FANTASTIC 4TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD #1

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2001

A fairly typical encounter with some nasty elementals each assigned to annihilate one specific member of the fabled Fantastic Four (now in the midst of celebrating their 40th anniversary in comics) ends predictably, as the team changes opponents and easily eradicates the menace. It's a familiar tactic (we've seen this one before, folks), but when an even nastier fellow named Jihad shows up, and the entire team FF, children, pet and all wake up on an Arabian sailing vessel in the middle of the ocean, familiarity is no longer a factor for the team. Add to that the fact that the ship apparently belongs to a legendary hero by the name of Sinbad the Sailor, and it's clear the FF aren't in Kansas anymore.

Chris Claremont is one of the best scriptwriters in comics, and here he's crafted a delightful ode not only to the FF, but to those wonderful old Sinbad stories and the movies they inspired as well. In fact, this could be a never-seen fourth journey following after producer Charles Schneer's THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, and SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, ignoring the abysmal syndicated series of a few years ago. But wherever fans might choose to place it, this one-shot somehow manages to shoehorn the FF and their own unique brand of mythology into a universe populated by creatures that many of us remember springing to life from the imagination of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen. It's not the same as curling up with a bowl of popcorn to see Kerwin Matthews (or Patrick Wayne or John Philip Law) duel with skeletons, but it's a close second.

The FF are charged with recovering four valuable artifacts and set off to do Sinbad proud. Their first three tasks are relatively simple, each showcasing the talents of a team member at his or her best. The final journey, however, leads them to a massive temple with a standard issue huge, multi-armed statue. Thankfully, the events that follow are considerably more exciting and entertaining than those that occur in a comparable temple in the recent TOMB RAIDER film, and soon the FF have all four items in their possession. Jihad turns up again and threatens the lives of the children, but salvation comes in the form of a scimitar-wielding sailor whose name is synonymous with adventure sorry, Indy Sinbad! And this is where things get really interesting.

It's a team-up that spans the centuries and the dimensions, a good old-fashioned meeting of magic and science. It's plain, simple solid storytelling, a fantastic fantasy with an Arabian twist, and further proof (if any be needed) that the FF are first and foremost a family bound to each other by the power of Love. Whereas CrossGen's SOJOURN #1 (also reviewed this week) recycles old material and tries to pass it off with a straight face, Claremont takes the Sinbad stories, marries them to the Marvel Universe with tongue firmly in cheek, and comes up with a winner. For the true spirit of adventure, look no further.

FANTASTIC 4TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD

Grade: A

Issue:No. 1

Author(s): Chris Claremont, Pascual Ferry, Scott Hanna

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Price: $5.95