imperiusrex86-deactivated201503
asked:
I find the most compelling FANTASTIC FOUR arcs to be those which are more adult themed. I understand it is a family oriented book, but here is my question: Do you think Byrne's run so successful because of the mature themes: rape (mental rape of Sue by Psycho Man), marital troubles, female empowerment, self image, miscarriage, etc.? It seemed F4 gained readership when Waid created very personal, mature situations (kidnappings by Doom, Reed's scar, Ben "dying", Reed in hell...)
That’s not the specific correlation I would draw necessarily. I think in both cases, it had more to do with the fact that there were storylines going on that seemed important, that seemed to matter and that pushed the characters in new directions. But I think boiling it down to “more rape stories” or what-have-you is being reductively specific. Another comonality of both the Byrne run and the Waid run is that they were both generally optimistic in tone and style, something that’s at odds with the notion that it was the miscarriages that made those runs so popular.