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Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Time to blast off into outer space, for issue #37. With a title like “Behold a Distant Star,” you know we’re in for some serious Silver Age goodness.

The fun begins as Ben and Johnny are trying on their outfits for Reed and Sue’s wedding rehearsal, when Johnny’s powers go haywire and burn up the clothes. This is due to Reed’s latest doo-hickey, a “power ray.” He explains it increases the FF’s powers by drawing energy from, “an unknown source from somewhere beyond the confines of our solar system.”

Reed turns off the device and has a chat with Sue, who’s feeling down. She’s upset because the alien Skrulls responsible for her father’s death have gone unpunished. Reed says there’s nothing he can do, since the Skrull homeworld is countless lightyears away. That nicely segues into the next scene, aboard a Skrull cruiser in a distant galaxy, where we meet Lord Morrat and Princess Anelle. Morrat is apparently the one who planted the bomb on Sue’s father back in issue #34, killing him. (I went back to that issue, and the Skrull leader in that one isn’t named and has his back the reader the whole time, so, sure, why not this guy?) Morrat fancies himself a hunter, and is full of bravado over all of his conquests. Anelle frets, saying, “Why do I love you so?”

Back on Earth, Reed has caved to Sue, and announces that the FF will go into space, all the way to the Skrull homeworld, so the Skrulls can face justice for the murder. The next couple of pages are sci-fi technobabble as Reed’s spaceship is able to travel vast distances thanks to a space-time warp. They head to a planet (how they decide on this planet, I’m not clear) where they are ambushed and captured by Skrull soldiers. The soldiers have devices that sap our heroes of their powers. The baddies take the Fantastic Four to Morrat. Morrat frets over what to do with the FF. Anelle says he must turn them over to her father, the Skrull king. He agrees, although Anelle says she has trouble believing him. Turns out she was right, because once she’s gone, Morrat announces he plans to kill the FF, which will set him up as the biggest hero in the galaxy.

The FF, still powerless, are brought before a Skrull firing squad. Reed pleads for his teammates’ lives, offering all his scientific knowledge in exchange for their lives. With Reed’s smarts, Morrat believes the Earth is his. Elsewhere, Anelle goes to see the Skrull King, who, oddly, is watching a bunch of acrobats perform. He doesn’t trust Morrat, either, fearing Morrat wants nothing but the crown. Anelle mentions the Fantastic Four, only to learn that Morrat didn’t give the FF to the king as promised. The king calls Morrat a traitor and rallies his troops.

Back with Morrat, Reed has built another power ray. He turns it on his teammates, acting as if he’s betraying them to the Srkulls. But, no. Remember the start of the issue? The ray boosts the FF’s powers so they’re back to full strength. Time for fighting! Although outnumbered and outgunned, our four heroes plow through the troops.

The king shows up, surrounding Morrat. He demands Morrat be arrested, but Morrat calls for the king’s death. The king’s men prepare to fire, as Anelle jumps between them and Morrat. Sue protects Anelle with an invisible force field, but not Morrat, who gets gunned down. Rescuing Anelle softens the heart of the king. Without the power-hungry Morrat, the king says the Skrulls are no longer enemies of Earth, and will leave Earth alone. The FF head back home, just in time for the wedding rehearsal.

Unstable molecule: During the space flight, Reed takes a moment to draw out a diagram on a chalkboard to explain the time warp. Sheesh, scientists…

Fade out: In addition to rescuing the princess, Sue kicks (kicks!) a gun out of a Skrull soldier’s hand during the fight.

Clobberin’ time: Once Ben gets his strength back, he benefits from some brilliant Jack Kirby action, ripping apart a giant missile and tossing a whole bunch of Skrulls into the air at once. His past as a test pilot also comes in handy in space.

Flame on: Johnny doesn’t do much in this one, but he does cause one Skrull to cry, “Flee! Nothing can withstand the fury of his flames!”

Trivia time: This is the first Skrull story that doesn’t use, or even mention, their shape-changing powers.

Fantastic or frightful? What a fun issue. The space setting brings out the best in Jack Kirby’s art, and the story is just plain fun from beginning to end. Loved it.

Next week: Ban the bomb!

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. When you have a superhero or group of superheroes who’ve had a lot of successes, it becomes a challenge to come up with new threats for them to face. Hence this issue, which attempts to have the FF meet their match once and for all.

It begins with a press conference, as Reed and Sue announce their engagement to a bunch of reporters. It’s all very lovey-dovey, but there’s some laughs to be had as the Yancy Street Gang sends a flower-bomb (!) to surprise our heroes.

Time to meet our villains. First is Paste Pot Pete, who commits crimes with his high-tech glue gun (I swear I’m not making this up). He’s joined by Spider-Man villain Sandman, who can turn into powerful waves of sand, and the Wizard, who can manipulate gravity. A flashback ties together continuity, showing how the Wizard survived his apparent death after his last appearance in Strange Tales #118. Basically, Sandman and Pete were in the midst of a jail escape when the rescued the Wizard, and the three decided to team up. The Wizard then reveals there’s a fourth member of their team, Madame Medusa. She’s an amnesiac he rescued from a plane crash on a small Mediterranean island. He power, the Wizard says, is her “unconquerable hair!”

There’s more comedy antics at headquarters as Sue has a crowd of followers fussing over her hair, dress, and engagement gifts, while Johnny prepares fireworks for the wedding. Elsewhere, the newly-formed Frightful Four meets, as the Wizard proudly proclaims he’s renaming himself the “Wingless Wizard.” (He’s been hanging out with Paste Pot Pete too long.)

At the engagement party, it’s a Marvel continuity-a-thon, as the X-Men and Avengers are all present. A gloved hand is seen swiping a piece of cake – this is supposed to be Spidey, right? Later that night, the Frightful Four lands their flying saucer (where’d they get that?) on the Baxter Building roof and they sneak inside surprisingly easy. They take out the Thing first, gluing his hands together and knocking him out with the Wizard’s “sleep spray.” Reed and Sue fight back, but Reed ends up glued to the floor, and Sue gets tied up in Medusa’s hair. Elsewhere, Alicia is hiding out inside the FF’s kitchen (wait, isn’t the middle of the night? What’s she doing there?). She gets a hold of one of FF’s flare guns and fires it into the sky.

Across the city, Johnny is working on a sweet hot rod when his buddies tell him about the flare. As he flies into action, the Wizard attaches anti-grav discs to Reed, Sue, Ben, and Alicia, so they’ll float upward into space, killing them. (Dang!) Johnny forces the Wizard into the flying saucer and threatens to burn the Wizard if he doesn’t rescue Johnny’s teammates. (Harsh, Johnny.) They’re saved, but the other three Frightful-ers pursue, having stolen the FF’s pogo plane. The two ships chase each other around, and Sandman jumps outside the plane to attack the saucer… in space. With him out of the picture, the two ships crash in a forested area.

While invisible, Sue steals Paste Pot Pete’s gun, and without it, he’s defeated. (Pete you’re pathetic.) She then uses the glue gun to incapacitate Medusa’s hair. While this is happening, the Wizard rigs his ship to explode, and he and Sandman escape in the blast. Our heroes are left to wonder if they’ll ever encounter their four counterparts again.

Unstable molecule: In space, Reed is able to stretch into a balloon-like shape around his teammates, trapping air inside himself so they can breathe. Nice trick.

Fade out: Sue uses her force fields offensively during the fight, basically creating two invisible cannonballs to knock out Pete and Sandman.

Clobberin’ time: Ben sleeps through most of the issue, but has a great line after the FF has captured the Wizard, “Step lively there, cuddles, this is the end of the line!”

Flame on: This issue is a showcase for Johnny, as he fights the entire Frightful Four on his own, and then rescues his teammates from certain death.

Trivia time: The Wizard, the Sandman, and Paste Pot Pete had previously fought the Human Torch in his solo adventures in Strange Tales, which explains why they hate the FF so much in this issue. Pete will get a cooler name the next time we see him, but it won’t help. His status as “lame joke hero” will last forever.

More notably, this is the first appearance of Medusa, who’ll go on to have all kinds of adventures in the Marvel Universe, becoming a queen of the Inhumans, and even a member of… the Fantastic Four.

Fantastic or Frightful: I love the idea of an alternate foursome to square off with our heroes, but these four goofballs just don’t cut it. The Frightful Four is often thought of as joke villains, and won’t really become an equal/alternate to the FF until their reimagined during Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo’s landmark run on the title years later.

Next week: The final frontier…

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #35 is mostly silly, but brings about a major change for our heroes.

The tale begins with the Fantasticar landing at State University, which, we quickly learn, is Reed’s alma mater. Reed is there to give a lecture and his three teammates are tagging along. There’s a funny bit where lthe hot college girls swarm around Reed, asking for his autograph, while Johnny mopes because he’s too young for the coeds. He thinks, “I guess a high school kid is like nowhere with ‘em!”

We’re treated to a two-page bit where the FF run into Professor Charles Xavier, and one of Xavier’s students, Scott Summers. Reed is in admiration of the professor, and wonders what Xavier is up to in that school of his upstate. If it wasn’t for one reference Scott makes to looking for mutants, there’s little indication to give readers any sense that this is a crossover with Uncanny X-Men. Folks who’d never read X-Men might’ve had no idea who these two were.

Johnny flips out when he sees a scary shadow, but it’s just some artist’s statue. The artist says he’s imaging a superior life form. Forebodingly, we cut from there to Transylvania, where an explosion rocks the forest. Sinister masked chemist Diablo, last seen in issue #30, steps out of the destruction. He pulls a pellet from his glove, which somehow teleports him to America, so he can seek revenge against the FF. (Where this pellet came from and how it works is conveniently never explained.)

Back at the college, we get several pages of comedy shtick. Ben and Johnny bump into Peter Parker, but this time, there’s a caption letting readers know that Peter is really Spider-Man. Why didn’t Scott and Xavier get a caption? (Also, Peter is sporting a mean widow’s peak. He looks more like Eddie Munster than Peter Parker.)

Ben heads out onto the football field to teach some kids some moves, and Sue explores while invisible. She sees Diablo’s car drive past, and her, ugh, women’s intuition tells her to follow it. Diablo tracks down the artist from earlier, saying senses power in the artist’s creation. (Note that Diablo no longer wears his supervillain tights but is instead in plain clothes, although he’s still clearly the baddie thanks to his evil facial hair.) Diablo has a potion on him which he says can bring inanimate objects to life. It works, and we finally get to see this sculpture – it’s the Dragon Man, a big, scaly, winged monster. (In the great, grand tradition of Jack Kirby’s giant monsters, Dragon Man wears tiny shorts.)

Purely by coincidence, Ben wanders into the room at that moment, to encounter Diablo and Dragon Man. Dragon Man attacks, and Ben is no match. The monster throws him all over the place before flying off. Reed, Sue and Johnny join the pursuit. Dragon Man breathes fire at Johnny, which is too much for him to absorb. Reed and Sue work together to calm the monster down, discovering it’s a misunderstood beastie, and is a simple animal at heart. While she and Dragon Man do the King Kong/Fay Wray thing, Diablo attacks with a freeze potion, which Johnny overcomes with his flames. More fighting! Diablo is a pretty good match for our heroes, with a potion for every occasion. But then it’s poetic justice time as Dragon Man chases Diablo out onto a frozen lake and they both plunge beneath the surface.

The issue’s most famous scene comes on the last page, where Reed takes Sue on a walk down “Lover’s Lane” to see the “Sweetheart Tree.” Both of these locales are right on campus, we’re told. Reed gives a speech about how any couple who hold hands within sight of the Sweetheart Tree will be married within a year. (What is this thing, the Chteah?) Reed and Sue profess their love for each other. Although no question is actually popped, we’ll soon learn that this scene means these two are now engaged.

Unstable molecule: Within seconds of seeing Dragon Man for the first time, Reed immediately deduces that Diablo is behind all this. Wha-huh?

Fade out: Sue seems to have some trouble controlling her invisibility as she strolls around campus, strangely. Her beauty and the beast act with Dragon Man is cliché, but still kind of sweet.

Clobberin’ time: Ben does nothing but complain and then get his butt kicked all issue. Reed has to save him from falling in the frigid lake at the end.

Flame on: Johnny absorbs Dragon Man’s flames, only to discover they are too hot for him. He has to fly up into space to burn off the excess heat. It’s a very rare thing for temperatures to be too hot for the torch.

Trivia time: Dragon Man shows up quite often throughout Marvel history, usually as a gentle giant manipulated by someone else to fight heroes. He’s recently graduated to a full-on FF member in the current run, as part of the so-called “Future Foundation.”

Johnny knows Peter Parker as a young photographer, because the two had met just recently in Amazing Spider-Man #21.

Fantastic or frightful: Reed and Sue are engaged now, and a famous monster is introduced, but other than that, the story is a little ho-hum. The college setting is amusing, but there are all kinds of goofy coincidences that happen only to further the plot along. Not Stan and Jack’s best.

Next week: Party crashers!

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. In issue #34, our heroes take on a new villain, but it’s a two-page throwaway joke that makes this one famous.

At the Baxter Building, a mysterious box has arrived for the Thing from the Yancy Street Gang, and there’s a lot of anticipation about what mischief might be inside of it. Our heroes open the box, and… it’s a Beatle wig. Johnny thinks this is hilarious, and he and Ben tussle for a few panels before being broken up by Reed, in this usual “the characters need an excuse to show off their powers for a few pages at the start of the issue” thing. Once everyone’s settled down, Ben tries on the wig, and declares, “I’m a livin’ doll!”

Why is this a big deal? This issue was published at the height of Beatlemania in the ‘60s, and Beatle wigs were a fad within the fad. Folks bought the wigs like crazy, while others still wondered what was up with those mop-tops. The drawing of the Thing wearing the Beatle wig is one of the most reprinted images in FF history (and why shouldn’t it be? It’s hilarious).

Getting to the story proper, we meet Gideon, the world’s wealthiest man, inside his lavish office. There’s a funny bit where one billion dollars cash are being sent back to the mint, because Gideon prefers “only new bills.” Gideon announces his desire to conquer the world simply by buying everything that can be bought. I love that this isn’t a secret plan, but instead he just goes around telling everyone. Three rival businessmen give Gideon a challenge – one week to destroy the Fantastic Four.

Back at headquarters, Gideon’s plan is already under way as Reed discovers workmen dismantling all of the FF’s vehicles. This was ordered by Ben, who was tipped off that Reed has been replaced by a shape-changing Skrull. Ben won’t listen to reason, and the two of them fight.

Meanwhile, Sue stops her suburban house… wait, where did this house come from? She doesn’t live at the Baxter Building with her teammates? Inside, she finds a message telling her that Johnny has been replaced by one of Dr. Doom’s lookalike robots. Johnny conveniently shows up, and Sue confronts him. Johnny stupidly assumes that Sue is being controlled by the Puppet Master, and they fight.

Back at Gideon’s home, he gloats at how well his plan is going. His wife shows up and he snaps at her for interrupting his business. His son Thomas is there as well. Thomas has just bought a Fantastic Four comic book, and has declared that the FF are his favorite heroes. Outside, Sue and Johnny reunite with Reed and Ben out on the New York streets, and all four of them continue to fight. Gideon gloats some more while watching this from a distance. Thomas senses something is wrong, and he rushes out into the city, in the hopes of reaching the Baxter Building and telling the FF what’s really going on.

Remember those workmen? They’re on Gideon’s payroll, and they’re busy setting up a variation of Dr. Doom’s time machine inside the Baxter Building, as a trap for our heroes. Unfortunately, that’s when little Thomas blunders into the building. (So anyone can just go walking into the Baxter Building now? Is there no security? No locks? No alarms? No “Do not enter” sign?) He gets caught in the time machine. Ben tries to save the kid, and both of them vanish, lost in time.

Johnny chases off the workmen as Gideon arrives. Gideon freaks out, thinking he’ll never see his son again, and Reed lays it on thick with the moral speechifying. It’s all for naught, as Ben and Thomas reappear, having been returned to the present thanks to the machine’s “accidental recoil.” (That’s why Gideon is no Dr. Doom. Doom’s time machine actually worked.) Gideon sees the error of his way, agreeing to devote his entire fortune to charity. There’s even a callback to the issue’s start as Ben thinks, “I wonder how that cornball would look in my Beatle wig?”

Unstable molecule: During the fight, Reed escapes by turning his legs into wheels, which are really just big loops. I have no idea how this is supposed to work.

Fade out: Sue holds her own in the fight against her teammates, and later uses her invisible force fields to deflect one of the workmen’s bullets as he shoots at Reed.

Clobberin’ time: Ben survives a fall from a great height by bouncing, parkour-style, between two skyscrapers. Looks like fun.

Flame on: Johnny manages to spot Sue while she’s invisible by looking for her footprints as she runs across her grass front lawn. Good thinking.

Trivia time: Gideon would show up a few more times, but never become a major character. His son Thomas had a much longer history with Marvel, as he will later transform into the hippy-ish rainbow-themed space hero Glorian.

Fantastic or frightful: Gideon is an uninteresting villain, and the Fantastic Four make themselves look incredibly stupid by falling so easily into his trap. The Beatle wig, though, makes up for it.

Next week: The real Monsters University.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.