Les 4 Fantastiques

The first season (or episodes 1-13 if you're watching on Disney+) is really quite poor. This is apparent fairly immediately too as you're hit by a dreadful disco opening theme. The animation isn't terrible but it's not good either, villains especially look bad, most notably Dr Doom and the muscle-bound Silver Surfer (serving a poor Galactus). Unlike the other Marvel cartoons there is no depth to any storylines, they're quick, easy, and very conveniently finished by having Mr Fantastic just saying something about science and you're done. It's a kids cartoon that can only be enjoyed by kids. It's super camp as well, in one episode Johnny Storm even has a musical number for no reason.

5/10

The second season has far better animation, dialogue and plots. It gets a lot more interesting as in the last few episodes there are a lot of crossovers with other characters from the Marvel universe. Perhaps with it being the same release years as other cartoons then plots could have interlinked instead of being repeated though (mostly with Silver Surfer). It's still far from perfect, especially with one of the last episodes just being a very lazy clipshow, but majorly improved.

7/10.

This series (which was based on the Marvel comic of the same name) initially ran for two seasons in syndication as one half of a weekly show called The Marvel Action Hour (the other half was Iron Man). Perhaps The Fantastic Four was a rare case on a series that actually improved later on. The first season was lacking in various areas. The animation was stiff and appeared to be lacking with the textures (they looked very bright and rough to put it in other words). Somehow, there was at times a feeling that the stories were boarding towards camp. What stands out the most about the first season of The Fantastic Four is the theme song. Although the theme song was catchy, it was also really cheesy and sounded more like a jingle than anything else. Throughout the series, certain annoying factors tended to surface whether it was the theme from the first season or some fairly irritating supporting characters. When the second season came along, several improvements were made. The animation was better, a stronger theme song was put into place, and the episodes felt more action packed.

This is a good cartoon adap of the F4 and manages quite easily at times to capture the flavour of the classic F4 tales from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. By the time of the second season at least, it had matured into a fine Superhero animated series, that while not being able to evoke the magic of the original run of comics, or even the 1967 Hannah Barbera cartoon, is a good representation of the Fantastic Four. The only problem i have really is that the style of humour is too screwball to swallow. The producers clearly set out to make this series a comedy, and this shows in the representations of the characters, which are very cheesy to say the least. But aswell as that the humour misses the mark almost all of the time in the first series because it is trying to be too clever. The irony of this is that the original comics were cleverly funny. Still, by the time of the scond season the problems had been ironed out. The storylines had become stronger, and the representations of Mr Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch and the ever lovin' blue eyed Thing, had become simply fantastic. This is a good series, every episode is packed with action, good animation, a good theme tune and capable villains each week, from Dr.Doom, The Kree Skrulls, Galactus and the anti hero Sub-Mariner. It can hold it's head up as being a good representation of the F4, and at the very least is far superior to the the 1979 Animated series, and even the underrated 1994 movie.

I have very fond memories of watching this show when it first aired in the early 90's and while it is defiantly not the best animated show I have ever seen it is far and wide better then the previous Fantastic Four cartoons. I did not catch this show often enough just when I was really starting to get into it it was gone. Still I remember Stan Lee opened every show and that was just awesome. I still wish cartoon network or someone would reair this show if not that then at least release it on DVD. I mean it was great you got a half hour with the fantastic four and a half hour with iron man. Not to mention the awesome guest stars that would pop up. I remember in one episode of the fantastic four the Hulk popped up and was fighting the ting almost the entire episode ,just classic. later on Thor showed up and so did the Silver Sufer if I remember right. Also there was a cool inhumans episode. If you see it on the air its defiantly worth watching

This 1990s animated series of "Fantastic Four" is never going to be mentioned in the same breath as the "Spiderman" or "X Men" shows from the same decade. The overall quality of the above series is a bit uneven. The first season of "Fantastic Four" has some weak episodes with the Puppet Master villain. I've never been convinced that he has been a particularly effective adversary and this is shown here. Ben Grimm/The Thing is my favourite member of the Fantastic Four, he's quite funny as well as being tough. The later episodes are much better, especially when Doctor Doom is in them. He was always going to be the top villain to the Fantastic Four and he doesn't let the side down. I reckon this series could have lasted another season.