A review by siskoid
Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne, Vol. 7 by Jackson Butch Guice, Bob Layton, Roger Stern, John Buscema, John Byrne

2.0

Collecting issues #285-286 and Annual #19, Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 7 also includes Avengers Annual #14, Avengers #263 and the double-sized X-Factor #1, and there lies the obvious problem. That's only three Fantastic Four comics, and I question the appropriateness of most of this ancillary material. The Avengers Annual is the flip-side of an FF story that nerfs the Skrulls (what did Byrne have against them anyway?!) and Byrne did do the breakdowns, so okay, but the Avengers stuff feels like you've jumped into the deep end of an unknown continuity and several pages are repeated (interesting to compare Sinnott to Kyle Baker as finishers, but still). Then, the famous one-off where a kid dies trying to copy the Torch (inspired by the kid who died a few years prior trying to fly like Superman), which is slightly impaired by being a Secret Wars II tie-in. And the Shooter-era interconnectedness gets out of control with the final batch of issues which show how Jean Grey is brought back from the dead, really an X-Men story. The crux of it is told in the FF issue, and I don't see why we need its lead-in (since it's recapped anyway), nor its follow-up (which has, like, a couple panels of Mister Fantastic and nothing to do with the FF). Neither of these have a role for Byrne, and this is supposed to be Visionaries: John Byrne. My X-Factor collection started with #2 (you couldn't always trust your local convenience store), so this was my first read of #1, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose there was an awkward amount of issues to get the trade paperback series to 8 volumes, but how about just making one thicker?