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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Civil War is about to tear the Marvel Universe to pieces, but we have one quick stop to make first, in the Fantastic Four Special one-shot by Dwayne McDuffie and Casey Jones.

We begin with a flashback to Reed and Dr. Doom in college, and how they were rival scientists from the start. Young Reed tries to talk young Doom out of his otherworldly experiments, but Doom refuses to listen. His experiment blows up, horribly scarring his face. Reed wonders if he’s the one to blame.

Cut to the present, and Reed is telling all this to Sue while she adjusts his bowtie for a tuxedo he’s wearing. He’s preparing for dinner with Dr. Doom (!), and he admits to Sue that his guilt isn’t about Doom’s accident, but a small thrill he got from knowing he was right and Doom was wrong. Sue urges Reed not to accept Doom’s dinner invitation, but Reed says, “We’re all responsible for what happens to everybody.”

Reed flies the Fantasticar to the Latverian Embassy, musing about how Dr. Doom is the most dangerous man on Earth. Doom greets him at the door and says Reed’s safety is guaranteed for this day. Today is the “Rapprochement Festival,” a holiday of Doom’s invention in honor of his mother’s memory. Part of this new tradition, Doom says, is to reach out to someone you have wronged, so Doom is reaching out to Reed. They shake hands. Doom again assured Reed that no harm will come to him this day, and they toast to rapprochement.

Doom gives Reed a tour of the embassy. Reed deduces that one doorway they go through is a teleporter, and they’re now in Castle Doom in Latveria. Before Doom can answer, we cut to Stark Tower, current home of the Avengers, where Johnny is visiting Spider-Man and Captain America. After some banter about Spidey being an Avenger now, Johnny admits that Reed thinks Doom is plotting to steal something, and there are very few places in NYC that Doom can’t access. One is Stark Tower. We then cut to the second spot, Damage Control headquarters, where Sue warns them that their high-security basement vault is another target.

Back in the castle, Doom says that a Latverian holiday should be celebrated in Latveria. He and Reed then continue an unfinished chess game they once started in college. They’re both such geniuses that they remember the layout of the board from years earlier.

At Stark Tower, the Avengers get an emergency call. Spidey and Cap run off, leaving Johnny to hold down the fort. Johnny makes a phone call and says, “It’s just about showtime.” At the castle, Reed asks why Doom doesn’t use his genius for the benefit of mankind, and Doom says he and Reed have differing opinions as to what that is.

At the new Baxter Building, Ben spots Dr. Doom trying to get into the building. Sue has a Doom of her own attacking Damage Control, while Johnny fights one at Stark Tower. Reed gets an alert about what’s happening, and he quips that Doom knows it doo. They continue their polite evening and sit down to dinner. In New York, the fighting continues, with the other FF-ers deducing that their Dr. Dooms are mere Doombots.

Reed and Doom continue their dinner. Reed admits that after Doom’s failed experiment in college, Reed saved a piece of Doom’s machine that was considered irreplaceable. He also says that Dr. Strange warned him that the anniversary of Doom’s mother’s death is magically significant. Reed gets a signal on his watch saying the Doombots have been destroyed. Reed then finishes – and wins! – the chess game. Reed asks if he and Doom are to fight to the death now. Doom says he’s lost his appetite and asks to continue this another time.

But Reed isn’t done. He admits that he kept the piece of Doom’s machine because he was afraid. Doom was opening a portal to Hell, and Reed feared this meant unleashing extradimensional powers on the Earth. Then Reed says he later deduced the piece’s real intent, that it was a lodestone whose only purpose is to locate Doom’s mother’s sole. Reed pulls the lodestone from his pocket and returns it to Doom, agreeing that this is a day of rapprochement. Doom accepts the gift, but he says, “This changes nothing between us, Richards!” Reed says, “I think it does, just a little bit,” followed by, “Same time next year?”

Unstable molecule: Among all the politeness between Reed and Doom, Reed also praises Doom’s taste in art and classical music. This shows yet another aspect of Reed’s genius, that he knows all about this stuff.

Fade out: Sue deduces that her Doom is a Doombot and not the real thing after she tries to disorient it by turning the floor underneath it invisible.

Clobberin’ time: Ben is working out when the Doombot attacks. He says his weights are made of super-heavy osmium, and that his strength isn’t all genetic, but that he must work out to keep his strength up.

Flame on: Spider-Man asks Johnny whatever became of Dorrie Evans, and Johnny doesn’t answer. Those who read Marvels Snapshot: Fantastic Four know all about Dorrie.

Trivia time: Spider-Man’s wearing his classic uniform in this, instead of his new red and yellow Iron Spider armor. He was going back and forth between the two at this time.

It’s not mentioned in this issue, but remember that Dr. Doom succeeded in freeing his mother’s soul from Hell in Doctor Strange and Dr. Doom: Triumph and Torment.

How did the lodestone survive after all these years, including the destruction of the original Baxter Building. Remember that the Watcher saved a bunch of the FF’s personal items from the explosion, so we can conclude that the lodestone was one of them.

Fantastic or frightful? Dwayne McDuffie was one of the all-time great writers, and this is a nice little self-contained story. Its placement in chronology is curious, as the rest of Marvel Comics were overflowing with hype over Civil War at the time. Still, it’s a nice slice-of-life tale, or as slice-of-life as Fantastic Four gets.

Next: Not so civil.

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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #537 brings us one step closer to Marvel’s Civil War mega-event.

Recap: Thor died heroically in the big Ragnarok story that ended his comic. Now, his hammer has come crashing down to Earth (Oklahoma, to be exact). The Army set up a dome around the hammer, only for a small army of Doombots to attack it. The Fantastic Four arrived on scene to battle the Doombots, only to find a back-from-the-dead Dr. Doom also at the scene.

This issue begins with a caption telling us that no one has tried to lift the hammer yet. Then Reed speaks on behalf of the audience, asking how Doom is still alive. We flash back to Doom in Hell, where we last saw him. We see him weakened, yet still strong enough to fight off all the demons intent on tearing him apart. Then he has a vision of Ragnarok and the Asgardians dying. The battle is so great, Doom says, that rends the fabric of reality itself, causing a tear in Hell’s dimensional plane. He sees the hammer fly through the tear and he follows it back to Earth.

The flashback continues in Latveria, where the acting prime minister of the provisional government speculates that Doom will never return, and that he could make good use of all the leftover Doombots. Doom then returns, strangling the prime minister. He orders the other government goons to find where Thor’s hammer landed.

Cut back to the present. Instead of telling all this to Reed, Doom merely says, “It matters not.” He has the Doombots attack the FF while he strides toward the hammer, which is at the center of the crater left behind from last issue’s big explosion. Reed picks up Ben and throws him into the crater with orders to stop. Ben fights Doom, temporarily switching his catch phrase to, “It’s hammer time!”

Doom stops Ben by blinding him with a bright light. Doom reaches for the hammer, and an even more spectacular white light fills the entire sky. When it fades, we see that Doom has failed to lift the hammer. Doom says he felt the power of Asgard when he witnessed Ragnarok, and he thought that would be enough to give him control of the hammer. “I was wrong,” he says.

Doom summons a jet and flies off, telling the FF to let the hammer serve as Thor’s gravestone. Once he’s gone, Reed speculates that if Doom did have a piece of Asgard’s power in him, maybe that somehow woke up the hammer for a minute. He further speculates that the giant blast might have been a signal to someone, but he can’t say who. Then Ben tries and fails to lift the hammer. “Wouldn’t you give it a shot?” he says. “Just in case?”

Then we go to elsewhere in Oklahoma, where the hammer’s blast has knocked out the power. A man buys a ticket at a bus station. A news report says this was one of many incidents throughout the state, concluding that, “Something major is coming to Oklahoma.”

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed throwing Ben through the air seems to be a variation of all the times he’s stretched into a slingshot to do it. He wraps himself around Ben and then flings Ben a huge distance.

Fade out: Sue’s job is to keep the Doombots at bay while Ben and Reed deal with Dr. Doom. We never see what becomes of the Doombots, so I guess she succeeded.

Clobberin’ time: This isn’t the first time an enemy has slowed Ben down by blinding him. In The Thing #17 he spent an entire issue sightless after getting blasted in the eyes by a villain called the Reckoner. But this took place on Battleworld, meaning the Reckoner was therefore only one part of Ben’s fractured subconscious.

Flame on: Johnny says he’s too weak to pursue Doom’s jet because the blast from the hammer was so powerful it weakened his flame.

Trivia time: This issue and #536 were featured in a Road to Civil War trade paperback. The trade also featured the New Avengers: Illuminati one-shot in which the Illuminati launch the Hulk into space and then disband (or do they?) after debating superhero registration. The other issues in the trade are Amazing Spider-Man #529-530, in which Tony Stark hired Peter Parker as his assistant full-time, which Peter half-jokingly calls “a blood pact.” This was the first appearance of the red and gold Iron Spider armor, and Tony and Peter’s visit to Washington DC to argue in favor of superhero registration.

Yes, the man buying the bus ticket will turn out to be someone important. We’ll follow his story in issues to come, just as we’ll continue to follow the situation in Oklahoma.

Dr. Doom is back in his classic armor in this issue. What happened to his newfangled magic armor, that was grossly made from the remains of lost love Valeria? He states that it’s damaged, but he does show up in Latveria still wearing it. Therefore, he likely still has it in a closet somewhere.

Not long before this issue, Castle Doom was destroyed in the 2005 Secret Wars miniseries. The Marvel Wiki confirms that the one in this issue is a newly rebuilt Castle Doom.

Fantastic or frightful? This issue does a better job of justifying Doom’s return than the previous one. But really, both Dr. Doom and Thor’s hammer in this storyline are all about setting things up for the near future. I suppose that’s what the “Road to Civil War” branding was about, but it feels anticlimactic for Doom to fail to lift the hammer and then just leave.

Next: Just another family get together.

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Want more? Check out my new ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three chapters are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. It had to happen eventually – we’ve reached Civil War, the mega-event that tore the Marvel Universe apart. Although issue #536 is merely labeled “The Road to Civil War,” it’s here all right.

We begin in space, with a tiny object flying toward Earth. Even though it doesn’t burn up in the atmosphere, astronomers assume it’s too small to do any damage. The object passes by an airplane, and then lands with a massive explosion in a field in Oklahoma.

Cut to six months later. It’s the middle of the night at the new Baxter Building. Reed is staying up late watching the news. Sue asks him “How did it go?” and Reed is hesitant to answer. Then there’s a flashback to Reed meeting with the Illuminati, the top-secret group of influential super-geniuses hoping to make a real difference beyond just fighting crime. In this issue, the group is Iron Man, Reed, Dr. Strange, Namor, and Black Bolt. Iron Man shows the group an early draft of a bill about to hit Congress – the Superhero Registration Act.

Iron Man explains the bill. Anyone with superpowers, any mutant, and anyone deemed a masked crimefighter must register with the government, after which they’ll be given jobs putting their powers to use for S.H.I.E.L.D. Further, the government has special plans to hunt down and detain anyone not registered. Dr. Strange says, “That’s disgusting,” but Iron Man says the Illuminati members should come out in favor of the bill. “We should cooperate now, before it gets ugly,” he says.

Back in the present, Reed and Sue watch the news, where Tony Stark and his new assistant Peter Parker arrive in Washington DC. Tony tells reporters that he’s only there discuss options with the committee on superhero registration. Sue doubts whether superhero registration will actually happen, speculating that it’s just election-year posturing. Reed responds, “It’s not that simple.”

Reed then gets an emergency message from General William Ray, saying there is an emergency in Oklahoma. While Reed rousts his teammates out of bed, soldiers in Oklahoma are under attack. They’ve set up a dome around the object from the start of the issue, and now someone has opened fire to get at it. Turns out the attackers are Doombots!

The FF arrive on the scene, speculating whether the Latverian provisional government is behind the attack. Reed says that if they’re using Doombots, they must be desperate to get whatever’s in the dome. The FF jump into action, and artist Mike McKone gives us this terrific two-page spread of Ben duking it out with a Doombot.

There’s several pages of fighting and banter, as all the Doombots act just like they’re the real Dr. Doom, and the FF not having it. Reed notices that the Doombots are only attacking the perimeter of the dome, spreading the soldiers out around its edge. The soldiers tell Reed that the first wave of the attack knocked out all their radar and imaging. Reed deduces almost too late that a missile has been launched at the dome.

The FF evacuate all the soldiers while Sue does her best to contain the missile’s blast. It leaves a crater in the space where the dome just was. Then the real Dr. Doom emerges, somehow back to life again. He says the object in the crater cannot be moved, and yet it is destined to belong to him. Turn the page and the mysterious object is… the hammer of Thor!

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Why does the Reed/Sue conversation have to take place at 4 a.m.? He’s wearing his lab coat, suggesting that he was working late in the lab, but then he’s quick to admit to Sue that he was at an Illuminati meeting.

Fade out: Sue makes a joke about Reed going “bowling with the boys.” I assume this is her code word for Reed’s Illuminati gathering.

Clobberin’ time: We get a glimpse of Ben’s bedroom in the new Baxter Building, which is sparsely decorated except for some books scattered around. What happened to his ritzy new apartment from the recent Thing miniseries?

Flame on: Ben shouts “Flame off!” at Johnny during the fight, so Johnny won’t burn out his flame. Johnny scoffs at him, saying it won’t work.

Fantastic fifth wheel: This issue’s letters page has results of a reader poll asking for favorite FF alternate member. We don’t see the numbers, but the editor states She-Hulk is the winner, with Crystal and Luke Cage as the runners-up.

Trivia time: Dr. Doom hasn’t been seen since issue #507, when he dragged into Hell itself.

Where’s Thor at? He’s dead, as far as anyone knows in the Marvel Universe at this time. In Thor #85, we had the epic Ragnarok storyline, also part of Avengers: Disassembled, which saw the downfall of both Asgard and Yggrasil. This kicked off several years when there was no Thor in Marvel Comics (but if you know what’s coming in Civil War, you know there’s a bit of a loophole to that).

What’s the deal with the writing on Thor’s hammer? That’s been there ever since his first appearance, but seen since then only on rare occasions. The official explanation is that the writing is always there, but hard to see unless you look closely.  

According to the Marvel Wiki, the Illuminati has been operating since just after the first Kree-Skrull War, which was in the 70s in our time. In addition to a lot of Kree/Skrull action, the Illuminati were secretly involved in Infinity Gauntlet with Thanos and his gems, and they revealed the real origin of the Beyonder. And yes, they were the ones who really launched the Hulk into space. They’ll continue to be major players in upcoming crossovers Planet Hulk, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign and beyond.

Fantastic or frightful? After everything that went down in the Latveria incident, it’s a letdown for Dr. Doom not just be alive again, but to have him walking up to Reed in the middle of Oklahoma and them having a polite conversation. Fortunately, the big fight was filled with great classic FF-isms. The issue promises big things to come, even without the editorially mandated Civil War tie-in stuff.

Next: Hammer don’t hurt ‘em.

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Want more? Check out my new ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three chapters are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.

Fantastic Friday! Issue #535 concludes another Thing versus Hulk fight, ending in properly explosive fashion.

The issue begins with Ben once again trying to appeal to the Hulk’s better nature, reminding him that he’s really Bruce Banner. Hulk has flashbacks of people in his past – including Banner himself – calling him a monster. Hulk punches Ben through the air, and Ben admits to Johnny that Hulk has the “I’m a monster” look in his eyes. He says they must settle this monster-to-monster.

There’s a comedy bit inside a nearby casino as people place bets on the fight. Ben and the Hulk continue to exchange blows while Johnny is distracted by a giant screen showing a news report about the New York Welfare Office taking Franklin and Valeria away from Reed and Sue and putting them into foster care.

Ben tries again to reason with the Hulk, saying Hulk probably thought he would die when the gamma bomb went off. The Hulk then has a vision of the green Hulk asking him what it was all for, and maybe it’s time to go. “Perhaps you are doomed to be this monster for all time,” the green Hulk says. “Doomed to be me.” The Hulk yells “No!” and pummels Ben so hard that Ben fears he’s broken some ribs.

Johnny sees Ben is injured, and he flies down to help. Despite Ben’s protestations, Johnny unleashes his all-powerful nova flame against the Hulk. The Hulk once again flashes back to his origin, and Bruce Banner getting blasted by the original gamma bomb. The Hulk then emerges from the smoke and wreckage, telling Johnny and Ben, “I’m all right now.”

Cut to New York, where Reed and Sue meet with social worker Simone DeBouvier. She assures them that little Franklin and Valeria are safe and that their location is a closely-guarded secret. We see the outside of this safe house then bombed by a blast from above. DeBouvier gets a phone call about this, and tells Reed and Sue, “You made the right decision.” Then we see Franklin and Valeria weren’t at the safe house, but right there at the Baxter Building.

Reed explains to DeBouvier that the entire world is a dangerous place for their children, because of the FF’s celebrity status. Sue further explains that the FF’s enemies might know where the children are, but enemies also know where the FF are as well. DeBouvier leaves, saying she gives Reed and Sue her blessing.

Back in Las Vegas, the Hulk has his intelligence back. Ben’s wounds are bandaged, and they have a heart-to-heart chat on a casino roof. Hulk asks Ben if Ben’s life flashed before his eyes before Johnny came to the rescue. Ben says he doesn’t want to talk about it. A S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter picks up the Hulk. Ben and Johnny decide to hit the slots for a bit, joking about how nothing can stop the Hulk short of launching him into space.

Unstable molecule: Who, exactly, are these unseen enemies of the Fantastic Four who thought they were bombing Reed and Sue’s kids? Why aren’t the FF rallying to track down these enemies and retaliate? A lot of the fan sites and blogs argue that Reed set up the explosion to fake out DuBouvier and the welfare people, but I don’t see anything in this issue to support that.

Fade out: Reed gets romantic with Sue, telling her that whenever he looks up at the stars, he sees her. She reminds him that he’s a scientist, not a poet.

Clobberin’ time: This issue’s letters page has results of a reader poll asking for favorite FF character, and we’re told Ben won by a huge margin.

Flame on: We learn that Johnny’s nova flame isn’t powerful enough to hurt the Hulk, but it’s powerful enough to knock some sense into a hallucinating Hulk. Our old friend The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition says the exact heat of the nova flame in unknowable, but the Marvel Wiki disagrees, saying it’s a concentrated burst of 1 million degrees Fahrenheit. Why didn’t the nova flame destroy Vegas like it did Empire University during the Tom Defalco issues? Because Johnny has since developed the ability to do a focused nova flame on smaller area.

Four and a half/Our gal Val: There’s a little trick when the comic makes you think Franklin and Valeria are at the safe house before it explodes. Only after do we see that there were in the Baxter Building the whole time.

SUE-per spy: The 2019 Invisible Woman miniseries revealed that Sue had a double life as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent all along. If the safe house bombing was fake, then could Sue’s spy contacts have pulled off the hoax? I find this theory unlikely for the same reason as it’s unlikely for Reed.

Commercial break: This issue was sold with a two-sided Neopets: The Darkest Faerie foldout poster stapled inside, to advertise a PS2 game. Marvel showed amazing restraint not promoting this on the cover.

Trivia time: The joke about sending the Hulk to space is no joke, as that’s what was happening at this time in Hulk comics. In the “Peace in Our Time” storyline, also known as the “Prelude to Planet Hulk” storyline, Nick Fury launched the Hulk into space to fight an evil A.I. called the Godseye. After the fight, Fury sent the Hulk farther into space where he’d never harm anyone on Earth again. But that’s only one part of the story, because Illuminati #1 reveals a lot more about secret plans to get rid of the Hulk. Further, the Las Vegas incident in these very Fantastic Four issues are cited by the Illuminati as part of the reason. It must have been tough to be a Hulk fan during this time, with so much of his continuity happening in other comics.

While Marvel characters have visited Las Vegas plenty of times over the years, this issue is the first time the MGM Grand has been drawn into a Marvel comic.

Fantastic or frightful? The main story feels like a Hulk story guest-starring the Fantastic Four, and it ends up foreshadowing the upcoming Planet Hulk epic. The Reed and Sue subplot is a little baffling. But it’s also consistent with J. Michael Straczynski’s writing, as his hero characters often pull off huge stunts to prove their points.

Next: Prelude preys lewd.

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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. It’s another Thing versus Hulk slugfest in issue #534, along with a journey through the Hulk’s past.

Recap: The Hulk, with Bruce Banner’s intelligence, went out to the desert with S.H.I.E.L.D. to diffuse a gamma bomb. Things went south and the bomb exploded, reverting Hulk from a brainy professor type to the classic brutish grey-skinned Hulk. Johnny and Ben flew out to Nevada to investigate, running right into this new/old Hulk.

Ben tries to talk sense into the Hulk, saying he only wants to help get the Hulk’s brain straightened back out. The Hulk only roars at him, and then… fighting! The brawl goes on for several pages, with Johnny joining the action as well. When Ben mentions the gamma bomb, Hulk gets confused. He has a flashback to his origin, when Bruce Banner got exposed to a gamma bomb while saving teenage Rick Jones.

The Hulk gets confused and wanders off in a daze. Johnny contacts their Fantasticar by remote control while Ben prepares a sonic gizmo Reed gave him before they left. Hulk flashes back to the death of his love Jarella. Johnny and Ben reveal that the Fantasticar is armed with a psychic disruptor, designed to attack the Hulk’s inner ear. This just makes the Hulk angrier (because of course it does). Hulk destroys the Fantasticar and jumps off toward Las Vegas.

The Hulk smashes into a hospital. Seeing a patient in bed reminds him of the death of his friend Jim. Johnny and Ben find Hulk and fight him again, with the battle spilling onto the street outside. Ben tells Johnny to let up, saying the Hulk isn’t fighting them, but instead is only fighting the things he’s seeing in his head. He admits he feels the same way. He says whenever the FF go to space, he gets flashbacks to becoming a monster. “Monsters understand monsters, Johnny,” he says.

Ben confronts the Hulk again, saying he knows the Hulk doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. He offers to help Hulk deal with the gamma radiation. Upon hearing that, Hulk has another flashback, this time about Bruce Banner being told his wife Betty has gamma radiation poisoning. In his mind’s eye, Hulk sees Ben as the Abomination and blames him for Betty’s death. Hulk punches Ben through a building and then looms over him, saying “I swear I’ll kill you!”

To be continued!

Clobberin’ time: At the hospital, Ben takes a moment to offer comfort to a blind man. But, upon touching Ben’s hand, the man reacts in fear. This is what prompts Ben to show sympathy toward the Hulk.

Flame on: Johnny questions why Reed would have built an anti-Hulk weapon into the Fantasticar, only for this question to go unanswered.

Four and a half: This issue comes with a six-page preview of Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius by Chris Eliopoulos and Marc Sumerak. It’s a parody of Calvin and Hobbes, with Franklin as Calvin and H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot as Hobbes. (Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.) Franklin discovers a bunch of Doombots in storage inside Reed’s lab, and he uses a bunch of silly gadgets to dispose of them. I assumed these Franklin Richards comics were non-canonical, but the Marvel Wiki says they are.

Trivia time: About these flashbacks. The Hulk’s wife Betty, who had been his girlfriend since the early days, died of gamma poisoning. While Hulk was initially told that it was due to long-term exposure to him, it was really gamma poisoning caused by the Abomination. She’ll eventually come back to life thanks to cosmic being Nightmare and the machinations of her father, General Ross. She then turned into the Red She-Hulk. (Poor Betty has had to put up with a lot over the years.)

Then there’s Jarella. She’s a green-skinned warrior woman from the Microverse world of K’ai, who was able to love both Hulk and Bruce Banner. She died while saving a child from a collapsing building, only to come back to life much later during the Chaos War crossover.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows the Hulk’s origin by now, but just in case: Bruce Banner was exposed to the gamma bomb while saving teenage Rick Jones. Banner became the Hulk, and Jones improbably became one of Marvel’s most influential characters for a while. He was sidekick to the Hulk, Captain America, and all the Avengers. He later went full-on cosmic by being Captain Marvel for a while.

Speaking of sidekicks, this issue’s other flashback is about Hulk’s friend Jim Wilson. He helped the Hulk once and thus became one of Banner’s closest pals. He died of AIDS in the groundbreaking Incredible Hulk #420.

Fantastic or frightful? We all love a Hulk/Thing fight, but this one’s different in that the Thing isn’t so much fighting but trying to show compassion for the Hulk. Not a lot happens in this issue, but the action and the little character moments make up for it.

Next: Banner man.

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Want more? Check out my new ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three chapters are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.