Fantastic Four 138
“Madness is … the Miracle Man!”
Published June 1973
Plot: Roy Thomas
Script: Gerry Conway
Pencils: John Buscema
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: John Costanza
Colors: Petra Goldberg
Editor: Thomas
Cover: Buscema and Sinnott

NB: This issue came out after Fantastic Four Annual 10 (technically “King-Size Fantastic Four 10”) but since it consists of reprints of annuals 3 and 4, it didn’t seem worth posting about.

Synopsis

Wyatt Wingfoot reappears and asks the Fantastic Four to help with an emergency on his Oklahoma reservation. There, the team — minus Mr. Fantastic, who remained in New York — is attacked by the Miracle Man, who has discovered new powers.

What’s going on here?

This story is very similar to the Gregory Gideon arc of a few issues ago. Basically, Roy Thomas unearths an obscure villain from the early Lee/ Kirby run (in this case, the Miracle Man debuted all the way back in FF 3), gives him new powers and sets him on world domination. It’s not really clear why Thomas needs to dredge up an old character vs. create a new one – he spends so much time explaining how the Miracle Man got his powers he might as well gave invented a similar villain from scratch. Plus, there’s something odd about this former stage magician cavorting about the mesas of Oklahoma.

The positive side of Thomas’s dredging up the past is the return of Wingfoot, last seen in issue 80. Wingfoot is a fun sidekick who, despite his many appearances over the years, has never suffered the fate of so many supporting characters and been given super powers. I hope I didnt jinx him.

Otherwise the story is unremarkable. There’s some classic comic book treatment of Native Americans as noble, spiritual primitives, and a few bits of nice character moments for Ben, Johnny, Reed and Alicia. Medusa is again basically sidelined into uselessness and Sue and Franklin don’t appear at all. The story does resolve one odd subplot introduced back in issue 134 and then dropped (and surely forgotten by most readers): the mysterious muscular figure entering the Baxter Building was Wingfoot.

What I liked

I’ve been critical of Thomas and Conway for stories that have been either absurd (the last two issues) or pedestrian, but to give credit where credit is due, this issue is well plotted and paced. It has a classic slow opening, with the FF in the Baxter Building, includes a nice scene at Metro University (last seen in issue 62), and builds to an action-filled climax without rushing to the end like so many Lee/Kirby stories. And as mentioned above, we get some character-focused scenes like this one:

There’s also some slam-bang Buscema art in this issue, like these panels:

And this one:

What I didn’t like

I will admit upfront this is picking nits, and maybe I only care because I am fascinated by geography, but the travel times in this issue don’t add up.

On the first part of the journey, the FF travel by Pogo Plane from New York to Metro University, which is established as somewhere in New Jersey (it’s an odd name for a NJ college but no matter). Ben says the trip will take half an hour.

Then, on the second part to Oklahoma, the trip takes 57 minutes.

I will accept there is some time lost in taking off and landing, and maybe there is congestion in the New York New Jersey airspace, but even the farthest corner of New Jersey is just 124 miles from Manhattan. From there it’s 1,100 miles to the nearest corner of Oklahoma! It shouldn’t take just twice as long to travel 10 times as far!

Ok, geography rant over.

Anything else?

There is a nice tribute to Bill Everett, creator of the Sub-Mariner, in the Bullpen Bulletins. Oddly, this issue appeared in June, five months after he died.

Some excellent ads in this issue. I love how the karate ad warns that, after completing the course, you may have to register your hands with the local police department. “May” is doing a lot of work there.

As per usual with comic ads, they seem designed to appeal to the (apparently low) self-esteem of the comic reader.

Overall

Nice rebound from the last two issues.