I saw the X-Men Trilogy at WalMart for $10 and I couldn't resist, though I resisted when I had seen it for like $12 a month earlier. Actually, I might have taken the $12 set but I had to go back and research what was in the pack. And I never saw it for $12 again, though I was like $14 at Costco.
Anyway, I started going through the DVDs. X-Men was a little odd. They have this special feature where you can play the deleted scenes in the context of the movie. But when you play the movie this way, for some reason the subtitles don't work. I looked and couldn't find any reference to this on the internet.
Then I made my way to X2 (watched about 40 minutes and it was pretty good). Then to X3: The Last Stand. I was going to the special features and saw the Fantastic Four Trailer. That inspired me to finally open up the Fantastic Four: Extended Edition that I had bought months ago from Best Buy.
They had a feature on the Silver Surfer as presented in the comics, which looked interesting. But as I watched, I remembered there was supposed to be a feature on Jack Kirby (which was one of the reasons I bought this edition), titled Jack Kirby: Storyteller.
It was on the second disk. And I loved it. It features the reminiscences and comments from many of the current artists, like Neal Adams. Kirby assistants Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman. I especially liked the remembrances of Len Wein and Marv Wolfman who became big names who went over to the Kirby household when they were aspiring artists.
This brings back a lot of memories because I was a big Kirby fan when I was growing up and collected a lot of his comics. I regret not getting Fantastic Four 1 because I was around when it came out. I did get some of the early Avengers and X-Men, but missed out on buying the number 1 issues. (Back then, I was subscribing to Justice League. Maybe World's Finest too. I think I started buying Fantastic Four around when the Silver Surfer debuted or maybe an issue or two before when the Inhumans came out?
Anyway, I enjoyed this feature far more than I enjoyed the actual movie (or in fact any of the Marvel movies). Highly recommended for fellow Kirby fans.
There's another documentary called Heroes are Born: The Making of Fantastic 4, which also seems to be getting good press. So probably any Fantastic Four fan or Marvel fan might enjoy this. So on the strength of these features, I'd definitely recommend this DVD even if you already own the first DVD (which I did). Especially if you can find it on sale (which I did too).
More googling. I see another review. Based on this, perhaps it could be called The World's Greatest Comic Magazine documentary.
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Some random links (more added as they come)
Jack Kirby - the real comic book hero
The Fantastic Four at The Big Comic Book Database
Jack Kirby on Wikipedia
Jack Kirby covers
Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure
I remember seeing a DVD (around when ROSS came out) I think at Best Buy which contained that unfinished comic plus some extras, but can't find any reference to it on the net.
[5/28/09] Jim Cramer mentioned Kirby's Fourth World twice in a row on his show.
[9/26/14] Saw the story of Marvel settling with the family of Jack Kirby and came to this entry. I see there are more mentions of Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure on google, but no mention of a DVD. Maybe there was none. Here's one of the reviews of the Lost Adventures which was a graphic novel including The Lost Adventure issue.
Here's an interesting site commenting on the history of the Fantastic Four comics. Kind of more interesting than the actual comics.
[9/26/14] I thought I wrote about this somewhere before but I don't see it now [well it's sort of mentioned here]. So I'll put in in here. The other recommended Marvel documentary would be Marvel: Building A Cinematic Universe blu-ray bonus disc that came with The Avengers Blu-Ray set that was sold exclusively at Target. It was sold out when I went to Target too late, so I bought mine on ebay.
And I guess the documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story now playing on Netflix is good too.
I see Jack Kirby Storyteller on youtube [5/21/16 - link now broken, but search gets more]. And here's a shorter one called Jack Kirby: King of Comics. I wonder if this is related to the book of the same name. I'm guessing the speakers in the video are Mark Evanier and Jack Kirby's daughter.
[5/21/16] Besides the above, I noticed three more Marvel features on vudu last night. While they're in the movie section, they were all one-hour television specials on ABC.Anyway, you can find them by searching for Marvel on Vudu. Oddly, I only see one of them on Amazon. And only two of them on wikipedia (that I can see).
The specials are
Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe
Marvel: 75 Years, From Pulp to Pop (I see it on vimeo now, after I bought it on vudu)
Marvel's Captain America: 75 Heroic Years (youtube with Spanish subtitles, hey it's on hulu)
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