Fantastic Four 212
“The Battle of the Titans!”
Published August 1979
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: John Costanza
Colors: Carl Gafford
Editor: Wolfman
Cover: Walter Simonson

Synopsis

Galactus, Terrax and the Fantastic Four head to Earth to stop the Sphinx. Once there, the Invisible Girl falls unconscious as the Skrull’s aging ray takes effect. The rest of the FF track the Sphinx to Egypt (naturally), where he announces his plans to remake the world. Terrax attacks the Sphinx and is quickly defeated. Galactus then arrives and while he and the Sphinx prepare to do battle for the right to Earth, Terrax launches an attack on the FF.

What’s going on here?

This is a table-setting issue, laying the ground up the next and (one hopes) final chapter in a very long story arc that began way back in issue 204. After maneuvering the chess pieces around for nearly a year, Wolfman seems to have what he wants: Galactus vs. the Sphinx for the Earth, with the FF helpless as they succumbs to the Skrull’s aging ray. It took a lot to get us here and it remains to be seen if Wolfman can stick the landing.

The art in this issue is unremarkable. There are a few panels that have Byrne’s signature elements, but it’s much more by-the-book than last issue. Maybe he got a talking-to.

He does deliver an impressive double-page splash which also seems like an exercise in illustrating one-point perspective:

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this comic is the cover, which marks Walt Simonson’s Fantastic Four debut. At this point Simonson was an established creator with runs on comics like Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, but he was still a few years from his legendary run on Thor which established him a comics superstar. Simonson, of course, would go on to have his own, too-brief run on the FF as writer and illustrator for 20 issues from 1989 to 1991. I consider it one of the top 5 FF runs of all time.

While I am a huge Simonson fan, I have to say this cover is not exactly his best work. Ben, particularly, is hard to look at. But it has his signature dinosaur signature, which is something.


What I liked

It took a while, but the Skrull aging ray finally is having a serious impact on the FF, as Sue approaches death. Johnny explains that there’s a history of early death in their family, which was brought up a few issues ago. This sequence is appropriately grave and ratchets up the stakes for the team.

I also liked the reappearance of the Skrull from issue 204, who seems to have spent the previous week as a computer.

And I liked how Terrax is again reprimanded by Galactus in a great Byrne panel:

What I didn’t like

A big chunk of this issue is taken up by recaps and flashbacks. The first four pages are devoted to explaining the last eight issues, which makes for a very dull start to the comic. There’s so much to recap Wolfman drags in the Watcher for the sequence:

We also get a lengthy flashback explaining how the Sphinx became suicidal, which involves the intervention of a character called Sayge. Sayge apparently has been around for a while, first appearing in the mid-60s as a Dr. Strange character, but here their appearance feels utterly unnecessary and just drags out the Sphinx’s mostly uninteresting origin story.

Anything else?

These look cool:

Overall

Nothing to get excited about