Collecting the second half of John Byrne's five-year run on the world's greatest comic magazine. Some say it's the inferior half, and I suppose that's somewhat true. By this point, Byrne was writing and drawing two monthly books for Marvel, and writing another. The workload does seem to have taken its toll to some degree. After the first several issues in this volume, the art begins to look looser and less finished. Inking duties eventually get handed over to others. The art is still quite good, just not as good.

For most of this book, the Thing is replaced by She-Hulk for in-story reasons. I have nothing against the character, but she never quite fits in here, and other than acting as the team strong-person mostly just comments about how new she is to this super-heroing thing. I think she worked better as an Avenger, where there wasn't a family dynamic at work.

But the stories are still great, for the most part. Some of my favorites are here, in fact. The Psycho-Man returns to Earth with a new Hate-Monger and an insidious plot to tear our society apart. Mr. Fantastic battles Doctor Octopus for the life of his unborn child. An exorcist who believes Reed and Sue to be witches inadvertently unleashes the ultimate evil. And if you don't shed a tear at the tragic story of a lonely young boy who idolizes the Human Torch, you probably aren't really human.

So if this half is inferior, it's only in a relative sense. This is still some of the best material Marvel has ever released. My only real complaint about these volumes is that they didn't also include Byrne's run on the Thing's solo series (only a few issues where direct crossovers occurred.) ( )