Image Quotation of Past Events to Enforce Storyworld Cohesion in John Byrne's Fantastic Four

This paper will look at the way John Byrne uses visual continuity in the Marvel Universe, in the form of direct and indirect quotation of panels by other artists, to first disrupt existing storyworld cohesion by introducing new elements of his own, and then to reinforce the ‘canonicity’ of this new version of events, and thus his own authorship. Examples will be taken from three issues of his run of Marvel’s Fantastic Four, featuring the stories ‘This Land Is Mine’ (Fantastic Four #247, October 1982), ‘Interlude’ (Fantastic Four #258, September 1983) and ‘True Lies’ (Fantastic Four #278, May 1985).

These three stories see Byrne making changes to the history of the Fantastic Four, and especially to that of Doctor Doom. In each case he uses visual quotation of previous events in the Marvel diegesis to reward the knowledge of long-term fans, before altering the history previously established and then finally reinforcing this alteration, and reassuring readers, by returning to further quotation.

Quoting images was common practice at a time when monthly comics regularly recapped previous issues as part of their story content, but Byrne adapted this by redrawing specific images from different angles, hinting that his re-telling was literally from a slightly different viewpoint, while also implying that he stands next to the original artists as both storyteller and creator of canon. Information is taken from a larger project involving a close reading of all appearances of Doctor Doom during ‘The Marvel Age’ (1961 to 1987). The project seeks to identify and track the components of transmedia character cohesion, and this paper draws on three of these components in particular – ‘Past Events’, ‘Textual Authorship’ and ‘Market Authorship’. The term ‘Past Events’ refers to all previous events from the wider storyworld which are directly mentioned within the text. This paper will show how Byrne manipulates existing past events, such as the accident that scarred Doom’s face or his overthrow of the previous ruler of Latveria, into new shapes, and by doing so highlights his own status within the other two relevant components as ‘Textual Author’ and ‘Market Author’. By using his status as a ‘Textual Author’ (credited for generating part of the actual text) to overthrow and reinterpret the work of all those who have gone before him, he stakes his claim as the pre-eminent ‘Market Author’ i.e. one whose name is associated with the character as a selling point, irrespective of the creative input to a specific text.

The paper will demonstrate this practice through the use of examples taken from the texts themselves, placed beside the original images quoted to show how Byrne uses image quotation to re-shape the history of the vast Marvel storyworld, and to stake his own claim as one of its most important creators.