America.  The new superhero team had four members: Mr. Fantastic ("Stretch") who could elongate his body parts like Plastic Man and was also a brilliant scientest/detective like Batman; Invisible Woman (originally known as "Invisible Girl") who could become invisible and could also project an invisible barrier around things; The Human Torch (not "Torch Boy") who could set his body on fire and fly really fast; and The Thing who had orange-peel skin and was really strong.  Both Human Torch and Thing had bad attitudes and chips on their shoulders as you might imagine.  The Four finally made it to the movie screen in 2005 but they seemed to be about 40+ years out of date as they were.  However, the movie gross was not bad - $154 million by the end of 2005.  Mad editors put the Fantastic Four on the cover (drawing by Mark Fredrickson) in their movie version with Alfred E. Neuman as Stretch.  Apparently, parody writers did not have time to actually see the movie before publication, so all we got were some outtakes and "The Fantastic Four Has a Crap-tastic Two Weeks!" by Johnny Ryan and Greg Leitman.  These jokes are not nearly as good as the David Shayne parody of the last Star Wars prequel ("Star Bores Epic Load III: The Retread of the Sh*t") with classic drawings by Hermann Mejia.  Some may contend that the Star Wars prequels were not as good as episodes IV-VI, but few could deny that there was ample material for the humorists among us.  Banana-head, pretzel-hair and ham-face are just a few of the sight gags in this one.  [JAM 8/26/2014]

Color Pages: 52 of 56 pages (93%)
Humorous Content: 43 of 56 pages (77%)

Departments:
Random Acts of Mindless - The Fundalini Pages  [Celebrity Cause-of-Death Betting Odds - Mr. Britney Spears]
Cause of Darth - Star Bores Epic Load III: The Retread of the Sh*t
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Freak Preview - Mad's Grotesquely Mutated Fantastic Four Outtakes
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at Summer Jobs
The Passion of the Crust - The Pizza Trough
Spinning Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing - A Kid's Guide to B.S-ing Through Life the George W. Bush Way
Angster's Paradise - Monroe and ... Summer Break
12-Year-Old Angry Men - A Peek Inside the Michael Jackson Jury Room  [fake department]
An Embarrassment of Richard's - Introducing the All-New BowelFlex XXXtreme!
The Grate Outdoors - Things You Never Want to Read About the Summer Camp You're Being Sent to
Lame On! - The Fantastic Four Has a Crap-tastic Two Weeks
When You Wish Upon a Car - Dump My Ride

Fold-In - Gas Pump