Fantastic Four - World's Greatest Heroes: Season 1

Let's get one thing straight, this is not a FF series for old-school Marvel fanboys; the kind who complain that an adaptation is cheesy if it is 100% faithful to the original material but go ballistic if they change anything from the comic. I know you know who I'm talking about. This series is a fresh reinvention of the superheroes we know and love and personally I enjoyed it. A lot.The animation is certainly above average for a cartoon; it's not exactly Pixar, but it's far superior to the more traditional Fantastic Four - The Complete Animated Series with it's horrible theme song. The look is a uniquely modern mix of eastern and western styles with some nice CG, all of which may be off-putting to those who just want an animated version of a forty year-old comic book (that's already been done...twice) but it works nonetheless. The series' best attribute by far is it's sharp sense of humor. For example, in one episode Dr. Doom manages to switch bodies with Reed Richards after imprisoning himself. Reed, in Doom's fully armored body, escapes and hails a cab. As he sits down in the back of the taxi, the driver eyes him for a second before commenting, "Hey, you're that Iron Man guy, ain't ya?". Reed/Doom -rather than explain the insane situation- simply looks at him and responds, "Yes. Yes I am.". Great stuff, but if the notion of poking fun at classic comic characters is sacrilegious to you, skip this show. Johnny Storm's obnoxious insistence that everyone call Annihilus "The Annihilator!" as if he was a professional wrestler won't earn him any fans among the overly earnest Marvel old guard of fandom. But his Doom impression is laugh-out-loud hilarious.As with all Marvel animated series, this one's got it's share of guest stars including Iron Man, Ant Man, the Hulk (note to self: don't make fun of his momma), The Sub-Mariner, and more so three cheers for that. The series is episodic so there are no continuous arcs to follow, each show is a twenty minute story full of humorous situations, cool action scenes, and new interpretations of classic villains (the episode where the Skrulls disguise themselves as the FF's neighbors and ask them bizarre questions about their powers/weaknesses is another fun one). There are recurring characters and call-backs to previous episodes, but the stories themselves are self-contained. Nice and simple.While the early 90's animated series was much more faithful to the comic, the animation has not aged well and the early episodes are nearly as cheesy at times as the unwatchable 60's incarnation. It's a superior show for fans of the comic that improved greatly as it went on, but there is a lot more to like about this incarnation if you can get over the lack of faithfulness to the source material. This is the FF at their funnest.Anybody who prefers the older version has probably repressed the memory of Johnny Storm rapping ("flame on and on and on...).I'm extremely pleased that Marvel has given us this series and NOT based it on the films; and even more so that they have released a full season boxed set. Sure, they milked some of you with a few single-disc releases first, but for those of you (like me) who crossed their fingers and hoped, here it is: Season One of "Fantastic Four- World's Greatest Heroes" complete with NINE unaired episodes, cool featurettes and commentaries, and even an art gallery. Even the packaging is top notch. I am well-pleased with this set. I rate it 4 1/2 stars rounded up for successfully taking on the very difficult task of reinventing one of the last generation's flagship titles. Enjoy. Now, for the umpteenth time: Marvel, will you PLEASE release the 90's X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Incredible Hulk series' in their entirety?! I know you don't hate money so what gives?

This show is what the new "The Batman" series is to the '90s Batman:TAS. The animation, while having a very slight anime look to it regarding the characters, and the CG effects are a seemless blend into the traditional 2D cell animation. What I mean by that is that the CG is used to give some of the environmental landscapes and vehicles a true 3D look. What I really like about the vehicles, especially the everyday civilian vehicles, is that they're modeled after real-world cars. The Taxis and Police cars of NYC are Ford Crown Vics, and in several scenes you can pick out the new Chrysler 300Cs. In the Puppet Master episode, his original vehicle was a early 2000s Chevy S10, and I think I even saw a new Chevy Colorado truck in NYC. All of these are modeled in 3D. I mention all this, because in most animated series, the cars are generic shapes that do not resemble any real-life cars. I just thought that was a nice touch in this series. It may date the show in the long run, but it's cool now.Oh, one more thing...the New York city scapes. Fully rendered in 3D and fully textured. So no generic half-animated city scapes in this series. Something most other cartoons do to save money. But since these are modeled in 3D, its easy to show them in every scene necessary.Now as for the stories, yeah, I agree with trashcanman. There's a bit of a departure from classic comic book story arcs, but so what? The humor thrown in makes up for it. And it's a smart humor too. Not too childish. In fact, it reminds me alot of the characterizations used in the two feature films. The Johnny Storm in these series is modeled almost exactly like Chris Evans in the films.Sound quality on these discs? Fantastic! No pun intended. 5.1 surround mix that is really active and very directional. Rear channels are put to good use for special effects and all. Picture quality? Good too...16x9 anamorphic transfer. My only complaint is that the show's contrast levels are a bit high.UPDATE: Now that I've had a chance to view the entire set, I must say that this is the best animated superhero series since the DCAU "Justice League" series. The banter between Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm is extremely clever for an animated show. And then you have Susan Storm acting as the surrogate mother to the whole team, especially when she tries to reel back Reed Richards to reality when he goes off on some techno-babble when explaining a relatively simple endenture.The only thing that I was disappointed with is that there were no episodes dedicated to the Silver Surfer and Galactus story. I mean how can you do a Fantastic Four show with no Silver Surfer stories? And I guess I'm also a bit disappointed in that the "special power" effects weren't CG enough, unlike Justice League. However those episodes that had cross-over superhero appearances, like The Hulk, Iron-Man, She-Hulk, and Namor, were quite good. Even the one with the villians Frightful Four was great. Nice take on the classic Klaw character. (I remember my cousin having a Klaw figure back in the early '80s.)Anyway, I have been totally impressed with this series. It totally surprised me. It just goes to show you that don't base a show on preliminary character art designs.

I got it in the mail a few days ago and I am going to enjoy this for a very long time thanks and it came on time and my experience on here was very good

well animated, good voice actors, lil cheesy. But I feel that it is still superior to what Disney is doing in its slash/burn campaign to tank the Marvel property

First off I have purchased the fantastic four series before this one 94-95 from Amazon.com, I got this one to compare the two (see my review under Todd B.) I think they are both excellent shows, I'm leaning more towards this one as my favorite the action is fast paced and more consistent, the animation is crisp and clean some of the best I have seen (not to say that the animation in the first series is bad but due to new technology in recent years this is much better) the episodes flow together very well and make sense, UNDERSTAND this is not the old school classic FF but a new and younger group as a true long time marvel fan(I also collect the comics) this did not bother me but it might bother some of the long time fan boys, I think the new look is cool! The key word being NEW so remember that when buying, if you want "ol skool" then you may want to get the 94-95 series, THE LOWDOWN : get this series it is fun for the whole family and kids of all ages adults will dig it too!