(I originally read these comics in late July 2015)
I read the Lee/Kirby FF at least a couple of years back and thought I should get around to picking up the post-Kirby era, with art by Johns Romita and Buscema. They're comparable to Kirby's last twenty or so less inspired issues on the title, but not his best. Stan Lee soldiers on, but they're definitely missing something. The only new characters of note are the Over-Mind, who doesn't seem to pose nearly as dire a threat as the characters would have you believe, and Gabriel the Air-Walker, Galactus' latest herald, revealed as a robot (*yawn*) after two drawn-out issues of battle. This time the Big G has come to reclaim the Silver Surfer after long since condemning him to earth. I guess a good herald is hard to come by, as Gabriel clearly wasn't it. There's also the introduction of Janus the Nega-Man in a confusing story cobbled together from leftover Kirby pages (issue # 108). Brief returns from Doom, Annihilus and Diablo (unseen since # 35) don't add up to much and it's clear an air of predictability has settled over the title; there's another doomed attempt to cure Ben, another Thing vs. Hulk slugfest, etc...
Issue # 119 is pretty good, however, with Roy Thomas attempting some of that oh-so-hip early '70s social relevance in a story where the FF must rescue T'Challa, the Black Panther (here having temporarily renamed himself 'The Black Leopard'), from imprisonment in a segregated African nation. Thomas takes over as writer full-time from issue # 126 onwards.
These issues are moderately entertaining, but they seem a long way from the title's peak five or six years prior.
Fantastic Four (1961) # 104-110 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 104 is collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 105-116 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 105/106 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 111-125 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 111/112 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 116 is collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 117-125 are collected in:
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Fantastic Four (1961) # 119 is collected in:
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