Today, learn how close we came to John Byrne and Bill Sienkiewicz on Fantastic Four!

In Nothing Was Delivered, we look at announced comic book projects that never came about. We'll try to find out WHY they didn't come out. I'm sure you all know tons of examples of comic book projects like these, so feel free to write me at brianc@cbr.com to tell me some for future columns.

As I have discussed in another column recently, Bill Sienkiewicz had a fascinating debut at Marvel Comics, where the artist first tried to get work at DC, as he felt that his work wasn't up to the level of Marvel just yet, but was sent by DC's then-art director, Vince Colletta, to Neal Adams' Continuity Studios, as Sienkieiwcz initially drew very much in the style of Adams. Adams looked at his work and then called Marvel and told the company to hire Sienkiewicz. Ralph Macchio happened to be looking for a new artist for the regular Moon Knight back-up feature in the Hulk! color magazine and when he saw Sienkiewicz's work, he quickly hired him on the feature with the regular writer, Doug Moench (who had co-created Moon Knight with Don Perlin a couple of years earlier in the pages of Werewolf By Night #32).

These backup stories soon became a bit of a sensation, as Sienkiewicz's Adams-esque art style quickly grew a number of fans. Typically, as these things go, when an artist becomes hot on a minor feature, you then try to give them biger work (like Russell Dauterman being so good on Cyclops that he was quickly taken off of the book to launch the Jane Foster Thor with Jason Aaron, and then Dauterman's replacement, Javier Garron, ALSO being so good that HE was given a number of other assignments, including eventually also working with Aaron on The Avengers).

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BILL SIENKIEWICZ TOOK OVER FANTASTIC FOUR ART DUTIES

By the end of 1979, Sienkiewicz and Moench's Moon Knight run in Hulk! was over and the two then graduated to starting to work on the launch of a new Moon Knight regular ongoing series (I pointed out in a recent column thart Sienkiewicz had to literally redraw his original first issue for that series).

At the same time, though, the two then did a guest issue of Fantastic Four #219, a book Jim Shooter was slated to take over as the new regular writer...

fantastic-four-219-0

Instead, the issue was received well enough that after two fill-in issues, the two became the regular creative team on the Fantastic Four (with Joe Sinnott remaining on the series) starting with #222 (I'm showing the cover of #223 because I just think it looks cooler)...

fantastic-four-223-0

Moench almost immediately felt ill at ease on the series, though. I think he did a good job, but he and editor Jim Salicrup didn't exactlyhave a meeting of the minds on the book, and Moench's run was cut short, with John Byrne taking over the series with Fantastic Four #232.

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THE JOHN BYRNE/BILL SIENKIEWICZ FANTASTIC FOUR RUN THAT NEVER WAS

However, while Byrne's first issue famously involved Byrne writing AND drawing the series...

fantastic-four-232-0

That was NOT the original plan (heck, even when it became the plan, the idea was for Terry Austin to ink Byrne and THAT fell through, too, at the last minute, so Byrne had to ink himself). Originally, Byrne was going to just write the series and Sienkiewicz was going to stay on the series as the regular artist (presumably doing layouts with Joe Sinnott doing finishes).

By this point, though, Moon Knight had launched and Sienkiewicz had done about eight issues of that series, as well, while still drawing Fantastic Four (again, though, I believe he was doing layouts with Sinnott doing finishes, meaning Sienkiewicz wasn't literally penciling two books a month, but even doing layouts is a lot of work, as you're still doing the work of laying out the page and designing the look of the page. For instance, people don't recall that Frank Miller "just" did layouts for Wolverine, with Joe Rubinstein doing pencils and finishes over those layouts, and yet Wolverine still feels like a Miller-drawn comic, because his design skills are so distinct. Sienkiewicz is like that, as well).

Byrne, though, was still drawing X-Men with Terry Austin when he took on the writing assignment on Fantastic Four. In an old Comic Book Legends Revealed, I noted that while people think the progression went Byrne leaving X-Men and then taking over Fantastic Four, his original plan was to do BOTH books at the same time! Co-ploitting and drawing X-Men and writing Fantastic Four with Sienkiewicz and Sinnott on art duties.

However, when Byrne decided to quit X-Men (due to his repeated frustrations with co-plotter/scripter Chris Claremont, as the two would co-plot the book, with Byrne even doing the majority of the plotting towards the end of their run together, but since Claremont's scripts would be the final thing done, Claremont could still make changes when he felt like and they would be what got published and Byrne didn't want to work that way anymore), suddenly he didn't actually have an art assignment anymore.

He and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter talked about it, and despite Byrne having given Sienkiewicz months worth of plots by that point in time, Shooter and Byrne agreed that Byrne should just write AND draw Fantastic Four, with Sienkiewicz then doing "just" Moon Knight. I don't know whether Sienkiewicz agreed with the decision or not (doing two monthly books seems like very hard for Sienkiewicz to do, especially as his style evolved but I don't know, he might have felt he could do it), but it certainly feels as though things would have been VERY different in comic book history had Sienkiewicz's only art assignment been Fantastic Four. I tend to think he wouldn't have gotten replaced if that was the case, so the fact that he was also doing Moon Knight likely played a major role in comic book history overall.

If anyone has a suggestion for another interesting comic book series/story that never got published, let me know at brianc@cbr.com!