I just finished reading Fantastic Four: Life Story this past weekend and I rather enjoyed the comic. It accomplishes exactly what it sets out to accomplish, and has some fun along the way. I also enjoyed Spider-Man: Life Story a couple of years ago. I really like this comic book concept overall and I want to see it used more.

The Life Story concept, used at Marvel Comics, takes our favorite comic book characters and ages them in real time through real decades of American history. For example, Spider-Man got his powers as a teenager in the 1960s, and then each issue tells Spider-Man’s life story through the decades, where he’s a young adult in the ’70s, an adult in the ’80s, middle-aged in the ’90s and so on, up to the present day when he’s an old man. And each decade is highlighted by the actual comics of that decade. For example, Venom doesn’t show up until the 1980s, and it’s a middle-aged Spider-Man dealing with the Clone Saga in the ’90s. And Miles Morales doesn’t show up until he did in the real world in the 2010s, when Peter Parker is an old man.

It’s a neat concept, putting these fantastic characters into more realistic, real-world settings and events, while telling a larger story about their life and their impact on the world. Fantastic Four: Life Story was all about family, the sacrifices we make for them, and what we sacrifice about them in our lives, knowingly or unknowingly. I don’t know if Marvel has any other plans for future Life Story comics, but join me after the jump for the heroes I would like to see featured.