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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #281 brings the intensity in a big way.

Let’s see if I can recap this: Two villains are inciting hate-fueled riots throughout New York, which is especially bad timing for our heroes, who recently survived the destruction of their home headquarters. What’s more, the villains have taken over Sue’s mind, turning her into the supervillain Malice, and having her defeat She-Hulk. Whew. As the issue begins, the two villains look over the city, which is in flames. The question is, just who are these villains. The shape-changer who previously called himself Unger now calls himself the Hate-Monger, but he’s not the original Hate-Monger who, you might remember, was Hitler. The other villain is clearly Psycho-Man, criminal mastermind from the microverse, except that the comic is still refusing to actually tell us he’s Psycho-Man. Unger says all human prejudices are at their extreme, and he makes a comment about creating a new microcosm, which seems to suggest that these two have a bigger plan beyond just causing riots. Psycho-Man negates that, though, by saying his end game is revenge against the FF.

Turn the page and there’s Daredevil, parkour-ing around the city doing crowd control. He saves an old woman from getting beaten up by thugs, only for the woman to attack him instead of thanking him. Knowing this is more than a riot, Daredevil decides to check in with Avengers Mansion. At the mansion, where the FF are temporarily living, Johnny can’t reach Alicia on the phone, while Reed reinstates that the paper on the “Hate” pamphlets is of alien origin. Jarvis the butler steps in and says the situation in NYC is worsening. Johnny heads out over the city, drawing the flame from all the fires into himself. He spots Alicia (who, let’s not forget, is really Lyja the Skrull in disguise) and goes to her. She was with Sue when a man who appeared to be Reed approached them. Alicia felt a wave of pure hatred so powerful that she blacked out. Johnny flies her back to the mansion, and we see She-Hulk down on the street, recovering from last issue’s fight.

At the roof of Avengers Mansion, Reed has already invented a device that will counter-attack the “hypno-poison” affecting all of New York. Before he can turn it on, Malice (really Sue) attacks, and we get several pages of her fighting Reed and then Johnny. She’s able to fight them easily, with them not realizing she’s using invisible force fields.

Daredevil joins them, asking why they’re fighting an amorphous blob. This is because his radar sense only picks up a large round shape instead of a woman. Reed figures out that DD is “seeing” a force field around Malice, and he figures out it’s Sue. She unmasks, and gives a big speech about how Reed doesn’t respect her.

Rather than keep fighting, Reed decides to play along, pretending to disrespect and ignore Sue. He even slaps her, in a panel that has upset a lot of readers over the years. Her hatred goes to extreme levels, and then she breaks down crying, apparently cured. Sue has no memory at first, but then recovers and recalls just who did this to her. She swears revenge. The story is then concluded in the pages of Secret Wars II #2, in which the rioters disperse, Psycho-Man narrowly escapes, Unger is killed by the vigilante Scourge, and a furious Sue still swears revenge.

Unstable molecule: Reed says his curing Sue by tricking her is merely a guess. That’s one heck of a guess, Mr. Scientist!

Fade out: Sue’s powers are truly invisible in this issue. There are no “see-through” lines to let us know she’s using her power. Instead we only see the results of her using the power.

Flame on: Johnny makes a big deal about being able to control flame he doesn’t generate himself, as he stops the fires in New York.

Fantastic fifth wheel: She-Hulk only appears in two panels, just we know she’s not dead, I guess.

The Alicia problem: Johnny speculates that the shape-changing Unger might be a Skrull, and Lyja calls the Skrulls “those evil aliens.” Clearly, she’s afraid her former masters will learn she’s switched sides.

Commercial break: Cheese stickers!

Trivia time: The letters page contains a letter from the one and only Stan Lee, who praises issue #273, saying “the mag just keeps getting better and better” and “you keep doing our little foursome proud.”

Fantastic or frightful? After spending 280 issues with these characters, it’s near-painful to see Sue in such a dark place. This arc hasn’t concluded yet, but I believe this is her hitting rock bottom. Beyond that, though, the artwork is stellar and the emotional stakes are powerful, making it a great issue.

Next week: When is a crossover not a crossover?

****

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

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. As issue #280 begins, our heroes have been brought to their lowest, with their home destroyed and anger running rampant in the streets. What more could go wrong?

We begin with the FF at the site of the former Baxter Building, recapping to police the events of the previous issue. The child Kristoff, posing as Dr. Doom, launched the building into space and blew it up. Reed says to a storeowner that all the other businesses in the building will compensated for their losses. While Reed explains this, a fight breaks out among police, and they attack She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot, who is also at the scene. She-Hulk starts to fight back, but Reed stops her, saying not to resist arrest, and that he suspects something is going on.

This is only the beginning, as an angry mob surrounds the FF, throwing bricks at them. Sue holds them back with a force field, while Reed says they shouldn’t use their powers against ordinary humans. We then see the shape-changer Unger and his mysterious master, watching this from a distance. After Johnny flies Reed to Avengers Mansion, Unger transforms himself to look just like Reed. (The comic doesn’t tell us this yet, but I’ll spoil it: Unger’s master is Psycho-Man, the FF’s enemy from the Microverse. You can kind of tell, so I don’t know why they’re not just saying it.)

Avengers Mansion is also surrounded by angry protestors. We learn this is where the FF have been staying, and Jarvis the butler produces one of the pamphlets Unger has been passing out around the city, encouraging hatred of all kinds. Reed says he’ll investigate the pamphlet in the lab.

Out in New York, the police van carrying She-Hulk and Wyatt is struck by unseen powerful force, freeing them. She-Hulk suspects it was a bomb, as the streets have gone full-on riot, with looting, fires, and graffiti everywhere. She then gets attacked by a woman wearing a kinky black outfit, complete with a black leather mask covered with metal spikes. The woman introduces herself as Malice, the mistress of hate.

She-Hulk tries to fight Malice, only for Malice to throw her around with some sort of telekinesis. She-Hulk keeps fighting back, only for Malice to cut off her oxygen. Reed appears, only it isn’t Reed but Unger in disguise. Malice thanks him for setting her free and teaching her the ways of hate. Malice then takes off her mask and… she’s really been Sue this whole time!

At the science lab in Avengers Mansion, Reed has deduced that the pamphlet is of alien origin. Franklin appears (he’s staying there, too), having just woken up from a prophetic dream. He’s terrified, because in his dream he saw Sue murder Reed.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed says that although the other businesses in the Baxter Building don’t have insurance, he’ll have no trouble compensating them for their losses. It’s probably best not to over-think how the economics of Fantastic Four Inc. work.

Fade out: Look closely, and you can see some rubble collected around She-Hulk’s neck when Malice cuts off her oxygen, revealing that it’s Sue using her force fields.

Flame on: Johnny is the comic relief in this issue, making a joke every time he speaks.

Fantastic fifth wheel: If Reed hadn’t stopped She-Hulk, would she have gone ahead and beaten up those cops? I’m thinking she might have.

Four and a half: The same month as this issue, Franklin officially became a member of Power Pack, using his new dream-based powers to help the super-kids fight evil. He got a red costume and the hugely unfortunate code name, Tattletale.

The Alicia problem: Sue turns herself and Alicia, who is of course Lyja the Skrull in disguise, invisible to sneak through the angry mob. Can we extrapolate that Lyja is already good at this sort of thing, being an expert shape-shifter already?

Commercial break: From skinny to terrific:

Trivia time: Parts of both this issue and the next cross over with Secret Wars II #2, where we see just how Unger was able to transform Sue into Malice so quickly. He just touched her and mentally transferred all of his own hate into her. That issue also recreates the scene of She-Hulk and Wyatt getting arrested, and Reed studying the pamphlet in the lab.

Fantastic or frightful? All the racism stuff from the last few issues are downplayed in favor of a city in crisis and superhero fightin’ in this one, which is a relief. Still, after so much tragedy heaped on Sue, now we see her turn evil. This arc is where the series is at its darkest. It’s powerful stuff, but it’s up to you decide for yourself how dark is too dark.

Next week: Malice in not-so-wonderland.

****

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 #279 finds us during a run of issues in which things get all dark and dreary. It begins with our heroes in a bad place, and everything just gets worse.

To recap: Dr. Doom is still dead (as far as anyone knows) but his Doombots have secretly been running things in his absence. They hooked up Doom’s ward Kristoff to a machine that gave him Doom’s memories. Kristoff/Doom then successfully launched the entire Baxter Building into space and blew it the heck up. The FF, along with Franklin and Wyatt Wingfoot, appear to be dead. Once Doom’s probe flies away, they come to, with breathable air inside one of Sue’s invisible force fields. Then there’s a lot of business about how to get safety back to Earth. Reed stretches into an aerodynamic shape for Sue’s force field to match. She lets out a little bit of air to propel it toward Earth, and Johnny absorbs the heat built up in re-entry. Reed manages to propel them straight to Latveria, where they land right outside Castle Doom.

Johnny flies off to let out the excess heat he’s built up, and the rest of the team crashes right through the castle. They’re attacked by Doom’s security bots — the purple robots, different from the Doombots. We get several pages of the FF fighting the robots, smashing them up real good.

Deeper within the castle, Kristoff refuses to believe the FF are alive, even after the Doombots insist they’re under attack. The Doombots fret over what to do, because they are not programmed to interfere with their master. The FF burst into the room and destroy the Doombots, with Reed deducing that they were the ones behind the attack. She-Hulk rips open Dr. Doom’s armor and is shocked to discover Kristoff, a little kid, inside it.

Reed then deduces that Dr. Doom’s memories have been uploaded into Kristoff’s brain as a contingency plan in case of Doom’s death, so he can live on through the kid. Only Kristoff has no idea he’s Kristoff. He keeps insisting he’s the one and only Dr. Doom. Reed starts to say he’ll take Kristoff to his lab, but then it hits him that they’ve just lost their home. All their possessions, all those memories, all gone. He asks, “What more could possibly go wrong?” Oh, Reed, you shouldn’t have said that.

Cut to New York, at a white power rally, where a blond man is inciting a crowd to racial violence. (The “n-word” gets used again.) In private, the man, whose name is Unger, speaks to his master, a person hidden in shadow. Unger transforms from a white man into a black woman, and states his plan to further spread the message of hate, this time at a meeting of the Black Women’s Defense League. Unger says he/she is planting seeds of destruction that will grow, and grow, and grow.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed’s arm is still in a cast in this issue, seen prominently on the cover, after the fight with Mephisto in the previous arc.

Fade out: Kristoff didn’t take Sue’s force field powers into account due to a flaw in Doom’s programming.

Flame on: We’re told that Johnny can only absorb so much heat before he has to release it. This is in addition to being able to generate flame on his own.

Fantastic fifth wheel: There’s a big deal made of She-Hulk’s gloves getting ripped up. This is because the unstable molecules are not indestructible, but merely adaptable to the FF’s powers.

Four and a half: Franklin seems just fine with being stranded in space, probably because he trusts his folks to save the day. During the fight in Latveria, Wyatt is tasked with protecting Franklin and getting him out of the castle.

Commercial break: Supreme Leader Snoke is really a Nagai! Everything makes perfect sense now!

Trivia time: The destruction of the Baxter Building will have a lasting effect for quite some time, and the FF will go through a few alternate headquarters in the years to come. But, just as all dead comic book characters eventually come back to life, so do dead buildings.

The Marvel Wiki informs me that Kristoff’s last name is Vernard.

Fantastic or frightful? The action and fighting are fun, but the one-two punch of the FF losing their home and the racism subplot/cliffhanger make this one a dark, downer of a read — and it’s still a long way from dawn.

Next week: Takin’ it to the streets.

****

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

Re-reading the original Fantastic Four comics from the start. Comics of the 1980s were often accused of getting too dark, and, hoo boy, do things get dark in issue #278.

The issue begins with Dr. Doom saying, “The time has come!” But didn’t he die? Twice? Doom is saying this to his young adoptee Kristoff, who is in school, which is just him and a tutor. Doom says this is an important day in Kristoff’s life. Doom says this is a dark and ominous day for all of Latveria, and Kristoff must be prepared. They enter a room with a lot of other Dooms, and Kristoff figures out that they’re all Doombots. They inform him that the real Dr. Doom is dead, and the Doombots have been running the country in his place. They tell Kristoff that it is time for him to take their place as the heir of Dr. Doom and ruler of all Latveria.

The Doombots hook Kristoff up to a device called a “Remembrancer,” which causes him to relive Doom’s memories. (It’s an Animus! Is Doom a Templar or an assassin?) The next several pages are a retelling of Dr. Doom’s origin, but with many differences from the one we read in Fantastic Four annual #2. Young Doom loses his parents, romances the lovely Valeria, and learns his mother was once a witch. He studies dark magic and science in equal measure. In college in America, he doesn’t take Reed Richard’s advice before doing an experiment and the experiment blows up in his face. The big change here is that Doom’s facial scars are not as bad as we’d previously been told:

We then get a longer retelling of how Doom met the monks in the mountains and built his suit of armor. Then a shortened version of his first battles against the Fantastic Four. The flashback cuts short, with Kristoff now inside an “exo-suit.” He talks just like Dr. Doom, and no longer like a little kid, saying that he’s figured out how to succeed where Doom once failed in destroying the FF.

In New York, Johnny and Alicia (who is, of course, secretly Lyja the Skrull in disguise) are out for a night on the town, discussing how Ben is back on Earth, but off on his own and no longer a member of the FF. Then they come across a bunch of posters with racial slurs on them. (The “n-word” is prominently featured in this, a Marvel comic book.) Furious, Johnny finds the perpetrator, who is a teenage kid. He lets the kid go, but burns all the posters. A strange figure in body armor watches this from a distance.

At the Baxter Building, Reed is putting Franklin to bed, pondering how Franklin is recovering nicely from his fight with Mephisto last issue. Reed says the powers Franklin used in Mephisto’s realm are not the new mutant powers he’s currently manifesting, which are in the forms of prophetic dreams. He and Sue establish that they’ve lost the house in Connecticut, but will continue to strive to raise Franklin in a loving environment. In the building lobby, She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot are returning from their own night on the town, saying good night to Samuels, the nighttime doorman. She-Hulk and Wyatt kiss, establishing that they’re officially a couple now.

Once Samuels is alone, someone throws a brick through the building’s front window. Only, this is no brick, but a high-tech device of some kind. Not knowing this, Samuels steps outside. While he’s on the sidewalk outside the building, the entire skyscraper somehow, impossibly, lifts up into the sky. Johnny sees this and flies into action, barely reaching the building before it flies into space. Inside, Sue is keeping the atmosphere intact with a giant invisible force field. Kristoff, posing as Doom contacts Reed to gloat, saying he’s been planning this for weeks, right under the FF’s noses. Kristoff/Doom presses a button and the Baxter Building, now floating in orbit, explodes in a giant fireball, taking our heroes with it.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed’s broken arm appears to be healing nicely, because it’s just in a sling, complete with a big cartoony knot tied in the back.

Fade out: Everyone’s pretty casual about Sue extending a force field around the entire Baxter Building, showing how they’ve all gotten used to her increased power levels.

Flame on: Johnny compares the racist posters to something out of Nazi Germany. Could this be foreshadowing the upcoming WWII time travel story?

Fantastic fifth wheel: She-Hulk comments that she’s never treated like a monster or a freak in NYC, and that New Yorkers are generally polite around the FF.

Four and a half: There’s a lot of talk about Franklin’s new dream-based powers, which is setting up big things in his future.

The Alicia problem: When Johnny gets upset and flies off, Lyja thinks to herself, “If only I could help him realize he can open up to me!”

Commercial break: Everybody breakdance!

Trivia time: There are a ton of references to issue #6, in which Dr. Doom launched the Baxter Building into space. Kristoff-Doom insists that this time, it’ll work for sure.

It’s not explicitly said, but the probe that freed the Spider-symbiote, and that business with Doom’s mask coming to life and flying around, were both courtesy of the Doombots, setting things up for this issue. These things are often described as being Kristoff’s doing, but here we see they were done before he got fully involved.

Also note that Secret Wars II started at this time. For the next nine issues, the godlike Beyonder walks the Earth, and this casts a wide shadow over the whole Marvel universe.

Fantastic or frightful? The racism stuff is troubling, and the Dr. Doom origin flashback is a continuity headache. The little character moments are well done, though, and it’s one heck of a cliffhanger.

Next week: Have fun storming the castle!

****

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. Here’s another one of those wild experimental issues from writer-artist John Byrne. Every page is split horizontally across the middle. The top half of the issue tells the story of Ben’s return to Earth, while the bottom half picks up from last issue, with Reed and Sue being captured by Mephisto. Got that?

First, let’s catch up with Ben. Remember that evil wizard he was tracking on Battleowrld. Turns out the wizard was Ben’s own subconscious, given form by Battleworld’s wish-fulfillment effect. Almost everything he encountered on Battleworld was a figment of his imagination, including barbarian swordswoman Tarianna. With nothing left there, Ben is back on Earth. Meanwhile, as you’ll remember from the last issue, an exorcist named Elspeth Cromwell accused Reed and Sue of witchcraft, only to discover her own supernatural powers were a trick from Mephisto (Marvel’s version of Satan), who took Reed and Sue hostage. (These recap paragraphs are going to get a lot longer as get closer to the ‘90s, won’t they?)

The dual story page layout looks like this:

Top half: Ben materializes in Central Park, just like everyone else did when they returned from the Secret Wars. In no hurry to see Reed, he decides the first person he wants to see is Alicia.

Bottom half: Sensing a magical disturbance, Dr. Strange travels to Bell Port, Connecticut, where he immediately deduces that “Reed and Sue Benjamin” are really Reed and Sue Richards, with their son Franklin. Problem is, all three are dead!

Top half: At Alicia’s place, Ben knocks on the door, and a shirtless Johnny answers. Uh-oh!!! They start fighting. Ben assumes that Alicia is just another “skirt” for Johnny, while Johnny insists that it’s more than that, and what he was with Alicia is what he’s been searching for all his life. They explain all this while fighting and trashing the apartment. Alicia shows up and yells “Stop!”

Bottom half: In “a place with no true name” (which is obviously Hell), Sue is being tortured by demons. Reed, who has been embedded in some sort of stone column, stands up to Mephisto, calling him a petty superbeing who uses great power for naught but torture and murder. Mephistro responds by stretching Reed’s face all out of shape. Real horrific stuff here.

Top half: Alicia slaps Ben (though he barely feels it) and says that this is not some tawdry affair, but that she and Johnny are truly in love. His ego severely bruised, Ben steps outside, only to see that the sun has gone out, with a giant black shadow covering the entire sky.

Bottom half: Mephisto turns his attention to Sue, saying that it’s impossible for them to die in his world, which lets him hurt them as much as he wants. To prove his point, he impales Sue on a sharp rock, which doesn’t kill her. (Dang!) He says torturing them makes him more powerful.

Top half: A red planet emerges from the darkness, on a collision course with Earth. A gravity wave all over New York causes buildings to crumble Johnny flies Alicia to the Baxter Building for her safety, as their HQ is reinforced against earthquakes. She-Hulk and Wyatt are there, trying and failing to contact Reed and Sue. Alicia informs them that she and Johnny are a couple, and that Ben has just returned.

Bottom half: Dr. Strange teleports into Hell (he can do that, apparently) only to get zapped by Mephisto. Strange casts a spell of revelation to find Franklin sleeping peacefully inside a crystal. Strange wonders why, seeing as how endlessly torturing an innocent child is right up Mephisto’s alley (Geez, this is dark).

Top half: NYC is wrecked with disaster. Ben tries to help a woman, only for her to transform into a Dire Wraith. Oh, that’s right, this issue is also part of a big company-wide crossover. Over in Rom: Spaceknight, Rom had fought for years to stop the Dire Wraiths’ invasion of Earth. In the historic Rom #65, almost all of the Marvel heroes united to help Rom defeat the Wraiths once and for all. They’re the ones who are trashing New York right now.

Bottom half: Reed also notices Franklin, and realizes that here in Hell, the psychic dampeners keeping Franklin’s mutant powers in check don’t apply. He tells Strange to free Franklin, and Strange does. Just in case this issue wasn’t already dark enough, Mephisto says “Watch, then, as your child is torn to shreds, and does not die!!” Before that can happen, Franklin’s world-ending mutant powers return and he blasts Mephisto with powerful energy.

Top half: The Wraith collapses in front of Ben, and the sky returns to normal. We’re told that Rom and all the rest of the Marvel heroes saved the day out in space, but Ben doesn’t know this. At the Baxter Building, She-Hulk has packed her bags, assuming she’s out of the team. Ben shows up and says she can stay. He might be back on Earth, but he’s not rejoining the Fantastic Four.

Bottom half: Reed, Sue, and Franklin’s souls return to their bodies. Franklin is back normal, the whole thing being like a dream to him. As for the exorcist Elspeth Cromwell, she stays in Hell, awaiting her final judgment. Dr. Strange says he cannot go back to rescue her, for such a thing is outside his province. He then faces Alma Chalmers, the superstitious neighbor who called Cromwell and set all this in motion, telling her to always remember the terrible price paid for her actions.

Unstable molecule: For a guy who always claims not to understand magic in favor or science, Reed is surprisingly down with the backwards logic of Hell, and how everybody’s in their astral forms and not their bodies.

Fade out: Because time works differently in Hell, Sue is being tortured for centuries at the start of this issue. This ordeal doesn’t really come up again, but it’s something to remember when she gets pushed to her limit a few issues from now.

Clobberin’ time: You’ll notice Ben returns to Earth with a small object wrapped in cloth. That’s the severed head of Ultron, the only other survivor of Battleworld. West Coast Avengers #7 would later explain what became of Ultron’s head and how it eventually got a new body.

Flame on: There’s a lot of talk about Johnny having various short-lived flings and “conquests” with women in the past, but is that really the case? He’s had a number of girlfriends, but I don’t believe there have been a lot of one-night stands.

Fantastic fifth wheel: She-Hulk says that being a member of the FF has come to mean something really special to her over the last few months, and she’s bummed about the possibility of leaving.

Four and a half: Here we see a return of Franklin’s world-ending powers that were put to a halt around issue #150. This is not related to the psychic/dream-based powers he’s currently developing as a result of the spider-symbiote’s meddling.

The Alicia problem: This is the first time Lyja the Skrull has met Ben, and she’s defending her love for Johnny. I think we can all agree by now that her love for him is genuine and not part of the plot to infiltrate the FF.

Commercial break: Star Comics! Planet Terry and Wally the Wizard were totally the same kid, right? And since when were Fraggles taller than Ewoks?

Trivia time: Dr. Strange says he and Mephisto have fought many times, but they had only met once before, in Defenders #100.

The Marvel Wiki informs me that Elspeth Cromwell never returned after this, so I guess Mephisto got to keep her soul.

Fantastic or frightful? The two-stories-at-once thing works surprisingly well, as this issue is breathlessly paced, so that both stories get simultaneous cliffhangers right before every turn of the page. But it’s also unbelievably, shockingly dark. And things are just going to get darker.

Next week: Burning down the house.

****

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. If you’re a superhero, it’s probably best not to host a dinner party, because bad things will happen. This is demonstrated nicely in issue #276.

We begin with Johnny flying celebratory loop-de-loops over New York, happy because he’s in love. He says what he now has with Alicia (who, let’s not forget, is really Lyja the Skrull in disguise) means more to him than any of his previous girlfriends. At the Baxter Building, She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot are engaging in some sexy weightlifting, establishing that the she can lift 75 tons, putting her under the Thing’s weight class. Wyatt says Reed has theorized She-Hulk might become just as strong as the Hulk in time. They then head off to the sauna, where Wyatt offers to give her a massage (wha-hey!).

In Connecticut, where Reed and Sue are living with secret identities to raise their son, they’re having a dinner party to get to know their new neighbors. They’re being spied on by superstitious neighbor Alma Chalmers. Chalmers believes Reed and Sue are performing witchcraft, and she and a mysterious woman named Elspeth Cromwell discuss how a dark hour is about to befall the town. After the party, Franklin tells Sue about a dream he had, about an evil lady and the house being swallowed by a man with horns. Sue assures him that it was only a dream, but secretly she worries about whether Franklin’s mutant powers are returning after his encounter with the Spider-symbiote a while back. Reed is taking out the garbage when he is blasted with a white light. Sue is brushing her teeth while only in her undies (wha-hey!) and she gets blasted by the same light.

Reed and Sue head outside and find Cromwell at the center of the mysterious light. Reed has heard of her, saying she’s a world-renowned exorcist. She accuses them of witchcraft. Reed comes clean and tells her that they’re really the FF, but Cromwell doesn’t believe it. She zaps Reed with magic electricity. Sue tries trapping Cromwell in a force field, but Cromwell easily breaks through it. Cromwell then summons up the fires of Hell (!) and demonic hands burst through the ground, dragging Sue downward. Reed tries to stop them, and one of them, impossibly, breaks Reed’s arm. That gives us this terrifying panel:

Sue reemerges from underground, having fought her way out of there like the badass that she is. She keeps trying to reason with Cromwell, but Cromwell insists that the whole “Fantastic Four” thing is a lie, and that they’re witches trying to trick her. Cromwell then summons the Knights of Hades, a group of demonic monsters with flaming swords, to fight Reed and Sue. Franklin runs outside to see what the noise is, and gets hit in the head with a stray fireball. He’s knocked out, bleeding from the head.

The Knights of Hades go on a rampage, smashing up the neighborhood. Reed tells Cromwell that she’s been tricked. He says the forces of Hell are merely using her to return to the Earth so they can rampage. Cromwell tries to boss the Knights around, demanding that they’re under her control, but one of them dismissively smacks her to the ground. Franklin then comes to and meets up with his parents. Cromwell freaks out, seeing that the blood of an innocent has been spilled. This is when the Richards’ home gets totally destroyed by two giant hands coming up from underground. It’s Mephisto (a.k.a. the Marvel Universe’s version of Satan) who announces that the Earth is doomed.

In New York, Dr. Strange is meditating when he’s struck with pain. He can sense that the barrier between Earth and Hades has broken down, so he flies off to put a stop to it.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed stretches his face into his “Reed Benjamin” identity for the party, saying he has to concentrate the whole time to keep his face in that shape for so long.

Fade out: Sue says “survival” is what is what the FF does best. When was this established as a catch phrase?

Flame on: Johnny lists Dorrie Evans, Crystal, Frankie Raye, and Julie Angel as his previous girlfriends. There’s also a mention of how he lived with a secret identity back in his Strange Tales solo adventures.

Fantastic fifth wheel: We learn She-Hulk can lift/press approximately 75 tons. She expresses concern that if she gets stronger, she might also lose her humanity like the Hulk recently did. (The Hulk’s legendary “Crossroads” storyline was happening at this time).

Four and a half: Franklin’s prophetic dream is foreshadowing how his mutant powers will soon change. There’s also mention of the psychic dampeners keeping those powers in check.

The Alicia problem: While Johnny is flying around New York, Alicia is at home, cooking dinner for him. I guess learning to cook was part of her Skrull infiltration training.

Commercial break: Mental survival!

Trivia time: This issue has one of the most famous Easter eggs in all of comics history. The neighbors at Reed and Sue’s dinner party are all characters from classic newspaper comic strips. How many do you recognize? (You can find the definitive answers at writer-artist John Byrne official website.)

Fantastic or frightful? This issue is mostly set-up for the next one, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had. The big fight scene is nice melding of superhero action with demonic horror. I’ve always loved the black and white cover, as well.

Next week: Top and bottom.

****

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