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Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We had the classic Stan Lee/Jack Kirby years, and we had the exciting new directions John Byrne took the characters years later. In between those two eras, though, we had the “middle years.”

Many fans dismiss the middle years as the time in Fantastic Four history in which nothing happened, but is that true? On one hand, we get Franklin’s emerging powers, new romances for Johnny, a truly epic confrontation with Dr. Doom in issue #200, and more. On the other hand, there are foolish new villains like Air-Walker, Ternak, and Mahkizmo. Even worse, there’s a lot of merely repeating the same stories Stan and Jack did, without trying anything new. So, I’m mixing up the format for the time being, as we’ll burn through the middle years on our road to Byrne.

Issue #103 picks up where the last one left off, with Namor and Atlantis declaring war on the surface world, but Namor is secretly being manipulated by Magneto, who wants to humans and Atlanteans to wipe each other out so mutants can take over the Earth. Reed contacts President Nixon (!) who gives Reed one chance to confront Namor before the U.S. military retaliates.

Magneto uses his powers to further convince Namor that the FF are attacking him instead of trying to reason with him, and then he (of course) takes Sue hostage. After several pages of fighting, Namor and the FF finally compare notes and realize that Magneto is playing them against each other. Then they learn he’s taken both Sue and Namor’s girlfriend Dorma hostage. Shouldn’t Magneto be smart enough to know that this won’t end well for him?

Issue #104 begins with a full-blown battle over the skies of New York, with Magneto using his powers to control all the missiles and ships from a distance. Fearing for Dorma’s safety, Namor switches sides again, helping Magneto conquer New York. Reed continues to argue with Nixon, who wants to launch the military. Reed promises to come up with a strategy to take out Magneto, and Johnny makes a similar promise to Namor.

Magneto, meanwhile, is mad with power, sitting on a big throne outside in New York, surrounded by Atlantean soldiers. Then there’s more fighting as Atlantis soldiers attack the Baxter Building. Reed finishes building a new device while the others fight off the soldiers. Reed’s device is an electric converter, which reflects Magneto’s powers back at him, trapping him in his own magnetic energy cage. (Science!) Magneto’s handed over to the military, the Atlanteans return to the sea, and Reed makes a big speech about peach and brotherhood.

Issue #105 begins with Crystal having a fainting spell just as an earthquake rocks New York. Reed obsesses over finding a cure for Ben, which leads to a flashback repeating the group’s origin story. Sue is out shopping when another earthquake hits, and she runs into a Dr. Zoltan Rambow (!) a scientist that she apparently knows from somewhere. The cause of the earthquakes is a strange glowing man roaming the streets of New York, and Rambow urges the FF not to destroy it. Reed gives Crystal the once over in the lab, and discovers that her DNA could be the key to curing Ben. The bad news is, Crystal has to return to the Inhumans, because staying around humans might mean her death. Where this development came from is never explained, but it leads to a lot of tears and heartache.

Crystal sends for the giant teleporting dog Lockjaw, says her teary-eyed goodbye to Johnny, and she’s gone. Johnny flips out, but comes to his senses long enough to help Sue and Dr. Rambow. Reed starts to heal Ben in a risky procedure, and then learns Sue is in danger. If he leaves Ben in mid-procedure, Ben could die, but if doesn’t go to help Sue, Sue might die. What to do? Cliffhanger!

Issue #106 has Sophie, um I mean Reed making his choice. He runs off to help Sue, leaving Johnny with Ben, instructing Johnny to absorb all the heat from Ben’s procedure. (Science!) This goes on for several pages of Johnny struggling to keep all machines hooked up to Ben from reheating. Reed joins Sue in the fight against the monster, who is still lashing out and destroying parts of New York at random. Dr. Rambow continues to plead that the monster shouldn’t be destroyed. Reed deduces that monster is Rambow’s son (hey, Son of Rambow, I saw that movie).

The monster, whose name is Larry (!) was part of an experiment that went horribly wrong, of course, and now he’s out of control. There’s several pages of fighting as Reed rushes Rambow to his lab in hopes of recovering a failsafe device. It works, and Larry is human again. The cliffhanger then is, what has become of Ben?

Issue #107 begins with a lot of drama over whether Ben will survive. Not only does he live, but he’s successfully turned back into a human! Even better, he can transform from human to the Thing and back again. Alicia shows up, conveniently, and doesn’t know what to think of the new Ben. Then there’s lots of soap opera stuff with Johnny whining about Crystal leaving, and Sue grousing about Reed spending more time in the lab instead of with her and the baby. Ben and Alicia enjoy a day out in New York, but he’s now very short-tempered and his newfound anger worries Alicia.

Sue goes to visit Franklin who’s with his supernatural nanny Agatha Harkness. She’s surprised to learn that Franklin can see her while invisible. Then, in Reed’s lab, a guy named Janus shows up, and even though this is his first appearance, he has some kind of history with the FF. He makes dire warnings about the Negative Zone, but it’s all a trick, as Janus’s whole plan is to enter the Negative Zone himself, and… to be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed is really the super-scientist in these issues, especially devising the long-lost cure for Ben.

Fade out: Despite Reed worrying about Sue in danger, she holds her own battling Larry, her force fields holding up to his energy blasts. She puts up a pretty good fight against Magneto as well.

Clobberin’ time: Ben’s transformation promises new developments for his character, although there’s still a little of the old self-pitying Ben, as he frets over whether Alicia liked him better as a monster.

Flame on: There’s another new use of Johnny’s powers as he absorbs excess heat from Reed’s machines. This takes a lot of out of him, and he has to fly to space to release the excess flame he’s built up.

Four and a half: Franklin is able to see Sue while she’s invisible, the first hint of his powers. The colorists still can’t decide what color his hair is.

Fantastic fourth wheel: After Crystal and Johnny split a few issues back, now they split up again. Here’s an example of the “let’s just redo what was done before” stories of this era.

Commercial break: Would you trust this guy with your money?

Trivia time: Not surprisingly, Larry Rambow did not go on to be a Marvel icon, but he did appear a few other times, under his new villain name, simply “The Monster.”

Fantastic or frightful? Already we see the contradictory nature of the middle years. We have exciting new developments for Ben, which promise some exciting stories in the near future, but there’s also a lot of lazily repeating what had been done before. It’s only going to go on from here?

Next week: Negative Zone crazies, and a slugfest for the ages.

****

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. Here we are, folks. The end of an era. It’s Jack Kirby’s final issue of Fantastic Four. According to suspicious-sounding internet rumors, Kirby allegedly turned in his resignation letter to Marvel the same day he turned in the artwork for this issue.

We begin with some comedy shtick. Ben has a cold. Crystal tries to force feed him medicine, and Ben’s sneezes are so powerful that they destroy an entire room. Reed interrupts, saying that Sue and the baby will soon return to supernatural nanny Agatha Harkness, once the rainstorm currently blowing over New York has passed.

From there, we cut to Namor the Sub-mariner. He and some of his followers are in a submarine in the ocean, “beneath frozen Antarctica,” to investigate a mysterious shock wave. Namor swims ahead and discovers a warm, tropical area in the middle of the Antarctic continent, complete with still-alive dinosaurs. He finds a lone survivor of the shock wave and… it’s Magneto! (This is picking up the storyline from Uncanny X-Men #63, the first appearance of the Savage Land, in which Magneto was apparently killed in a shockwave.)

Then, strange goings-on in New York, as the tops of skyscrapers are mysteriously being torn off by an unseen force and floating off into the sky. Under the sea, Magneto has not only regained consciousness, but found his way into an Atlantean lab, where the high-tech devices can amplify his magnetic powers greatly. He’s granted an audience with Namor, and he proposes an alliance between them, arguing that they are not “truly human.”

Back in Reed’s lab, he has deduced that Atlantis is the source of the magnetic disturbances. He’s sent a probe to Atlantis to investigate. He adds that if there’s a problem, a second press of the button will send a concussion missile along the probe’s path. “To warn them of their folly!” Reed says. Then there’s some action as the magnetic weirdness causes all the futuristic tech seemingly comes to life and attacks the FF. Ben decides to go on the offensive, pressing the button and launching the missile at Atlantis.

The missile trashes part of Atlantis, with Namor using his awesome strength to save his people. Magneto says he traced the missile’s path back to New York. Namor sees this as an act of war, and Magneto promises to aid Namor in the upcoming fight. Magneto thought-monologues to himself how he’s using the situation to goad Namor into attacking the surface world. Magneto hopes Atlantis will kill off all the humans, allowing mutants to rule in their place.

Back in headquarters, Reed chides Ben for firing the missile, as his “vibro-alarm” picks up signals of an entire fleet of Atlantean warships headed for New York, ready to start a war.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: For as much as Reed is angry at Ben for launching the missile, Reed’s the one who built it to blow up Atlantis with the press of a button.

Fade out: Sue sits this one out again, off taking care of the baby.  

Clobberin’ time: Ben, despite all strength, is susceptible to the common cold.

Flame on: Johnny is able to use his flame to draw the magnetized building debris into the ocean. Science!  

Four and a half: Franklin finally has his blond hair this issue, after several issues of his brown hair.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Crystal uses her powers to save the day when all the machines in Reed’s lab come to life. She zaps the control panel real good.  

Commercial break: Steampunk before there was steampunk:

Trivia time: “Wait a sec,” you say, “I thought issue #108 was Kirby’s last issue.” No, #108 was an inventory comic, drawn by Kirby years earlier and kept in a file, to be used as a backup in case they needed a fill-in at the last minute. Marvel history is rife with stories about these inventory comics, and the times they were and weren’t used.

Fantastic or frightful? A slim issue, with not a lot happening. Kirby doesn’t phone it in, managing to create some perfectly Kirby-ish outlandish visuals for his final go-around.

Next: Magneto in the middle.

****

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. It’s Jack Kirby’s next-to-last issue on the book, and once again we go back to the “gangster movie” style he was allegedly fond of at the time.

We open with some sitcom shtick at the Baxter Building, as our heroes are throwing a dance party. Alicia is there, with long black hair now. Ben trips while dancing and smashes up some furniture. (How much of the FF’s furniture do you suppose he’s inadvertently destroyed by this point?) The fun is interrupted when a letter arrives from a group called the “Maggia.” They claim to have purchased the Baxter Building, and they’re evicting the FF!

Meanwhile, at a restaurant downtown, members of the Maggia gather for a secret meeting, complete with giant plates of spaghetti. They’re gangsters! They’re leader, known only as “Top Man,” says the eviction is part of his plot to steal all of Reed’s scientific wonders. He has outfitted his men with special bullet-proof suits to deal with the FF.

It’s winter in New York, and the FF are out for a stroll, all bundled up. While horsing around with some kids, Ben sees a helicopter flying toward the Baxter Building, which Reed somehow recognizes as a Maggia aircraft. Armed goons are on the roof of the building, Johnny flies up there, and… fighting! The bad guys have fireproof suits and ice guns (!) but Johnny outsmarts them by generating a smoke screen that they can’t see through. It doesn’t work, though, as the goons hit him with a “circle of force,” whatever that is. Johnny is knocked out, and the Maggia takes him hostage, along with going inside and raiding the place.

Reed and the rest of the team make it inside as well, watching the Maggia’s movements on closed-circuit TV monitors. The baddies bust into the room and knock everyone out with “Noxo-gas.” They then seal the FFers in specially-made concrete coffins, drive them out to the Jersey Flats, and dump them in the river. They’re gangsters! Crystal unleashes an elemental shockwave, which frees the team. Reed swears to retake the Baxter Building, no matter what.

Back at headquarters, Sue sneaks through the place invisible while the Maggia men ransack the place. The baddies have a detector that can sense her presence, but they’re unprepared for her using force fields against them, not to mention a conveniently-placed fire extinguisher. The henchmen’s leader, a guy with the unfortunate name of Gimlet, threatens to send more men to Agatha Harkness’s place to kidnap lil’ Franklin, so Sue surrenders. That’s when Reed and Ben arrive, joining the fight. There’s a real scary bit where Sue traps Gimlet inside a force field as his gun goes off, with the bullets ricocheting all around him. Somehow, he’s not dead, but he gives up the fight.

Then the FF’s doorman, the one who delivered the letter at the start of the issue, arrives and shoots Gimlet. Reed does the Scooby-Doo thing and unmasks the doorman — it was Maggia leader Top Man all along, posing as the doorman to case the joint. He wanted to evict the FF all legal-like so as not to get his hands dirty, but Gimlet screwed it all up with the helicopter attack. The issue ends Reed makes a big speech about how the FF will continue to fight crime and make the world a better place. The problem is, we never see what becomes of Top Man. Does he sneak away while Reed was speechifying?

Unstable molecule: Reed keeps his cool during the crisis. Even though the bad guys catch him by surprise, he still works to out-think them rather than out-fight them.

Fade out: We get an excellent three pages of Sue fighting the villains on her own, which is more than we’ve got from her in ages.

Clobberin’ time: Ben lifts up a car to impress the kids he meets on the street. So, who owns that car?

Flame on: Johnny uses his powers to generate thick, black smoke as well as fire, something I don’t recall seeing him do anywhere else. Also, we learn that he can play guitar.

Four and a half: Franklin makes an appearance in a few panels, mostly just to let us know he’s still around, and to increase the sense of danger with the FF’s home being attacked. He has brown hair in one panel and orange-y hair in another.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Crystal is key to rescuing everyone from their underwater graves, and later she consoles the weakened Johnny by letting him rest his head in her lap, which he’s only too happy to do.

Commercial break: This ad appropriately represents the early 1970s. I especially like how the girl’s hair is three-fourths of the frame:

Trivia time: This is the first appearance of international crime syndicate the Maggia, who has since been all over the Marvel universe. Stalwart Marvel villains like Silvermane, Hammerhead, and Count Nefaria all have Maggia ties. There was controversy whether the film The Godfather could get away with using the word “mafia,” so I imagine the same must have been true for this comic.

Fantastic or frightful? What a weird issue. All the “real world” crime stuff contrasts in a big way with all the high-tech superhero action. I guess it’s a fun issue, but it’s also a mess.

Next week: Farewell to the King.

****

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