macmcentire

Rereading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We’re still self-flagellating our way through the mediocrity of the “middle years,” after Jack Kirby but before John Byrne.

Issue #177: The FF return from their previous adventure in space, with the Impossible Man tagging along for no reason, only to find that the Frightful Four have broken into the Baxter Building and are waiting for them. The Wizard, the Sandman, and Paste-Pot-Pete um I mean the Trapster all fight our heroes while promising that their new fourth member will soon arrive. After several pages of fighting, the Frightful Four takes the FF hostage, and announces tryouts for a new fourth member. A whole bunch of villains are waiting in the Baxter Building’s lobby, all wanting to audition for the part.

The candidates: Osprey, who can fly. Texas Twister, who has wind/tornado powers. Thundra, returning from issue #153, who is super-strong. Captain Ultra, who has tons of powers but faints at the sight of fire. Finally, there’s future Avenger Tigra, who pretends to be a criminal only to rescue the FF. The FF fight all the villains, including a big purple Hulk-like guy named the Brute. Ben fights the Brute into the room with the Negative Zone portal. The Brute opens the portal and sends Ben into the Negative Zone. The Brute transforms into a human, revealing that he’s really the Counter-Earth version of Reed!

Issue 178: Ben confronts a snake monster in the Negative Zone, only to be abruptly returned to Earth, held captive with the FF, Tigra, and Thundra. The Brute gives his origin, in which he, like Reed, traveled into space and was exposed to the cosmic rays. He and the Frightful Four announce that they’re going to hold the FF for a $1 billion ransom. Then, real life bleeds into the comic, when NYC mayor Abe Beame contacts then-president Jimmy Carter, former president Gerald Ford, and, presciently, future president Ronald Reagan, in hopes of saving the FF.

The Impossible Man has been watching TV all this time, fascinated with Earth pop culture. When the TV goes out, he starts running around the Baxter Building causing trouble, which frees the FF. Everybody fights! In the middle of the battle, Reed discovers he’s completely lost his stretching powers. With Thundra and Tigra’s help, the remaining FFers capture the Frightful Four, with the Brute falling through the Negative Zone portal. The FF agree that powers or no, Reed is still their leader. But, there’s a twist! That’s the Brute, who took the real Reed’s place during the battle.

Issue #179: Alone in the Negative Zone, Reed manages to fight off some monsters and seeks shelter on a floating asteroid. The Brute, who had no alternate Sue on Counter-Earth, plots to keep impersonating Reed long enough to dispatch of the FF and run away with Sue.

Ben and Tigra go out for a fancy dinner (!) only to run across a robot, the Metalloid, robbing a nearby bank. The U.S. Army is called in, just for Ben and Tigra to fight the robot in the water out on a garbage barge. The Coast Guard takes away the robot. At home, Sue suspects something is up with Reed. The real Reed, meanwhile, wakes from his Negative Zone slumber to find that Annihilus has found him.

Issue #180: This one merely reprints issue #101 in its entirety, with no new material except the cover.

Issue #181: Annihilus says he wants revenge on Reed, but, after some fighting, Annihilus discovers Reed has lost his powers and offers to help him. The FF, with continued help from Tigra, Thundra, and Impossible Man, helps the Coast Guard look underwater for the Metalloid. At the Baxter Building, Sue confronts Reed and is convinced that it’s not really Reed, so she leaves. She visits Alicia, who has been watching Franklin this whole time. While they have girl talk, Franklin’s supernatural nanny Agatha Harkness teleports into the room and abducts Franklin.

Johnny visits Frankie Raye, only to find her on a date with another guy. She says she can’t stand fire, and that she wants him to leave her alone forever. Back in the water, Ben and company have succeeded in bringing the robot to the surface, where they’re refusing to turn it over to the Coast Guard. A cop interrupts them, saying the robot wasn’t robbing the bank vault, but escaping from it. In the Negative Zone, Annihilus explains that he’s lost his cosmic control rod, so he’s enlisting Reed to get it back. Reed and Annihilus are then attacked by a giant monster, only to learn it is being controlled by… the Mad Thinker!

Issue #182: The Brute, still disguised as Reed, sends Johnny and Ben into the Negative Zone, by tricking them into thinking the robot’s origins are there. At Agatha Harkness’ house, she and Franklin are attacked by mysterious strangers. Sue and Alicia arrive only to see the strangers teleport Harkness and Franklin away. In the Negative Zone, Ben and Johnny catch up with Reed and Annihilus, and everyone fight’s the Mad Thinker’s monster, which is actually a new android of his. Ben and Johnny aren’t convinced that this Reed is the real Reed, and they discover that they’ve been cut off, unable to return to Earth.

At home, Sue tells the Brute that Franklin has been kidnapped. When he doesn’t react, that’s when Sue calls him out, saying she knows he’s not really Reed. The Brute transforms into his monstrous form and attacks Sue. She puts up a good fight, but he overpowers her, and throws her out a window.

Issue #183: Tigra, Thundra, and Impossible Man, who are out and about in New York, save Sue from falling. In the Negative Zone, Annihilus explains that the Mad Thinker’s android absorbed all the power from the cosmic control rod, thus robbing Annihilus of his immortality. Reed proposes working together, using Annihilus’ ship to fight back. In New York, the Mad Thinker says his calculations have shown that all this would happen, and he’s using the fight against the Brute as an excuse to steal all of Reed’s inventions. Impossible Man wanders off, leaving Sue, Thundra and Tigra to storm the building.

The android comes through the Negative Zone portal and attacks the Brute. The android bombards the Brute with cosmic rays, turning him human permanently. In the Negative Zone, Reed fashions a device to find the way back to Earth. They make it, and the FF are reunited. By working together, our heroes defeat the android. The Mad Thinker, who’s been watching all this from a distance, frets about too many x-factors throwing off his calculations, and he runs off. The Brute, who says he’s no longer evil, enters the Negative Zone to return the cosmic control rod to Annihilus, because Reed gave his word to do so.

Unstable molecule: Reed loses his stretching powers, with the argument made that his genius is his “real” power, so he never needed the stretching to begin with.

Fade out: Sue is well on her way from transitioning from damsel to toughest member of the team. First, she’s the one who deduces the Brute’s plan. Then, she fights the Brute by herself, and later leads the fight through all the Brute’s deathtraps in the Baxter Building.

Clobberin’ time: Ben is quite the ladies’ man! In addition to his still loosely-defined relationship with Alicia, both Thundra and Tigra put the moves on him.

Flame on: Johnny’s romantic interest Frankie Raye is now afraid of fire, instead of people with super powers. Many have argued that Frankie’s storyline changed dramatically from what she was originally intended to be, and here we see a sign of that.

Four and a half: Poor Franklin gets kidnapped twice! He’s also being drawn less like a toddler and more like a young kid.

Fantastic fifth wheel: It’s the Fantastic Seven! After the fight with the Frightful Four, Thundra, Tigra and Impossible Man all start living at the Baxter Building and joining the FF on their adventures for no reason whatsoever. It’s reminiscent of Steve Gerber’s then-recent run on The Defenders, in which the “team” consisted of whoever was hanging out in Dr. Strange’s house at any given time.

Commercial break: Bionic battle!

Trivia time: Tigra had recently had a short-lived solo series in Marvel Chillers, and editorial wanted to keep the character around, hence her appearance here. She’d later become a mainstay in various Avengers comics.

This is actually not the first time the Brute appeared. He was previously introduced in an issue of Warlock.

The Mad Thinker’s android is in the Negative Zone, because the FF stranded it there back in issue #71.

Captain Ultra is one of those obscure characters who keeps popping up from time to time in the Marvel Universe. It’ll later be revealed that Captain Ultra is a plumber whose innate superhuman potential was unlocked by an extraterrestrial hypnotist. During Marvel’s “Initiative” storyline, S.H.I.E.L.D. assigned Captain Ultra to be the official superhero of Nebraska.

Osprey doesn’t have as many appearances in Marvel Comics, but for some reason he’s prominently featured in the late ‘80s Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game.

Fantastic or frightful? While still not the best, these issues are another step in the right direction, with a lot of action and twists, and some nice character growth for Sue.

Next week: Lords of Salem.

****

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

Rereading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We’re still marching through the death march of comics that is the “middle years,” after Jack Kirby but before John Byrne.

Issue #171: To recap, Ben is human again, but still fights the bad guys by wearing a super-strong Thing suit that Reed invented. There are several pages of excuse-for-the-characters-to-use-their-powers inside the FF’s new danger room. Johnny, meanwhile, is still dating Frankie Raye. He says he’s leaving the FF for her, because she gets freaked out around superhero types. Then, a strange craft lands nearby and a giant golden gorilla (!) comes out of it. Johnny wants to fly off and fight it, but decides to stay with Frankie and let the cops handle the monster.

The gorilla grows to giant size and (of course) climbs up the building, abducts Sue (sigh…) and rampages on its roof. Reed and Ben try to fight the giant ape, but are outmatched. Johnny can’t take it anymore, so he flies off to help his teammates, upsetting Frankie. Sue uses an “infinitesimal force field” to escape from the Gorilla’s grasp. Sue’s force field then manages to shrink the ape down to its original size, allowing the FF to capture it. It then speaks, saying it’s name is Gorr. Gorr has come to Earth to warn everyone that Galactus is on the way.

Issue #172: Gorr says he attacked only because the Earth’s atmosphere made him panic. He nonetheless attacks the FF again, escapes the Baxter Building, and returns to his ship. The FF pursue him into the ship, which then takes off with them inside of it. Gorr explains that he is originally from Counter-Earth, a second Earth populated by animal-men created by the High Evolutionary. The Asgardian Destroyer, who during this time was Galactus’ herald, discovered the existence of Counter-Earth. Gorr was sent to Earth to bring the FF back, because they’ve defeated Galactus in the past.

The High Evolutionary attacks the Destroyer, and Ben, whose exoskeleton doubles as a space suit, joins the fight. Ben defeats the Destroyer, but it’s too late, because Galactus arrives.

Issue #173: Ben tries to fight Galactus, but get swatted down. Galactus communicates with Reed and the High Evolutionary via mental telepathy. Reed and the H.E. try to appeal to Galactus’ good nature, saying there are millions of lives of Counter-Earth, but Galactus says he has a different perspective, and that it’s his “destiny” to devour entire worlds. H.E. says there are two other planets that might satiate Galactus in place of Counter-Earth, so he sends the heroes off to investigate them.

Reed and Ben end up on the planet Mekka, a world populated with robots, led by Torgo. That’s not the goat-kneed goofball from Manos: The Hands of Fate, it’s the robot from the Skrull gangster planet from Fantastic Four #91-93. Reed and Ben agree not to sacrifice the planet, but the robots take them captive anyway, for fear that Galactus will discover their location through them. Johnny and Gorr, meanwhile, end up on a dragons-and-knights fantasy world, where they too are taken captive. The High Evolutionary won’t teleport Sue to the planets to rescue her teammates, saying instead he must fight Galactus one-on-one.

Issue #174: Sue uses invisibility to escape the High Evolutionary, but accidentally teleports herself to a lifeless planet, where she’s not able to rescue anyone. On the robot planet, Torgo makes a big speech about organic life versus mechanical life. Reed and Ben manage to fight back, with several pages of Ben and Torgo wailing on each other. Torgo finally agrees to accept Ben and Reed’s promise, and he lets them go.

On the magic and dragons planet, Johnny and Gorr are locked up in a dungeon, and Gorr offers to challenge the planet’s best knight in combat. They suit him up in armor for a jousting tournament. (That’s right — it’s an armor-clad jousting yellow gorilla!) He wins, but then all the wizards and knights and whatnots reveal themselves to be shape-shifting Skrulls. Just like they once had an all-gangster planet, this is their all medieval fantasy planet. The Skrulls then declare that this is a dead planet. They leave, and Johnny says there’s not enough there for Galactus to consume. Galactus arrives on Counter-Earth, and the High Evolutionary challenges him to battle.

Issue #175: Galactus and the High Evolutionary (who is now several stories tall — I guess he has growth powers) confront each other in the skies over Counter-Earth. The H.E. puts up a good fight, but is knocked out by Galactus. Galactus starts building his world-devouring machine (the one we all remember from issues #49-51) when the reunited FF appear and fight him. Then Sue arrives with a message for Galactus from another world. This world is offering itself to Galactus in place of one full of innocent lives.

Galactus devours the entire world, which is covered with aliens acting like they have no idea they’re about to die. But then something goes wrong, and Galactus shrinks down a tiny form, until there’s nothing left but a brain, and then nothing at all. The High Evolutionary decrees that the menace of Galactus is over forever. Reed then figures out that Sue is not Sue, she’s the Impossible Man in disguise! The Impossible Man’s people, the Poppupians, have evolved to a collected consciousness, so their entire society exists within the Impossible Man. Galatcus devouring the Poppup planet was like swallowing a lot of hot air, or, as Reed puts it, “terminal indigestion.” Gorr stays behind on Counter-Earth, but the Impossible Man follows the FF back to Earth. On the way home, and without much ceremony, Ben transforms back into the Thing, as a result of exposure to Galactus’ energy. When asked if Ben can be cured, Reed answers only with silence.

Issue #176: Ben grouses about being a monster again, while the Impossible Man does a lot of comedy shtick. Upon returning to Earth, the FF’s ship is about to crash, but Johnny saves the day by creating a heat updraft. There’s more comedy shtick as the FF make their way through New York City to get home, with Impossible Man goofing off the whole time.

Then things get really meta when Impossible Man visits the Marvel Comics offices. Stan Lee is panicking because the FF have been off-planet, so Marvel has no new stories about them for their comics. The other Marvel artists and writers, including Jack Kirby, suggest making up stories, but Stan won’t have it. The Impossible Man offers help, but the Marvel folks say readers don’t like him because he’s too silly. Impossible Man starts trashing the place, and the FF show up to stop him. They take Impossible Man back to the Baxter Building, only to discover the Frightful Four are there, waiting for them.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed is still losing his powers, and he reveals to Ben that he can no longer stretch his right arm. This subplot has been slowly building for about 20 issues now.

Fade out: When the boys go off adventuring, Sue is left behind again. This time, though, Reed says it because she’s so powerful that only she can be relied on to rescue them all if something goes wrong.

Clobberin’ time: Ben transformation from human back into a monster happens without much drama. Everybody’s all, “Well, everything’s back like it was now.”

Flame on: Johnny doesn’t seem all that serious about retiring from the team to be with Frankie, considering he leaves her twice to do the superhero thing. During the battle, his super-hot nova flame has little effect on Galactus.

Commercial break: We’re supposed to think the Hulk got his awesome strength from those little weights?

Trivia time: The High Evolutionary and his Counter-Earth were a big deal in Thor and Hulk comics, which dealt with the whole concept of Counter-Earth in greater detail.

Allegedly, the giant ape Gorr was created to cash in on the 1976 King Kong remake.

The Destroyer became a herald of Galactus in Thor #228, which was also the first appearance of Firelord. After this appearance, Loki goes ahead and steals the Destroyer back from Galactus for more fighting with Thor.

Jack Kirby appears in the Marvel Bullpen, because he had returned to Marvel by 1976, drawing “out there” comics like Eternals and 2001.

Fantastic or Frightful? How much fun is Gorr? Once he starts talking, he’s like a comedic version of the Beast from the X-Men. Marvel should totally bring back Gorr and have him pal around with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Having the High Evolutionary, who creates planets, battle Galactus, who destroys planets, seems like a good idea, but it’s a lot of buildup to nothing. Impossible Man is just silly, of course. I guess we’ll have to file this batch of issues under “mixed bag.”

Next week: Fruit Brute! (But without the fruit.)

****

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

Rereading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We’re still clawing our way out of the creative black hole that was the “middle years,” after Jack Kirby but before John Byrne.

Issue #164: We begin with talk about how Sue’s powers have gotten stronger, after which Johnny heads out for a night on the town, in search of a new girlfriend. He has a blind date set up with a lovely redhead named Frankie Raye. (Get used to Frankie. She’s going to be around for a while.) Their date, a stroll through hippie-infested Greenwich Village, is interrupted by a super-powered guy named the Crusader. He says he’s on a one-man holy war to end all corruption in society, and he starts by destroying a bunch of buildings. Johnny uses his powers in front of Frankie, and she’s terrified to learn he has fire powers.

The Crusader is after a seemingly-normal man named Calvin McClary. Johnny tries to save the man, but Crusader uses his light powers to temporarily blind Johnny. With Johnny out of the fight, Crusader goes ahead and murders McClary. (Harsh.) Johnny reunites with his teammates, and Reed says he’ll search for Crusader alone while his teammates get some rest. (What?)

Issue #165: Reed is walking over NYC, his legs stretched into giant stilts, so he can look for the Crusader. (Doesn’t Reed have a lab full of high-tech scanning devices he can use?) Reed meets McClary’s widow, who says the Crusader spoke with the voice of McClary’s old science lab partner, Dr. Grayson. The Crusader runs around New York, destroying banks for their corruption, with the FF not able to catch up with him.

The Crusader attacks another bank, but this time the FF are ready for him. The Crusader tells us his origin. (I hope you’re sitting down.) Dr. Grayson was his father. During WWII, Grayson built a spaceship and flew him and his son to the planet Uranus. The boy grew up, and returned to Earth in the 1950s with super-powered wristbands. He fought crime under the name “Marvel Boy.” A corrupt bank denied him a loan to provide medical supplies to the people of Uranus, and the Urianians all died. Now, he’s renamed himself the Crusader and he’s back for vengeance. While Ben and the Crusader fight, Reed figures out that the Crusader’s powers are solar-based, so he clears the sky of all clouds, causing the Crusader to overload on solar energy. This makes him deteriorate, right in front of everyone. Only his wristbands are left behind. (Holy crap, Reed killed a guy!)

Issue #166: This one begins with the FF aboard a luxury 747, where Ben mopes about being a monster, and Johnny hopes he hasn’t screwed things up with Frankie already. The team is flying to Nebraska, where Reed hopes his new “Psi-Amplifier” can cure Dr. Bruce Banner, so he never turns into the Hulk again. The Hulk then attacks, apparently by coincidence, and there’s several pages of action as the FF use their powers to get the plane safely to the ground. Our heroes then meet with a Col. Sellers, who has been tracking the Hulk. They find the big green guy in the snowy mountains.

The FF and the Hulk fight. Sue uses a force field to cut off the Hulk’s oxygen, which weakens him just long enough for Ben to knock him out. At Sellers’ base, inside a hollowed-out mountain (!), Reed uses the Psi-Amplifier to transform the Hulk back into Banner. Ben, who has been wallowing in pity and snarking at Reed the whole time, decides that he’d rather be on the Hulk’s side, so he interrupts the process. This transforms Banner back into the Hulk, and now both the Hulk and the Thing are about to attack the rest of the FF.

Issue #167: Ben and the Hulk fight together, against Reed, Sue, Johnny, and a bunch of soldiers. Ben and the Hulk escape in a helicopter (why the Hulk just goes along with this, I don’t know). They fly to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, where Ben suffers a dizzy spell. The soldiers find them, and they start a fight with the Hulk. Reed shows up as well, and tries to reason with Ben. Reed uses a tranquilizer on the Hulk, only to have the Hulk attack him. Ben sees this, and fights the Hulk, standing up for Reed.

While Ben and the Hulk pummel each other, Ben gets another dizzy spell, and he transforms… back into a human! The Hulk is bummed that his new friend the Thing is gone, so he runs off. Reed explains that Ben’s prolonged exposure to the Hulk’s gamma radiation is what brought on the transformation. Ben, Johnny, and Sue are happy to have human Ben back, but Reed wonders if this means the end of the Fantastic Four.

Issue #168: Back in New York, Johnny is bummed out because Frankie won’t date him on account of his being a superhero. He asks for a leave of absence from the team, which upsets Reed even more. Ben, meanwhile, takes Alicia out on the town, and is glad when more people recognize her for her art than they recognize him. Back home, Reed says Ben has to be replaced, because the team’s charter (!) insists that there must be four members at all times. Reed already has a replacement ready — Luke Cage, Power Man!

An alarm goes off in the city. It’s a bank robbery, so the new FF jumps into action. Ben tags along as well, still hoping to prove himself. It’s the Wrecker, one of Marvel’s favorite go-to superpowered thugs. The fight moves to a nearby construction site, where Ben keeps getting in the way, forcing the FF to keep rescuing him. Cage defeats the Wrecker, and Ben wanders off, feeling worthless.

Issue #169: Ben wallows in self-pity, getting drunk and starting barroom brawls. Johnny finds Ben at a bar and takes him home. Back at headquarters, Sue and Cage get to know each other, until he flips out and starts trashing the place. Reed and Johnny join the fight, assuming that Cage is under some sort of mind control.

Cage fights his way into Reed’s lab, accidentally switching on Dr. Doom’s old time machine. He then escapes in the Fantasticar. Reed says Cage was never meant to be a permanent replacement for Ben. He then opens up a secret door, where Ben is shocked to discover another big rock monster just like he used to be — a second Thing!

Issue #170: No, it’s not another Thing. It’s a robo-exoskeleton made to look just like the Thing. Ben can wear it and use its strength to fight evil. After testing out the suit, the team turns its attention back on what happened to Cage. Cut to Alicia, who is visiting her father, the Puppet Master, in jail. She suspects he’s behind Cage attacking the FF. Alicia can sense that the jail cell’s walls are made from Puppet Master’s radioactive clay, and he’s using it to make his mind-control puppets. (How’d he set up all this ahead of time?)

Cage, still under mind control, shows up with the stolen Fantasticar to bust Puppet Master out of jail. Cage, Puppet Master, and Alicia take off over the ocean. The FF then arrive, and… fighting! During the fight, the Fantasticar is knocked to the side, and Puppet Master has to choose whether to save his puppet or to save Alicia. He saves Alicia, letting the puppet fall into the ocean. This frees Cage from the mind control. Puppet Master is hauled back to jail, and the issue ends with Ben questioning whether he should ask Alicia to marry him.

Unstable molecule: There are a few more hints here and there about Reed slowly losing his powers. The fact that Reed flat-out murdered the Crusader is pretty much swept under the rug.

Fade out: Sue manages to help take out the Hulk, and she helps land a crashing plane, all with her force fields — both signs that she’ll eventually emerge as the team’s most powerful member.

Clobberin’ time: Turning human again lets us see Ben in a new light. Although happy at first, he’s quick to return to his self-pity. Here we see that Ben’s wallowing in misery was not because he was transformed into the Thing, but it’s something that was always there.

Flame on: Johnny begins his romance with Frankie Raye, except she dislikes superheroes and she doesn’t know he is one. Comics fans who know what will later become of Frankie can already smell the whiff of irony.

Four and a half: Sue reminds us in one scene that Franklin no longer has super-powers, because he might destroy all of reality if he did.

Fantastic fifth wheel: We’re not given the exact circumstances of how Luke Cage joins the team as Ben’s replacement. He just shows up. The answer would appear to be in how he describes himself as a “Power Man for hire.” (As opposed to the more well-known “hero for hire” he usually goes by.) Issues 168-170 contain Cage’s entire run as a member of the FF.

Commercial break: Could this ad be the secret origin of Batroc?

Trivia time: There actually was a Marvel Boy comic in the early 1950s, which the Crusader is based on. You might think that the Crusader looks a lot like Marvel hero Quasar. You’d be right! It’ll later be revealed that the Crusader’s wrist bands are in fact Quasar’s quantum bands. The bands were created by Eon to be worn by the protector of the universe, but the Uranians didn’t know this when the found the bands and gave them to the Crusader. This Quasar stuff is some seriously complicated mythology.

Fantastic or frightful? These issues are… not bad. Definitely a step up in quality from what we’ve been seeing. There is genuine character development for Ben, letting us see him in a new light, and that alone makes this batch of issues worth reading.

Next week: Not just any gorilla.

****

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. We’re still in the horribly mediocre “middle years,” after Jack Kirby but before John Byrne. Maybe this is the week we’ll find that elusive hidden gem. (Spoiler: We won’t.)

Issue #158: Ben and Alicia go to the opera (!), Johnny tries and fails to pick up women, Reed and Sue discuss Sue starting her own detective agency (!!), and Medusa is still with the team. Later that night, Quicksilver shows up in New York. He sneaks into the Baxter Building and picks a fight with Johnny. After a few pages, the rest of the FF show up and break up the fight. Quicksilver says he’s there to take Medusa back home.

Medusa is needed because Attilan, the Inhumans’ hidden city, has been attacked by invaders from the fifth dimension. They’re led by a guy named Xemu. He says his goal is “conquest,” and he has a sound-based weapon called the “Thunder Horn.” It’s not a “laser” but a “saser.” (I’m not joking.) The issue ends with the FF taking off in their private rocket, to go to Attilan and join the battle.

Issue #159: The FF arrive in Attilan, finding it deserted at first, only to be then attacked and taken captive by Xemu’s goons. Xemu plans to use Black Bolt’s super-powerful voice to power the Thunder Horn. The Inhuman Triton frees the FF from their cell, but no one can think of a way to defeat the Thunder Horn. The Chinese government launches jets armed with nukes, flying towards Attilan. Xemu sees this and flees back to the fifth dimension. The FF and the Inhumans fight Xemu’s henchmen, and Ben destroys the Thunder Horn.

In the Fifth Dimension, Xemu doesn’t get away, but he is confronted by Johnny and Quicksilver, and two other fifth dimesnioners, named Valeria and Phineas. Xemu is captured, and Johnny shares a romantic kiss with Valeria. Johnny then announces he’s going back to his original blue uniform. Medusa says she’s going to stay behind with the Inhumans, and the original Fantastic Four are a team once again.

Issue #160: It’s Valentine’s Day, so of course the story begins with the Thing fighting a pterodactyl-flying barbarian with lightning powers. This guy is Arkon the Annihilator, formerly known as Arkon the Magnificent, who previously fought the Avengers a couple of times. Alicia happens to be nearby, and is there when Arkon defeats Ben and teleports him away. Alicia rushes to the Baxter Building, only to find Ben is there, with his teammates. Reed promises to contact the Avengers to coordinate an investigation. Alicia gives Ben a piece of the other Ben’s torn shirt, and he starts his own investigation. He contacts the Inhumans, who send the giant teleporting dog Lockjaw to him. Lockjaw does the “bloodhound” thing, taking a sniff of the shirt, and tracking the scent by teleporting himself and Ben somewhere else.

Reed, Sue, and Johnny meet with a Mr. DeVoor, and Reed announces he’s selling Fantastic Four Inc. (that’s the business side of the FF, making cash off of Reed’s inventions). Ben and Lockjaw arrive on an alien world, where they find a castle inhabited by classic movie monsters. He also finds an alternate human version of himself, along with an alternate Sue. Ben fights Frankenstein’s monster, and then realizes he’s in an alternate reality where Reed was the one who got the Thing powers. Alt-Reed-Thing is the head of “Inter-Related Technocracies.” Back on Earth, Reed signs the papers making the business deal official. In the last panel, we see that DeVoor’s company, the FF’s new owner, is “Interlocking Technologies.”

Issue #161: Reed has his own Danger Room! No, really. A caption even informs us that it was designed for him by Professor Xavier. He’s in there testing his powers, worried that he’s losing his stretching powers. Johnny, ticked off about Reed selling the ownership of the FF, flies to a swamp in “the wilds of Long Island.” There, he stands in just the right spot that takes him to the fifth dimension. He’s hoping for more romance in Valeria, but the fifth dimensioners attack him, thinking he’s an “androne.” He finally meets up with Valeria, who informs him that the fifth dimension is under attack by these andrones (killer robots, basically) who are constructed by Alt-Reed-Thing’s company.

At Alt-Reed-Thing’s universe, Alt-New York is attacked by dinosaurs (why?) and, after saving the city from them, Ben is taken out by knockout gas. On Earth, Reed gets word of natural disasters and a possible second ice age, and he deduces this is because the fifth dimension is going to attack. They do, and Johnny is fighting alongside them, apparently believing that he’s attacking Alt-Reed-Thing’s dimension.

Issue #162: Alt-Reed-Thing fights with Arkon, while Johnny leads the fifth dimension troops to… you know what? I am lost. I can’t follow any of this any more. I think the creators knew they were in too deep, because they came up with this chart to explain what’s going on:

We shouldn’t have to read a freakin’ chart to enjoy our comic books! After a lot of running around and fighting, Reed figures out that DeVoor is from the alternate dimension, and is up to no good. The two Things meet and fight Johnny, eventually discovering that they’ve been tricked into fighting each other. To stop Arkon, Johnny and the two Things have to destroy the “nexus” at the center of all three realities. Get this: they travel there on interdimensional roller skates (!) that Reed just happened to have around. They “skate” to Arkon’s world, where they’re confronted by Gaard, who is… I can’t believe it… an outer-space hockey goalie.

Issue #163: Ben fights Gaard in space (Gaard’s weapon is not a hockey stick, but a “cosmic scepter”) while Johnny and Alt-Reed-Thing get to know each other while duking it out with Arkon. The two Things then work together to outsmart Gaard, and they destroy the nexus. After they leave, Gaard removes his mask and… he’s really the alternate reality version of Johnny! Our heroes reunite back on Earth for the happy ending.

Unstable molecule: We’re not told why, exactly, Reed decides to sell Fantastic Four Inc., but by the story’s end, it’s back under his control again.

Fade out: Sue pushes her powers to the limit by turning the entire city of Attilan invisible so the Chinese jets don’t lean of its location. Sue’s desire to become a private detective is pretty much never brought up again, which is a shame. That could’ve been made for some fun comics.

Clobberin’ time: It’s actually a lot of fun to see Earth’s rough n’ tumble Ben fight alongside the uppity, brainy alt-Ben, even if just for a few pages. Despite past ups and downs, Ben and Alicia are definitely a couple again.

Flame on: We’re told that alt-Johnny died in alt-Vietnam. (The planet that has castles full of Universal monster ripoffs also had the Vietnam conflict?). What we’re not given is the full story of how alt-Johnny transformed into Gaard, except that he certainly went to hell and back.

Four and a half: Franklin only appears once in these issues, with a comment about how he’s grown quite a lot since we last saw him.

Fantastic fifth wheel: During the “this is what our heroes do on their day off” scenes, Medusa is shown hanging out at the library. Studying up on human culture, perhaps?

Commercial break: This is comics history, people — Marvel’s first-ever Hostess ad!!!

Trivia time: Not only did Arkon previously appear several times in The Avengers, but Xemu and the fifth dimension first appeared in one of the old Human Torch solo stories from Strange Tales back in the ‘60s.

Gaard will later return during the ‘90s comic Force Works, going by the name “Vangaard.”

Fantastic Four writers sure love the name “Valeria.” The Valeria from the fifth dimension, however, is not related to Dr. Doom’s Valeria, who provided the name for… we’ll get to that eventually.

Fantastic or frightful? What a confusing, baffling mess. Comic book writers love their alternate reality stories, but they often go way too far with them. DC did it back in the pre-Crisis days with all the various Earths, Marvel’s doing it right now with Spider-Verse and the upcoming Secret Wars reboot, and they’re certainly doing it in these FF issues. The only enjoyment you can get from these comics is your pseudo-philosophical ponderings of “How did this ever get published?”

Next week: It was great when it all began. I was a regular Frankie fan.

****

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. Time for more mediocrity from the “middle years,” after Jack Kirby but before John Byrne.

Issue #150: This “anniversary” issue is a double-sized one, with two stories. The first is a continuation of the story that began in Avengers #127, with the FF and the Avengers battling Ultron. Not just any Ultron, but Ultron-7, who is disguised as Omega, who… I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t have the Avengers issue, so I can’t tell you what the 7 is for or why a killer robot feels the need to disguise himself as leader of the Alpha-Primitives. The gist of it is that everyone’s fighting Ultron. What’s important is we learn that Franklin has been with supernatural nanny Agatha Harkness since issues #148-149. She and Franklin are present at the battle, where Franklin comes out of the coma he’s been in since #141 and uses his reality-breaking super powers to defeat Ultron.

The second story has the FF travelling to the Inhumans’ secret city for the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver. The Avengers are also invited. There’s no villain to fight, so instead we get a bunch of little character moments leading up to the big event. Reed and Sue reminisce about Dr. Doom attacking during their wedding. Iron Man pines for Pepper, and Thor ponders his love triangle with Sif and Jane Foster. Johnny says he thought he was over Crystal, but feels like his heart is breaking all over again. Medusa reminds him that Crystal loved him once, and Medusa promises to stay by his side for moral support. Crystal and Quicksilver, who don’t get speaking parts in their own wedding issue, are married and everyone’s happy at the end.

Issue #151: Johnny and Ben are out clothes shopping (!) when a strange electrical storm hits the Baxter Building. It’s coming from a big buff dude named — wait for it — Mahkizmo! He’s there looking for Thundra.

Elsewhere in New York, Thundra and Medusa are talking, as Thundra fills us in on her origin. She traveled here from the future, when the Earth is ruled by female “Femizons.” Mahkizmo was leader of the rebellion, so Thundra was sent back in time to defeat the world’s most powerful men, which will quell the rebellion in the future. (So it’s gender-flipped The Terminator.) Ben and Johnny fight Mahkizmo, whose strength comes from nuclear power. Reed joins the battle, only for Mahkizmo to throw him off the roof for the big cliffhanger.

Issue #152: Thundra saves Reed’s life, admitting that he’s not scum like all the other men. Thundra and Mahkizmo fight each other, while Reed tinkers with Dr. Doom’s old time machine, which Reed still has in his lab, in the hopes of finding a solution. There’s a lot of talk about travelling “sideways” through time rather than back or forward.

The FF travels to Thundra’s timeline to find Mahkizmo’s men attacking the Femizons. Everybody fights, and Mahkizmo takes the FF hostage. Medusa escapes, and returns to the time machine, taking off by herself. This leaves the rest of the FF stranded, wondering if she’s become a traitor.

Issue #153: The FF escape from Mahkizmo’s prison, but he hits them with a “domina-ray” that saps their will to fight. (Why didn’t he do that to begin with?) Mahkizmo and the rest of the rotten no-good men put our heroes into a gladiatorial arena, along with Thundra (I guess this is “sideways future Thundra”) where the battle a giant alien monster. Mahkizmo joins them in the ring for more fighting. Medusa returns, as she hadn’t betrayed anyone, but instead recruited help from the Femizons.

Thundra and Ben manage to defeat Mahkizmo by putting aside their rivalry working together. With Mahkizmo gone, all the Femizons and the rotten no-good men not only stop fighting, but they all start kissing! This restores the “natural balance of power” which returns the FF and Thundra back to their own timeline.

Issue #154: A mystery man in a green mask attacks the FF as they’re flying over New York in the Fantasticar. Right after this happens, Johnny has a flashback to first time he met this mystery man, which reprints one of the old Human Torch comics from Strange Tales #127, from back in 1964.

In the old story, it was Reed in the green mask, testing his teammates’ loyalty. Back in the present, it’s Nick Fury in the suit, trying out a bunch of new S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons. Lame fill-in issue.

Issue #155: After fending off a mugger in the park (!) the FF are attacked out of nowhere by the Silver Surfer. The Surfer declares that he and the FF are no longer friends.

After a lot of fighting, the Surfer comes to his senses, and he tells the story about how he temporarily lost his cosmic powers, and then saw a poster of his former love, Shalla Bal, on a wall in some small village. He followed the clues to Dr. Doom’s castle, where he saw Shalla Bal in a window. Shalla Bal acted like she didn’t know him. Dr. Doom said Shalla Bal is now married to him (!), but he’ll restore her memories and give her back to the Surfer if the Surfer agrees to kill the FF. Back in the present, after explaining all this, the Surfer attacks the FF again.

Issue #156: Just as the Surfer is about to kill the FF, he stops, saying that he cannot take a life. The FF and the Surfer travel back to Doom’s castle. Some device in Doom’s armor mesmerizes the FF so they’re frozen in place. Doom and the Surfer fight, but Doom has the upper hand, because he still has Shalla Bal. He puts the FF in a bunch of traps designed to negate their powers.

Doom and his henchman Daedalus continue to parade Shalla Bal in front of the Surfer, hoping to use the Surfer’s frustration for their own evil purposes. The FF escape from their cages, by breaking each other out instead of concentrating on their own traps. They storm the castle, and Doom sends his “death-dealing humanoids” out to fight them. While they battle, Doom continues to spy on the Surfer, revealing that he’s slowly draining the cosmic power away from the Surfer.

Issue #157: Doom channels the Surfer’s powers into a giant new android called the Doomsman. The Doomsman fights the FF as they continue to tear through the castle. Shalla Bal tells the Surfer that she has no memories before her marriage to Doom. When she calls him by his real name, Norrin Radd, he believes her memories are returning. This immediately leads to them kissing. She then withdraws, her real memories coming back. She’s not Shalla Bal, but a peasant girl made to look like Shalla Bal, with her memories replaced by one of Doom’s machines. It was all to trick the Surfer.

The Surfer helps the FF beat the Doomsman, and then they fight Doom himself. The peasant girl, whose name is Helena, manages to stop the fighting, saying that if they destroy Doom’s castle they’ll be destroying her country’s priceless historic artifacts along with it. Because it’s a stalemate, Doom lets the FF and the Surfer leave. Then, strangely, we get a scene in Hell, where Mephisto (the Marvel Universe’s version of the Devil) brags about how Helena actually is Shalla Bal, though she doesn’t know it. Mephisto put her on Earth and wiped her memories as a cruel jest against the Silver Surfer. Bummer, man.

Unstable molecule: During the fight through Doom’s castle, Reed stretches to an almost liquid-like form to get from one room to another, saying if a breeze can get through a crack in a wall, so can he.

Fade out: Although Sue and Reed are a couple again, she’s not back on the team. She’s staying home with Franklin, leaving the superheroing up to Medusa.

Clobberin’ time: Thundra has gone from hating Ben to being so taken by him that she actually kisses him on the cheek.

Flame on: Johnny says his shopping excursion with Ben is a chance for them to become better friends. Bromance!

Fantastic fifth wheel: One scene has Medusa being pursued by reporters, and this somehow reminds her that she’s not human, and still very much an outsider.

Four and a half: Not only is Franklin out of his coma, but he has lost his reality-breaking super powers. How Reed knows this is never made clear.

Commercial break: I sure hope Marvel Studios secured the film rights to Man-Gods From Beyond the Stars.

Trivia time: Marvel published Giant-Size Fantastic Four during this time, but I won’t be covering them on this blog because you’re not missing anything. Madrox the Multiple Man made his first appearance, but other than that you’ve got the FF fighting bottom-barrel villains like the Horsemen and Tempus. Giant-Size Fantastic Four ran for only four issues before getting itself cancelled.

Fantastic or frightful? Another total mess. The Thundra/Mahkizmo stuff should be good for a laugh, but the time travel aspect of it was rushed and confusing. Ditto the Dr. Doom plot, which is a confusing Silver Surfer story guest-starring the FF.

Next week: Back to basics.

****

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