Fantastic Four 223
“That A Child May Live …”
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Sinnott


Synopsis

As the Fantastic Four — plus Agatha Harkness and Gabriel — race to New Salem to save Franklin from possession by Nicholas Scratch, Scratch works from the Dark Realm to free Salem’s Seven from captivity. When the FF arrive, they are defeated and captured by the Seven, and Scratch announces his intentions to use Franklin’s power to spread darkness over Earth. But Gabriel and Harkness harness the Fantastic Four’s love of Franklin into a psychic weapon that eventually drives out Scratch. The issue ends with Harkness rendering Scratch an ordinary human and pledging to remain in New Salem to keep an eye on him.

What’s going on here?

This is a pretty uninspiring issue. It resolves the immediate two-part Franklin / Scratch arc, and seems to finally end Scratch as an ongoing threat (he’ll make only a handful more appearances over the next 46 years). But as a story it’s pretty lackluster and a big chunk of the comic seems devoted to exposition. The fight with Salem’s Seven feels abbreviated and Gabriel, a potentially interesting wildcard, disappears for most of the comic. And the finale was just, well, lame. Even the art feels mailed-in, as if Joe Sinnott had to take over for a distracted Bill Sienkiewicz.

What I liked

There were a few nice moments of character development. This sequence between Sue and Johnny felt pretty authentic (and Johnny was totally right, Salem’s Seven again defeated the FF).

I also liked this interaction:

This wasn’t Sienkiewicz’s strongest effort, but a few panels stood out, like this action sequence of Brutacus:

And this one of Vertigo:

What I didn’t like

As mentioned, a lot of this comic felt overly didactic. Here’s an example of a lot of unnecessary explaining:

And this declaration of the power of love just felt cheesy, and a bit like Doug Moench discovering an easy way to wrap up his story:

Lastly, what kid talks like this?

Anything else?

Some notable ads in this issue. In honor of Norm MacDonald, I will never stop posting OJ ads when they appear. And the trademark house ad is weird: what counterfeit comics was Marvel worried about? Aside from DC, no one else was really publishing superhero comics by 1980, and the other publishers of horror, like Warren, and humor, like Harvey, were well established. Comics were just entering the direct-sales era, but was Marvel really worried about indy start-ups like Cerebus the Aardvark? Odd.

Overall

meh