"Fantastic Four No. 1 arrived as a comic book on newsstands exactly 54 years ago this Saturday, August 8th. Written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, the comic book —priced at $0.10 — now looks hopelessly goofy. A dozen exclamation points punctuate the cover alone, which depicts a green monster bursting up through a street in "Central City," because Lee and Kirby had not yet decided to locate their super-team in the nonfictional borough of Manhattan. "I-I can't turn invisible fast enough!!" cries the half-transparent blonde struggling to escape the creature's grasp. But in its time, Fantastic Four was revolutionary. Its heroes wore no uniforms (though they would later). They had no secret identities. They bickered among themselves like any family. Most intriguingly, they often regarded their superpowers as a curse. Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards could stretch his body like taffy. Sue "Invisible Girl" Storm could vanish from sight, but also developed telekinesis and the ability to project force fields. Her brother Johnny turned into the The Human Torch, a flying fireball, just by saying "Flame on!" You probably wouldn't want to sit next to him on the bus, but at least Johnny could flame-off when he wanted. Poor Ben Grimm, the blue-collar kid on the team, was permanently transmogrified into giant orange rock monster. Pitifully christened "The Thing," his yearning to be made flesh again gave the early Fantastic Four stories an undercurrent of pathos."