Woild's Greatest?! Sez Who?!

The Fantastic Four was the first comic book that I encountered that was created by Jack Kirby. And the first issue of that book that I ever read was #4. I was very young--someone (my mom, I'm pretty sure) had bought it for me at a used bookstore that was located down the street from us. For days I couldn't put it down and kept reading and re-reading it. Or "looking" at it, rather, since I hadn't learned how to read, yet.

The next issue I saw was #12 and by that time I could read. Man, Kirby had me hooked.

After that I didn't see many Kirby comics (or even superhero comics) until my dad opened his first bookstore in 1965. And then...oh boy did I get to read comics. Anything and everything that I wanted. And of course FANTASTIC FOUR by Jack Kirby quickly became my second-favorite comic book (behind Dikto's Spider-Man).

One thing that puzzled and frustrated me for a while, though, was the propaganda at the top of the cover of every issue:

THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE!

How could they make that claim? By what criteria? By what right? By whose authority?!!

It was only later that I realized it was just hyperbole and was probably one of the few contributions to the book by that master of bullshit, Stan Lee.

My personal copy of Fantastic Four #16.