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.

Ah! the corny chorus of the 1994 Fantastic Four Theme song. To the untrained ear of a five year old, it is a catchy upbeat little piece that brings a quaint smile. But listening to it years later, that smile is one of bemused disgust; an uncomfortable smile to hold back the disbelief that one ever considered this "cool" back in his younger days.

"Lame" could not even begin to describe the first season of the 90s Fantastic Four animated series. First you had the low quality animation courtesy of a Taiwanese Animation studio. Weird poses, a mediocre frame rate; a few fluid shots here and there could not make up for the generally dismal quality. It looked like something 15 years behind the times. Art-wise, the designs lacked detail, the colors used were bright and cheery and characters continually went "off model" ending up looking silly.

On the bright side, the voice cast to an impeccable job of becoming their characters. Particularly noteworthy is Chuck McCann whose pitch perfect Brooklyn accent captures the spirit of the ever lovin blue eyed Thing, Ben Grimm. For comic books fans, The stories within the series were faithful recreations of the classic 60s fantastic four comic tales by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. However the execution of those great stories was nothing short of terrible. Silly dialog and Random humor was added particularly in the form of the FF4's new landlady who was continually trying to evict them. That coupled with unforgettable (for all the wrong reasons) moments like a rapping Ben Grimm, The great Galactus hungrily licking his lips and Stan Lee himself pausing the show to break the fourth wall, all of it adds to the utter silliness of the first season.

Season 2 in 1995 to 1996 saw a vast improvement in the overall quality. The most obvious change was in the animation. A higher level of detail, darker colors and more consistent artwork complemented the smooth animation work courtesy of a new Production studio. The writing also takes a darker turn, adapting stories from the 1980s Fantastic 4 comic book run. Gone is the humor, replaced now by more mature narratives and actual human drama. Aside from the various foes the FF4 must face, their greatest conflict comes within themselves and among each other. Reed's inner guilt, Ben's ongoing quest for acceptance, Sue's feelings of inadequacy, even Johnny's broken heart, all of them very real themes that people can relate to. There were episodes that did get a little angsty but no more angsty than those Japanese anime saturating the internet nowadays.

Owing to the vast differences in quality in the respective seasons, the rating above reflects the averaged rating between the two.

Season 1 = 2/10

Season 2 = 8/10

Average = 5/10

Casual viewers should just sit through season two but long time fans of the comic books could check out both seasons and see their favorite stories faithfully translated into animation.

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 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.

The first season of this cartoon contained painfully bad animation and rather weak story lines and a terrible opening with a cheesy theme song. The characters looked too stiff, especially the Thing, and my 2 favorite guest characters looked awful; Doctor Doom looked badly out of proportion, and the Silver Surfer looked like a walking piece of melted wax. Fourtunately after the series was (miraculously) renewed for a second season Marvel switched to new animation studio and the show was vastly improved, the animation was cool and looked similar to the X-Men cartoon, the characters looked better, the story lines were mostly adapted from the original Lee/Kirby run on the comic with great faithfulness and there were tons of cameos and guest roles from various marvel heroes and villains, including the Silver Surfer who looked awesome, plus it had a great opening that showed classic moments from the comic brought to animated life. If you get the DVDs than take my advice; skip the first season and go straight to the beginning of the second season unless you want to laugh at the bad animation.