“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Fantastic Four No. 64

Tags

1967, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 64, jack Kirby, Kree, Sentry, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 64
“The Sentry Sinister”
Published: April 1967
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

After their recent battle with Blastaar, the Fantastic Four decide to go on a vacation (minus the Human Torch, who wants to stay behind with Crystal). The Thing randomly selects an island in the South Pacific where, unbeknowst to the FF, an archaeologist has awakened a slumbering alien robot, a Sentry left by the Kree. As the FF approach the island in their pogo plane, they enter a “vibration field” and only the Invisible Girl’s force field protects the team.

On the island, the three members battle the Sentry, which maintains it’s only following its orders to destroy the team, when Sue manages to send an emergency message to Johnny. Lockjaw teleports him to the island just in time to save the other members from a crushing tidal wave created by the robot. Johnny’s flame ignites a Kree power source and the team, along with the archeologist and his guide, teleport away from the island and the Sentry just as the island threatens to explode.

What’s going on here?

Aside from the creaky plot device of the Fantastic Four encountering trouble while on vacation (previously deployed in FF Annual 1), this is a brisk, well-told comic that balances some of the playful characterizations we have become familiar with compelling action and a villain the FF really are no match for.

Most notably, of course, FF 64 introduces the Kree, one of the three major alien empires in the Marvel Universe (along with the Skrull and Shi’ar) and maybe *the* most significant alien race in Marvel (I would even expand it to say in all of comics, except for the progeny of a little planet called Krypton).

The Kree-Skrull war is one of the most notable events in early Marvel history, the Kree created the Inhumans, Marvel’s original Captain Marvel was a renegade Kree, and Carol Danvers—first Ms. Marvel, then Binary, Warbird and now Captain Marvel—got her powers via the Kree. The new Ms. Marvel, Kamal Khan, became a hero indirectly via the Kree, since she was exposed to the Inhuman’s Terrigen Mists.

In fact, the significance of the Kree is making me re-evaluate my unofficial designation of FF 44-60 as the highpoint of the Lee-Kirby creative partnership and extend it to FF 67, which would include not only the creation of the Kree but the realization of the Negative Zone as an alien dimension, and the introduction of Blastaar, Ronan the Accuser, the Supreme Intelligence and Him, later to become Adam Warlock (much more on all of that to come). It’s both evidence of Stan and Jack’s creative energies, and Marvel’s ability to take hold of good ideas and nourish them over the years, giving them new life again and again.

Interestingly, the antagonist in this issue, the Kree Sentry robot, sort of fades in importance as the actual Kree take shape. He’s sort of a stalking horse for the much bigger empire to come. But you wouldn’t know that from this issue, and this amazing Kirby splash page. And, it should be noted, he pretty much wipes the floor with the FF, who only escape by teleporting off the island.

At one point the Sentry declares it is “no mere robot” and calls itself a living Sentry. Certainly, it’s vocabulary suggests it’s not from the robot-school of speaking. What mere robot uses so many adjectives?

The sexist sixties

This is a pretty egregious issue for ’60s-style sexism, starting with Sue huffing over being ignored while Reed and Ben are working.

It gets worse when Reed barks orders at her during a battle (note: this could have been filed under the “Reed Richards is a Jerk” heading).

Further, Reed is engaged in some revisionist history when he claims it was headline writers that pinned the name “Mr. Fantastic” on him. Because if you’ve read FF No. 1, you’ll recall it was Reed who gave himself that moniker.