“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 49

30 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1966, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 49, galactus, jack Kirby, Silver Surfer, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 49
“If This Be Doomsday!”
Published: Jan. 1966
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Sam Rosen
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 49 picks up where issue 48 left off, after Galactus makes his entrance, intent on draining earth of its energies. The Watcher urges Galactus to reconsider, and the FF confront him, but to no avail and he begins assembling his earth-energy-sucking machine on top of the Baxter Building.

Meanwhile, the Silver Surfer, reeling from his fight with the Thing, landed on the roof of Alicia Masters’ building. She nurses him back to health and begins to awaken him to the possibility earth might be worth saving.

After regrouping, the Fantastic Four again engage Galactus, save for Johnny, whom the Watcher singles out for a mission. As the rest of the team fight the Punisher, a creature Galactus dispatches to deal with vermin, Johnny travels through space and time to arrive at Galactus’s enormous space station.

Back on earth, as Galactus prepares to drain the earth’s energies, Alicia appeals to the Silver Surfer’s lost humanity and convinces him to confront Galactus to save the earth. The issue ends with the Watcher warning the reader that the Surfer may disrupt his own plans and doom the earth.

What’s going on here?

FF 49 is everything you want a Fantastic Four comic to be. It’s arguably the high point of the Lee/ Kirby partnership, and showcases both at the peak of their powers (aided significantly by Joe Sinnott’s inks, of course). In Galactus, Stan finally has an antagonist worthy of his bombast and grandiosity. After years of trying to convince us Diablo or the Thinker were threats to humanity, In Galactus Stan has a villain that lives up to his over-wrought writing. And in the Surfer, he has an alien hero who can philosophize while speaking in the lofty, faux-Shakespearian tones Stan loves so much.

Kirby rises to the occasion too. The story’s huge sweep and cosmic overtones gives him the freedom to produce amazing character designs for Galactus and the Punisher, an eye-popping panel of Galactus’s space station—it’s so big that planets orbit it—and stunning visual effects of Johnny confronting Galactus and traveling through space.

The whole story just feels big—big in its scope, big in its stakes, and big in its ambition

Who is this guy?

While Galactus technically made his first appearance last issue, this is really his debut. We don’t yet get the full story (more on his origin in a bit) but we get the basics, and the basics are more than enough: He’s a cosmic being of incredible power who is sustained by draining planets of their essence. Interestingly, while he has appeared in countless comics over the years, unlike other characters, he has changed very little. His costume design has remained essentially the same, and while his role in the Marvel universe has been explained and put into context, he acts pretty much as he does in his first appearance: traveling the universe looking for planets to consume.

The traditional account of Galactus’s invention is that Stan, searching for a story idea, said “let’s have them fight god.” Mark Evanier, in his biography Kirby: King of Comics, disputes that narrative and instead offers two alternative ideas. One is that Jack wanted to upend the conventional science fiction idea that if aliens arrived, they would engage with humans and exchange technology. What if they didn’t care about humans? Jack wondered, according to Evanier. What if they just wanted to eat our planet? The other idea reflects Kirby’s growing disillusionment with Marvel and the business of comics. In this interpretation, Galactus is a hostile company buying up smaller firms and draining them dry. (In the letters pages, readers projected a Vietnam metaphor on the story, with Galactus acting as hostile communist forces and the Silver Surfer as the US coming to the rescue of South Vietnam).

Galactus’s origin is relatively uncomplicated. In the original telling, revealed in a back-up story by Stan and Jack in Thor 169, Galactus was originally Galan, a citizen of an advanced planet called Taa. The planet is facing extinction by a plague, so Galan and three others decide to die as explorers and head into Taa’s sun. Galan survives and is eventually transformed into Galactus (as Brian Cronin notes in his Comics Should Be Good blog, this sounds like a mash-up of Superman and the FF’s origins.)

A few decades later, Marvel editor Mark Gruenwald decided to revamp Galactus’s origins. Instead of merely the last survivor of a planet, he became the last survivor of a universe, and he emerged from the Big Bang. Gruenwald basically took the Stan and Jack story, wrote over some of it with some new pages by John Byrne and Ron Wilson, and republished it in 1983 as Super-Villain Classics 1. Here are some relevant pages:

The notable thing about this origin is that establishes Galactus as a cosmic entity, a force of nature and not merely a villain, despite the destruction he causes. That tension became a major storyline during Byrne’s FF run, when Reed Richards begs Galactus to spare earth in FF 243, and Galactus basically says, “nothing personal, it’s just business.”

Reed, with the help of the Avengers, then saves Galactus’s life in FF 244, arguing they had a moral responsibility to prevent the death of a living thing.

Noble as it was, that decision didn’t sit well with the survivors of the worlds Galactus destroyed, and in FF 262 Reed is summoned to be tried for his crime of saving Galactus. Through Reed, Byrne makes the case of Galactus’s importance in the universe:

There’s a lot more to it, but it serves to anchor Galactus as a unique force in the Marvel universe. On a personal note, FF 262 was the third FF comic I ever read. My 12-year-old mind was blown.

About that outfit

In his first appearance, Kirby has Galactus wearing shorts with a big G on his chest:

Fortunately, he soon put on long pants and got rid of the G, but his appearance, with the elaborate headgear has remained pretty much the same ever since. Yet despite its visual appeal, it’s not obvious why he’s dressed that way, given that he is a cosmic force and not a run-of-the-mill bad guy. The Lee / Kirby origin in Thor provides one answer: He was given that outfit by a Watcher, who witnessed his emergence from his incubator and created “a unique body-suit which would help him regulate his awesome energies.”

Later, Byrne in FF 262, suggests only humans see Galactus as humanoid, and that he appears to other alien races in whatever form they take (I never much liked this explanation, since he’s never depicted as anything other than humanoid, and it makes more sense to me that he’s human-like because Galan of Taa was also human-like). It’s a pretty cool page though.

Wrong guy

Whaddya mean there’s another Punisher?

That sounds familiar

On his cosmic voyage, the Human Torch passed through “celestial barriers known as un-life” which sounds a lot like ‘anti-life,” a concept that became a big part of the Fourth World mythos Jack created at DC about five years later.

About that vow

On several occasions the Watcher references his vow not to interfere in human affairs while busily interfering in human affairs

Prime real estate

A few issues ago, Dragon Man crashed into Alicia’s apartment while fighting Ben and Johnny. Now, the Silver Surfer just happens to land on her roof.

Crazy credits

It’s clobberin’ time

One of the more ineffective attempts to clobber from Ben

Dig that Kirby Krackle

There’s a lot to choose from in this issue, but here are a few stand-out pages and panels, starting with the amazing splash page:

A very cool sequence:

And another amazing page:

Next issue: The conclusion of the Galactus trilogy!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 48

23 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1965, Black Bolt, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 48, galactus, Inhumans, jack Kirby, Silver Surfer, Stan Lee, Watcher

Fantastic Four 48
“The Coming of Galactus!”
Published: Dec. 1965
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

As has been the pattern or the last dozen issues, Fantastic Four 48 picks up where FF 47 left off. The team is in Attilan, the city of the Inhumans, and Maximus has set off his Atmo-Gun, intending to destroy humanity so the Inhumans can rule the earth. Black Bolt, who last issue wrested his crown back from his brother Maximus, confronts him and knocks him silly. Medusa explains to Maximus his plan was doomed because the Inhumans are still human despite their powers, and a device that spares Inhumans would also spare humans. In a last gasp, Maximus reverses the charge on his Atmo-Gun, generating a “negative zone” — a term that should sound familiar—around Attilan. The Invisible Girl creates a force field which allows the FF to pass through the zone and escape but the Inhumans are trapped behind it, leaving the Human Torch distraught when he is separated from Crystal.

Meanwhile, as the FF return to New York, we are introduced to the Silver Surfer as he glides through space, and are warned that he is a harbinger of Galactus. Back in New York, the skies are aflame, and panicking New Yorkers blame the Human Torch. The flames disappear, only to be replaced by “space debris.” The Watcher appears, and explains these effects are his doing in order to disguise the earth from the Silver Surfer. The Surfer then arrives and sends a signal to space before The Thing clobbers him. The signal summons Galactus, who emerges from his ship and announces his intentions to drain the earth of “all elemental life.” The issue ends with the cliff hanger.

What’s going on here?

FF 48 marks the beginning of the Galactus trilogy, arguably the apex of the Lee and Kirby run on the Fantastic Four. But oddly, before we can start this epic story, we need to resolve the last story, the FF’s adventure with the Inhumans. I’m not sure why Stan and Jack constructed the comic this way, but it’s strange that it’s divided into two stories.

The Inhumans portion of the comic establishes Maximus as the royal family’s principle antagonist, creates a bit of romantic drama between Black Bolt and Medusa, and ramps up the star-crossed-lovers theme between Johnny and Crystal. All good stuff, but it’s sort of forgettable compared to the rest of the comic, which introduces two major Marvel figures: the Silver Surfer, and Galactus. We’ll deal with Galactus in our next post, because there’s a lot to say about the Surfer.

Who is this guy?

The Silver Surfer was one of Jack Kirby’s prized creations, and a source of major tension between him and Stan Lee, one which helped lead to Kirby’s departure from Marvel. According to Mark Evanier in his biography Kirby: King of Comics, Jack created him without any involvement from Stan Lee, who first encountered the Surfer when he saw the penciled pages of FF 48. Allegedly upon seeing him, Stan said “Jack, this time you’ve gone too far.” But Lee soon fell in love with the character, and it’s not hard to see why, given his penchant for grandiloquent soliloquies. Stan soon launched a Surfer solo book to be drawn by new Marvel star John Buscema, and gave the Surfer an origin very different from the one what Jack had in mind, leaving Jack frustrated and angry. According to Evanier “his idea had been taken from him in every possible sense.”

So why a surfer? Evanier doesn’t say what inspired Jack to put Galactus’s herald on a surfboard, but it probably has to with the general interest in surfing as a sport in the early to-mid 1960s. Surf music was charting, with the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were churning out hits like “Surf City” and “Surfin’ USA,” and beach party movies, which often featured surfing, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello were in the theaters. The next year, The Endless Summer, a surfing documentary, would come out. Clearly surfing was in the zeitgeist.

Jack would reach into the same bag of tricks a few years later when he was at DC and created the Black Racer, a member of the New Gods who acts sort of like a herald of death. By then, ski racing was popular, after Jean-Claude Killy’s star turn in the 1968 Olympics and the release of 1969’s Downhill Racer, a movie starring Robert Redford.

But while the design of the Surfer was abstract and elegant enough so that he only looked like he was surfing through space and not an actual surfer, Black Racer is far more literal and, I would argue, far less successful of a design.

About that origin

According to Evanier, Jack envisioned the Surfer as a being of pure energy who had never been human, and thus needs emotions like love explained to him. But in the origin Stan told in 1968’s Silver Surfer 1, the Surfer was once an (alien) man, Norrin Radd, who pledges himself to Galactus in order to spare his home world, Zenn-La, and his love, Shalla-Bal. The theme of the Surfer’s sacrifice and lost humanity is a powerful one and gives writers lots to chew on over the years. Here are the relevant pages from Silver Surfer 1. (And while John Buscema might be cast as a bad guy in Stan’s dispute with Jack, he probably had no say in it and there’s no denying how gorgeous his art is, here inked by Joe Sinnott).

Over the years, the Silver Surfer has attracted some of the comic world’s best and brightest creators. Here he is drawn by Marshall Rogers and inked by Joe Rubenstein in his 1987 solo series:

And drawn by Moebius, Esad Ribic, and Francesco Manna:

Along with starring in several of his own solo series, he also was an on-again-off-again member of the Defenders:

*The Defenders 2 (1972, story by Steve Englehart, art by Sal Buscema and John Verporten)*

My first real encounter with the Silver Surfer came in John Byrne’s Fantastic Four 260, a comic I have discussed before as igniting my interest in comics in general and the Fantastic Four in particular. Here, he battles Terrax, another former herald of Galactus given new life by Dr. Doom. There was something incredibly cool about the Surfer, who is as unadorned and sleek as a hood ornament, and both bristling with power and noble in his restraint. Reader, I was hooked.

Keel hauled

One aspect of the Surfer’s design I’ve always been curious about is whether his surfboard should have a keel. According to Kirby and Rogers, it does:

Silver Surfer 2 (1987, Englehart/Rogers/Rubinstein)

Byrne and Buscema are in the no-keel camp:

Personally, I prefer a no-keel look, since the keel makes it look too literally like a surf board. It’s not – there are no ocean waves in space.

One last detail about the Surfer: He is introduced to readers by the Skrulls, who fear he might alert Galactus to their homeworld. Byrne, always a student of the Lee/Kirby issues, returns to that idea decades later when he has Galactus consume the Skrull’s planet.

Crazy Credits

Young love

Johnny takes his separation from Crystal hard, which is weird since they barely know each other.

The sexist sixties

Sue’s pouting and histrionics aren’t quite as bad in tis issue as last, but it’s still pretty bad (and is Ben smoking a cigarette in the first panel?)

Clobberin’ Time

It’s starting to be a regular occurance now (this is No. 10 by my count).

Feats of strength

It’s been long time since we’ve had one of these sequences of Ben showing off his strength. They used to be in almost every issue.

Dig that Kirby Krackle!

As if this issue didn’t have enough going on, we get a Kirby Kollage as Galactus arrives on earth:

Nu Yawk, Nu Yawk:

Another very cool panel (Joseph Levine was a Hollywood producer behind bombastic adventure movies like Hercules):

The Watcher, looking buff:

And oh yeah, this guy:

Next issue: Galactus! (duh)

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 47

17 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1965, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 47, Inhumans, jack Kirby, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 47
“Beware the Hidden Land!”
Published Nov. 1965
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 47 picks up where FF 46 left off (once very unusual, the cliff-hanger ending is becoming the rule in the Fantastic Four). Dragon Man has escaped the Seeker and is on a rampage but before the team can pursue him, they need to attend to Triton, the fish-like Inhuman who is dying without water. Mr. Fantastic orders the Thing and the Human Torch to pursue Dragon Man, then instructs the Invisible Girl to enclose Triton in a forcefield, which he fills with water. Ben and Johnny eventually subdue Dragon Man, but not before the creature almost destroys the studio of Alicia Masters, Ben’s girlfriend.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Inhumans teleport back to the Andes and their hidden city of Attilan (called only “the Great Refuge” here) where it is revealed that Maximus, Black Bolt’s brother, has usurped the throne and dispatched the Seeker to capture the Inhuman royal family. After Maximus orders the ape-like Alpha Primatives to attack the royal family, Black Bolt eventually wrests the crown back from Maximus.

The Fantastic Four arrive, having tracked the Seeker, and confront Black Bolt, who demands the team leave. As the groups debate, the issue ends with Maximus preparing to fire his “Atmo-Gun” which promises to destroy mankind, leaving the earth to the Inhumans.

What’s going on here?

Fantastic Four 47 is a frustrating issue. It features some of the most outstanding Kirby art to date (the influence of Joe Sinnott is really apparent), a story jammed with plot and sub-plots, but also some of the most egregiously sexist characterizations in the comic so far. The depiction of Sue is almost unreadable, and Reed’s treatment of her is equally painful.

Let’s start with Reed barking orders at a flummoxed Sue, who seems incapable of understanding her own powers:

Then, as Sue suggests the Inhumans can tend to their own affairs, Reed shuts her down.

Later, as the Fantastic Four flies to Attilan, Sue attends to … her hair.

Which leads to this excruciating sequence:

And finally, once again Reed needs to tell Sue how to use her powers:

And if there was any worry that it was just Sue who was written like this, here’s Alicia—allegedly an accomplished sculptor with a life of her own—pining away for Ben:

It’s hard to understand where the treatment of Sue is coming from, other than it being just a particularly sexist product of its era. Frustratingly, in the previous dozen or so issues, Stan and Jack had written her having more agency and mastery over her powers, but it all seems to revert back to idiotic stereotypes in FF 47.

Elsewhere …

Fantastic Four 47 further elaborates on the Inhumans and the dynamics within the royal family. We are introduced to Maximus, and he’s revealed to be the real villain. Confusingly, a flunky of his says it was Maximus who ordered Gorgon to capture Medusa in issue 44, when it seemed obvious that he was working on behalf of Black Bolt to reunite her with the royal family.

Also, Maximus refers to an “accident” that left Black Bolt speechless and left unable to rule, an explanation which is eventually retconned away when the power of Black Bolt’s voice becomes the reason for his silence (his voice’s power isn’t revealed until FF 54, and his silence is more fully explained in the Thor backup stories).

Crazy Credits

Subtle but clever.

Star-crossed lovers

Ben and Alicia’s relationship is also given some attention in Fantastic Four 47, as Ben is desperate to save her as Dragon Man threatens to destroy her building. They make their feelings for each other known thusly:

Leading to more anguish from Ben later in the story, as he return to a familiar theme- his lost humanity.

Those crazy kids

Meanwhile, Ben isn’t the only one with relationship issues, as Johnny and Crystal reunite (oddly, her nickname is written here as “Chris” and not “Crys”).

Oops

Why are the FF flying a commercial jet instead of their Fantasticar, their Pogo Plane or their ICBM? Stan supplies an explanation, but I’m guessing Jack just forgot.

It’s Clobbberin’ Time

Ben is starting to say the magic words more frequently. This is the ninth time, by my count.

Weird Science

Beware the Atmo-Gun!

Dig That Kirby Krackle

Jack (with an assist from Sinnott) delivers some of the most dynamic pages yet. Here are a few:

Next issue: The resolution of the Inhumans sage, and the beginning of a little story featuring some guys called Galactus and the Silver Surfer!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 46

14 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1965, Black Bolt, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 46, Inhumans, jack Kirby, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 46
“Those who would destroy us!”
Published: Oct. 1965
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 46 picks up where FF 45 leaves off, with the team battling the Inhumans on the roof of a New York City building. Black Bolt, leader of the Inhumans makes his appearance, and he and the Thing battle to a virtual standstill. Meanwhile, the Inhuman Triton is revealed to be a scaly fish creature who need a protective suit of water. When it ruptures, he flees to the nearby river.

As the teams fight, a new character called the Seeker leads a team of henchmen into the Baxter Building in search of the Inhumans. He instead discover the sedated Dragon Man, and mistaking him for an Inhuman, abducts him via his aircraft.

Black Bolt depletes his power fighting the Thing, and when the Inhumans can’t find Triton, they realize the Seeker has caught up to them. Using Lockjaw’s power, they teleport away, and after the Fantastic Four discovers Dragon Man is missing, they track the Seeker to his hideout, where he has imprisoned Dragon Man and Triton. The Seeker reveals the origins of the Inhumans (more on that in a bit) then Dragon Man wakes up, escapes his shackles and flees, while shattering the water-filled globe that contained Triton. The issue ends with Dragon Man running amok in New York.

What’s going on here?

More Inhuman action and the introduction of Black Bolt!

Black Bolt’s most salient quality is that he’s mute. Sure, he’s strong enough to battle the Thing, but his silence is what sets him apart from other characters. We’ll learn later that it’s because of the destructive power of his voice, but most of the time he’s a leader who can’t speak. In a world where there’s often a great deal of talk without much action, Black Bolt is cast as the opposite, the king who acts without talking. I doubt Stan and Jack meant Black Bolt to serve as a jab at anyone in particular, but probably as a blanket commentary on bloviating politicians as a class. The strong-yet-silent leader is a seductive concept, although one that works a lot better in comic books, where most conflicts are resolved with fists and not dialogue.

Black Bolt—whose full name was later retconned, painfully, into Blackagar Boltagon— occupies an interesting place in comics. As leaders of the Inhumans, he holds an important role, and is highly enough regarded enough, for example, to be part of the Illuminati, one of the six super heroes who dictate events in the Marvel Universe (according to writer Brian Bendis, anyway). Yet because he’s mute, he’s always been a cypher. His thoughts and intentions are always relayed through other characters, and he rarely is even given thought bubbles. What are his hopes and dreams? Who knows? It’s hard to think of another comic hero so prominent about whom we know so little.

About that mask

When the Inhumans were introduced, they almost all wore masks. While some have lost their’s over the years, Black Bolt almost always wears his. There’s no obvious reason in-story that’s ever given for his mask- it’s not like he was a secret identity to protect, or hideous scars to cover. Tracking down an image of Black Bolt’s actual face is surprisingly difficult, but here’s at least one instance, from 2015’s Uncanny Inhumans:

*Uncanny Inhumans 20 (2015, story by Charles Soule, art by Brandon Peterson)*

The best explanation of why members of the Inhuman royal family wear masks was provided by the great writer and artist Alan Davis, in his mini-series Fantastic Four: The End. It takes place in the team’s future, and Ben and Alicia are living with the Inhumans on Mars. It comes down to a tension about the appearance of the Inhumans, and the role of the transfarmative terrigen mists in their culture.

*Fantastic Four: The End 3 (2006, story and pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer)*

**Who are these guys?**

FF 46 also includes a brief origin of the Inhumans, courtesy of the Seeker.

The origin omits a critical detail (or more likely, Stan and Jack hadn’t come up with it yet), which is that the Inhumans were an experiment of the Kree, an alien race that will be introduced in Fantastic Four 65. Eventually a much longer origin is unspooled as a back-up story in Thor 146-152 (of all places), published in 1967-68. Here are some key panels that explain the role of the Kree (the whole story is gorgeous, with peak Kirby/ Sinnott art).

The Thor stories also delve into how Black Bolt became king of the Inhumans, and include this poignant sequence:

The Seeker

The Seeker is the heavy in this issue. In later stories he is named as Kadlec, a viceroy under a previous ruler of the Inhumans and given a bit of a back story. Although he never becomes a much more than a footnote in Inhumans history, he looks great here.

Crazy Credits
A bit more subdued this month.

Weird science

Reed invents … the security camera and VCR?

Dig that Kirby Krackle

Some cool stuff from Jack, including a slumbering Dragon Man…

… the Seeker’s airship …

.. and whatever this is!

Next issue: The conclusion of the Inhumans saga!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 45

02 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1965, Crystal, Fantastic Four, Inhumans, jack Kirby, Joe Sinnnott, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 45
“Among Us Hide the Inhumans”
Published: Sept. 1965
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Lettering: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Programming note: Before we dive into a big issue, this post marks a full year of blogging about the Fantastic Four. We’ve covered 45 regular issues and three annuals. Not quite the 52 posts I was aiming for but not bad. If all goes according to plan, the next few months will cover some of the biggest stories in comic book history, then the rest of the year will wrap up most of the remaining Lee/Kirby FFs. That’s the idea, anyway. But I’m open to ideas: What do you want me to write about? Should I continue issue-by-issue? Should I cover the FF’s appearances in other comics? Is there something you want more of? Or less of? Drop a line in the comments if you have thoughts. They would be very welcome.

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 45 picks off where FF 44 left off, on the crumbling roof of a Manhattan building. Dragon Man has flown off with the Invisible Girl and Gorgon has abducted Medusa. After Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch and the Thing are safely on the ground, Johnny flies after Dragon Man, who is eventually calmed by Sue and returns her peacefully to the Baxter Building.

A morose Johnny later takes a walk and finds himself in a deserted neighborhood where he encounters a young woman who disappears in a windstorm. After squabbling with the rest of the team, Johnny returns, and discovers the woman has powers. Mistaking him for a fellow Inhuman, she introduces herself as Crystal and Johnny then meets Lockjaw and Karnak. But when he is discovered by Medusa and Gorgon, the Inhumans try to imprison him. Johnny escapes and summons the rest of the Fantastic Four. The teams are about to square off when Black Bolt makes his entrance, ending the issue with another cliffhanger.

What’s going on here?

The introduction of the Inhumans is obviously the significant development in FF 45. They’ve been a major part of the Marvel universe ever since, appearing either in their own series or, more frequently, as guest stars in other books almost continuously since. Finding the backstory for the Inhumans has proven difficult, but at one point it seems they were destined for their own series before a change in plans led Stan and Jack to fold them into the FF. Did Stan and Jack have a full team of super characters in mind when they introduced Medusa in FF 36? It seems unlikely. Here’s Stan, in a 1967 radio interview he gave alongside Jack:

“I mean, we didn’t sit down one day and say let’s do a group of Inhumans and these are their names and we’ll present them in this fashion, as with everything we do. We just sort of stumble into them as we go along.”

Earlier in the interview, Stan explains the concept started with Gorgon:

“He started out as a villain. We liked him so much, I should say Jack liked him so much, that he kept using him. We figured he has to come from somewhere. We decided, let him come from some strange land over in Europe, where there are a whole group of people like him. And well, what else could you call them except the Inhumans. Then Jack had to create a whole bunch of Inhumans and I think he did a great job. All these characters are really very imaginative.

When it came to doing the leader, we decided, well, there was no need for them all to be villainous. And you’re right, I think we did have in mind that Black Bolt would eventually be a heroic type.”

It’s of course possible that Stan was talking out of turn, and Jack had it all mapped out, but it was a joint interview, and he didn’t contradict Stan.

*FF 240 (1981) Story, pencils and inks by John Byrne*

**Who’s the new guy?**

The other big development in this issue—technically it was issue 44, but I goofed and forgot to mention it last week—is it marks the beginning of Joe Sinnott’s legendary run as inker. Sinnott inked FF 5, then starting with issue 44 goes on to ink the FF for 16 years until issue 231 in 1981, stopping only when John Byrne took over the book and inked himself. Then, after Byrne left in 1987, Sinnott inked the FF for another two years.

Sinnott’s inks help create the classic Kirby look. The lines are bolder, the shadows are deeper, the forms are more defined. His inks give the Thing his essential rockiness and give the Kirby Krackle its explosive energy.

His presence on the book for so many years after Kirby departed gave the FF a smooth, consistent appearance, although it could be argued that his inks smothered the unique qualities of some up-and-coming artists on the book like George Perez and Bill Sienkiewicz, who later flourished with other inkers.

Meet the Inhumans

Medusa and Gorgon we already know. In FF 45 we are introduced to Crystal, who has the power to manipulate the four elements: fire, water, earth and air.

We soon meet Lockjaw, a giant dog with the ability to teleport:

And Karnak, who can find the weakness in any substance:

Triton, a water breather, is kept hidden, with the promise of a bigger reveal later:

And lastly, Black Bolt makes a dramatic appearance at the end:

Plus, one more: While Stan and Jack almost certainly didnt intend it, the portal Johnny and Crystal travel through was retconned by Johnathan Hickman into Eldrac the Doorway, “once a politician.”

FF 577 (2010, story by Hickman, art by Dale Eaglesham)

About Crystal

While all the Inhumans have an impact of the Fantastic Four, Crystal is the one perhaps most closely tied to the team. She becomes Johnny’s love interest, then, when Sue is on maternity leave, she officially joins the FF in issue 81:

She later falls in love with Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver, an Avenger and son of Magneto. Johnny is not thrilled.

*FF 131 (1973, story by Roy Thomas, art by Ross Andru and Joe Sinnott)*

Crystal and Pietro eventually marry in FF 150 (as shown in this post) and Crystal gives birth to baby Luna, so named because she arrived just as the Inhuman city of Attilan was transported to the moon: