GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS III: THE RETURN OF FIN FANG FOUR

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

For those who couldn’t get enough (and we know who you are) Googam, Elektro, Gorgilla and Fin Fang Foom, Marvel’s oddball assortment of reformed monsters from the 1960s, return next month in Giant-Size Avengers Special.

Together with Scott Gray, Roger Langridge brought back the Fin Fang Four in 2005’s Marvel Monsters: Fin Fang Four where they defeated the microscopic alien conqueror Tim Boo Baa.

Last year, the Fin Fang Four took on Hydra in order to save the holiday season in Marvel Holiday Special.

What do these monsters have in store for fans this time around? And what do they have to do with the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?

Continuing our series of interviews with the folks behind Giant-Size Avengers Special, we now shift our focus on Scott Gray and Roger Langridge, the masterminds chronicling the latest (mis)adventures of everyone’s favorite reformed monsters.

Newsarama: So, guys, what kind of ludicrous stratagems have they come up with this time around?

Scott Gray: They’re avoiding them. No, honestly! Cunning, eh? It’s schemes like this that have made the Fin Fang Four the most popular comic book superteam in the country. And in some of the cities too.

Roger Langridge: This story is actually a bit we wanted to put into the original Marvel Monsters one-shot but which we had to eliminate for space reasons. It involves our monstrous, sorry, our anthropomorphically-challenged protagonists undergoing group counseling as part of their rehabilitation and integration into mainstream society. And their counselor is one Doctor Leonard Samson. But naturally enough, things get complicated, as each of the Four’s own agendas get in the way…

NRAMA: Roger, who do you draw inspiration from (no pun intended) as you put pen to paper on Giant-Sized Avengers Special?

RL: Well, obviously Jack Kirby is the main one in terms of finding some common ground between my own natural style and the Marvel way of doing things. The Fin Fang Four are all Kirby characters. So there’s that. Beyond Kirby and Ditko, I was never really a Marvel kid, so the super-hero influences I picked up tended to be people like Jack Cole, Kurt Schaffenberger, people with a slightly humorous edge to their work and a clean brush line. That was what I was always attracted to. So you can probably see a bit of them in there as well.

NRAMA: Was there a specific look that you were looking for with this… wackier version of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes versus the Fin Fang Four?

RL: To be honest, we played Samson pretty straight. He’s like the foil for the outrageousness of the other characters. I personally try to avoid “wacky” if I can help it, because it’s never as funny as delivering the jokes deadpan. So Doc Samson shouldn’t jar too much with other interpretations of the character. He’s basically there to try to keep his dignity while everybody else tries to strip it away from him.

NRAMA: Samson? Doc Samson?

RL & SG: …

NRAMA: Okay, guys, what drew you to Marvel in the first place? Are you a superhero guy or do you root for the villains more?

RL: Certainly in my case, I think the villains are usually more interesting, especially the slightly inept ones, who just seem to be so conflicted about what they actually want out of life. One thing Scott and I have talked about is a Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime story, because the characters are just such bargain-basement losers, yet they have such grand ambitions, and it seems like they all hate one another’s guts. The potential for comedy there is so rich it scarcely bears thinking about. In the case of the Fin Fang Four, of course, none of them are really villains – even Googam, Son of Goom, who would be one if he could, but he’s just not very good at it. Which, to go back to your original question, is one thing that Marvel has traditionally always done very well – villains who are morally ambiguous. You get the idea that the only thing that made them a villain instead of a hero is that they took a wrong turn on the way to school, like Pinocchio.

SG: I got exposed to Marvel at a disturbingly early age by The Mighty World of Marvel, a weekly comic published by Marvel UK. It reprinted the earliest Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man stories by Lee, Kirby and Ditko. My brain never recovered, thank Odin. As for heroes and villains – I think the fundamental premise of Marvel, the thing that separated the company from the herd back in the 1960s, is that all the characters are multi-faceted. That means you can have heroes who are sometimes petty, jealous or selfish, and villains who occasionally show a conscience (or at least some vulnerability). And that’s what makes a good Marvel story an unpredictable, entertaining ride.

NRAMA: In the case of the Avengers, which character do you find most comfortable to illustrate?

RL: Well, I’ve only done one! Actually, I think I could do something with Jarvis…

NRAMA: What about the one that ended up the most challenging to get the depiction right time and again?

RL: Doc Samson. Definitely Doc Samson.

NRAMA: Umm… Doc Samson is not…

RL: I don’t know if there’s any more milk in this joke.

SG: Roger, I hate to tell you this, but Doc Samson has never, ever, ever been an Avenger.

RL: You’re kidding.

SG: If only.

RL: So… we’ve got no Avengers in this story at all?

SG: Not a one.

RL: I feel… used. How did that happen?

SG: I blame society. But Marveldom Assembled knows that Doc Samson will be an Avenger someday, and that’s what counts. If there was ever a super hero team that needed a resident psychiatrist, that’s the one.

RL: Grand! Hey, is Bill Everett still drawing Sub-Mariner?

NRAMA: Okaaaaay… So, Roger, do you start with the layouts first? Sketches? Or do you devour and dissect pages after pages of previous and current Avengers artwork before starting work on your respective 10-page shorts?

RL: I generally take the script and whip up a small thumbnail doodle, then lay out the page very lightly in blue pencil to give myself a skeleton to build on. Then I pencil, usually very tightly. I’ve done the Fin Fang Four a few times now so getting the feel of the characters wasn’t really a problem.

NRAMA: What’s your favorite scene/panel in Giant-Size Avengers Special? Can you describe it to our readers?

RL: There are a few fantasy scenes in our story where the Fin Fang Four describe their hopes for the future to Doc Samson. And we get to see what they’re really thinking, which isn’t always the same as what they’re telling him. So my favorite bit is probably when Googam is telling Samson that he just wants to be loved, while he’s dreaming of being waited upon hand and foot by legions of human slaves. I love that one because it just nails the little creep’s duplicity, ambition and total inability to see that it’s never going to happen.

SG: I’m with Roger on that one. Googam is a never-ending source of hilarity for us. Plunk him into any setting and he’ll turn it into a disaster area in 15 seconds flat, all the while blaming everyone else. Who doesn’t know someone like that?

Previously:
GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS I: JOHN BARBER

GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS II: THE NEW-TO-MARVEL WRITERS ON GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS SPECIAL

[Ironhorse]

YAHOOO!!! Fing Fan Four is the most awesome team in the Marvel universe, they deserve at least a mini. Peace.

[not.l.e.b]

Is this Scott Gray, as in the editor of Marvel UK's Collector's Editions? If so, I'm Lucas Burgess, regular writer to the awesome Wolverine and Deadpool, here to say congrats on landing this gig. So gonna get this when this hits shops!!!

[LuisMa316]

Is it me or does that dragon look like Ridley from the metroid games?

[-Armando523-]

damn it does look like Ridley from Metroid

[KryptonSite]

There's a Wolverine and Deadpool comic out in the UK but not here? No fair!

[TF_Loki]

Originally Posted by KryptonSite

There's a Wolverine and Deadpool comic out in the UK but not here? No fair!

It's a reprint title. Classic & Modern wolverine stories plus Joe Kelly's DP stuff.

[Chris]

He's right though. Doc Samson would make a GREAT addition to the Avengers. Some of his best momemts would be OFF of the battlefield.



Chris

[bomaya]

Originally Posted by not.l.e.b

Is this Scott Gray, as in the editor of Marvel UK's Collector's Editions?

Yep...and best writer of the Doctor Who comic strip!

[TheToileteer]

I am struggling in vain to identify some strain of Chinese in which "Fin Fang Foom" and "Tim Boo Ba" might be well-formed utterances.

[beta-ray]

Originally Posted by TheToileteer

I am struggling in vain to identify some strain of Chinese in which "Fin Fang Foom" and "Tim Boo Ba" might be well-formed utterances.

Try Hakka...

[xdemon]

I want a Fing Fang Four/Great Lakes Initiative team up!

[Dr13Bone]

When that whole Marvel Monsters thing came out I did not know if it was part of the Marvel Universe Official or not (me I don't care a good story is a good story).

But now that I see this, could Marvel Apes, or the Legion of Marvel Side Kicks be fare behind?

[genetic freak]

This is the only reason why I'm buying Giant-Size Avengers.

[Thephanboy]

hmmm to me this might be the only part of this special that im not lookin for. i was just not into the short story in the monster special and not a fan takin a great villian like fin and makin him good. to me it just doesnt fit into the new marvel universe. but im still go into buy this book...hey its the avengers....and still read this story. but this is only my own taste.

[Lex]

I wasn't planning on buying Giant-Size Avengers... but now that I know the Fin Fang Four are in it, I am so there! I might even read the other stories in the book.