“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 229

30 Sunday Aug 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Bill Sienkiewicz, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 229, Joe Sinnott, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 229
“The Thing From The Black Hole”
Published January 1981
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Sinnott

Synopsis

An ordinary day in New York for the Fantastic Four is interrupted by a monstrous space creature with incredible powers derived from a black hole. The FF battle the creature, called the Ebon Seeker, but are defeated and are left in a lightless region where they are met by Fire Frost, companion to the Ebon Seeker.

What’s going here?

Another Doug Moench issue, another retread of old ideas. In this case, the parallels to the first appearance of Galactus seem pretty obvious. What redeems this issue (sort of) is the amazing black-and-white rendering of the Ebon Seeker. I assume this is largely the work of Joe Sinnott, since Bill Sienkiewicz is only credited with layouts, but I’m only guessing. It’s a powerful effect and it’s more impressive in the context of its era, when coloring wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now, and virtually every comic was rendered in combinations of the same four colors. I think it looks more impressive on the original page than in the Marvel.com reproduction. Here is the Ebon Seeker’s first appearance from each:

Given that the Ebon Seeker is anchoring a multi-issue story, which is rare for Moench, I imagine he was hoping to introduce a major new FF villain but the character appears just more in subsequent decades.

What I liked

The comic is almost entirely a fight scene, and Sienkiewicz and Sinnott deliver some great action sequences and panels:

There was a fun detail in the credits, with Jim Salicrup “asking” Jim Shooter what he thinks of Alicia’s sculpture of him (I don’t know the backstory but I’m guessing Shooter’s grandiosity, which became more pronounced later in his Marvel tenure, was already an issue):

What I didn’t like

The narrative is boring and derivative, and for most of the issue we have no idea who the Ebon Seeker is or what is motivating him. When we find out — he wants to destroy Earth — it has no impact on the reader because we’ve seen this movie before. It’s more evidence that Moench really didn’t know what he was doing with this comic.

Further, the explanation of the Ebon Seeker’s powers — he is a living black hole — is nonsensical.

I’ve pointed out previously how Moench doesn’t miss an opportunity to plug the other comics he’s writing, but this might be his most blatant example:

New Yorkers turn against the Fantastic Four and riot! Why? Who knows? It’s never explained.

Overall

Impressive art. That’s about it.

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 228

23 Sunday Aug 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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Bill Sienkiewicz, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 228, Franklin Richards, Joe Sinnott, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 228
“Ego-Spawn”
Published December 1980
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 Human Torch prepares for a date with his new girlfriend Lorrie Melton, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman discuss how best to studying Franklin’s budding powers. With Lorrie, the team travels to Seaboard University, where Reed’s former college friend Abe Jankowitz begins testing Franklin. A biofeedback test generates a strange energy field from Franklin that travels to a nearby park where Lorrie and Johnny have decamped. The energy field transforms a local bully into a super villain who seems to embody Franklin’s darkest thoughts. After a scuffle, the FF subdue the villain and Sue unplugs the biofeedback device that triggered the reaction.

What’s going on here?

Another issue, another Doug Moench clunker. This comic begins with promise, with a lot of character development and the re-introduction of Lorrie, Johnny’s new squeeze. Reed and Sue’s commitment to investigating Franklin’s powers is also a nice narrative advancement, and builds on recent plot lines. But it all goes absurdly awry once Franklin is plugged into the biofeedback machine and somehow invents a ridiculously costumed villain. The villain is intended to embody Franklin’s anxieties, but they are never hinted at earlier in the comic (just the opposite — he is eager to be tested) and the storyline all seems so slapped together and nonsensical as to be dismissed out of hand. Further, the basic structure of the story — the FF visit an old colleague of Reed’s — seems identical to last issue.

The most interesting aspect of the story is the appearence of Lorrie, who first appeared in FF 222, and it seems Moench is positioning her to play a major role in Johnny’s life going forward (bringing a date to meet your relatives is a big step!). But as we shall see, she disappears pretty quickly and is ignored by future writers.

Joe Sinnott returned to ink this issue and it looks like he really took the reins from Bill Sienkiewicz (who in fact is only credited with layouts).

What I liked

Moench does a good job with Ben and Johnny’s banter.

And I liked how Bill Sienkiewicz drew this interaction between Reed and Sue (including the weird sculptures in the foreground):

What I didn’t like

As discussed, the transformation of the local tough-guy into a purple-clad supervillain makes no sense, was not established by any foreshadowing and he might go down as one of the most idiotic bad guys in FF history (joining Gaard and Warhead).

An awful lot of this comic was devoted to explaining Dr. Jankowitz’s tests. Biofeedback therapy exploded in popularity in the 1970s and I wouldn’t be surprised if Moench took part.

Speaking of Jankowitz, doesn’t he seem too old to have been a college classmate of Reed and Ben’s?

Anything else?

A fun house ad for Dazzler by a very young John Romita Jr.:

Overall

Dreck

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 227

16 Sunday Aug 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1980, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bruce Patterson, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 227, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 227
“The Brain Parasites!”
Published November 1980
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Bruce Patterson
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Joe Sinnott

Synopsis

An old colleague asks for Mr. Fantastic’s help investigating a meteor that landed in a Florida lake and the team plus Franklin embark on a working vacation to assist Dr. Carruthers. Once there, they discover ordinary animals are dramatically transformed into dangerous monsters by parasites that were carried by the meteor. The parasites also transform Carruthers and the Invisible Girl but are saved when the parasites are removed. It is then revealed that Franklin used his powers to destroy the monsters and parasites.

What’s going on here?

This is another old-timey science fiction story from Doug Moench that has echoes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. Moench used the mysterious-meteor-with-strange-effects just a few issues ago — it’s how Korgon the giant Viking got his powers — and the FF-encounter-strange-underwater-monsters-on-a-Florida-vacation plot was previously used by Stan and Jack in FF 97.

We’re now seven issues into the Moench run and it seems pretty clear he’s most comfortable with a certain type of story that hews closely to traditional horror and sci-fi tropes. There is a place for those stories, and they can be done quite effectively in the Fantastic Four as we shall see, but telling only those stories wastes the potential of the FF. The Fantastic Four is at its best with big, sweeping epics where the villains are truly menacing and the stakes are high. I had lots of quibbles with Marv Wolfman’s run but he at least understood the importance of big stories. (This is also my main critique of the FF’s current writer, Ryan North, who prefers to deliver monthly science lessons rather than invest in multi-issue arcs.) There are four more issues of Moench; hopefully things pick up.

Joe Sinnott is again MIA (although he did ink the cover), with Bruce Patterson handling the inking. Patterson seems like a jack-of-all-comic-trades — with credits as inker, letterer and colorist — and worked steadily for both Marvel and DC from the mid 70s to the late 90s. His inks are heavy and brooding in this comic, and he gives on Reed and Johnny hollow cheeks that make them look haggard and gaunt.

What I liked

There were some fun action sequences, and Bill Sienkiewicz seems to have a blast with the monsters that attack the FF. As in this splash:

Or here:

I’m not sure this time-lapse sequence of the parasite crawling up Sue is totally successful — initially I thought she was covered in multiple parasites — but it looks cool.

What I didn’t like

The “spontaneous vacation” idea is pretty tired by now. I guess Moench thought he needed a good reason to get Franklin on the trip, but it feels forced.

Also, these recent issues have sequences of panels that jump from scene to scene without any explanation. Like here:

It’s not hard to follow the story, but I’m not sure what is accomplished by the cutting back and forth, either. I do like Franklin’s Spider-Man pool float.

Wait, did Moench finds a way to drop in a cameo of a character from one of his other books? Who could have seen that coming?

Anything else?

This is a cool house ad for a Roger Stern / Frank Miller Dr. Strange collaboration that never happened. You can read why here.

Overall

A heaping dose of me.

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 226

12 Wednesday Aug 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1980, Bill Sienkiewicz, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 226, Marvel, Marvel comics, Shogun Warriors

Fantastic Four 226
“The Samurai Destroyer”
Published October 1980
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Pablo Marcos and Bruce Patterson
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Bob McLeod

Synopsis

The Fantastic Four learn about a giant robot stealing a train carrying gold on the television news, then are met at the Baxter Building by the three former pilots of the Shogun Warrior robots, now destroyed. The FF and three pilots travel to Japan, where the new giant robot, the Samurai Destroyer, is robbing a bank. While the FF attempt (and fail) to stop it, the pilots travel to the sanctuary where the Shogun Warriors were built. There, they are confronted by the Samurai Destroyer and its pilot who explains he destroyed their robots. The FF catch up with him and eventually defeat him, but not before he self-destructs the Samurai Destroyer.

What’s going on here?

A guest appearance in a Doug Moench-written comic? What are the odds they feature in another Moench-written book? If you guessed 100%, you’d be right. For the third story in a row, Moench has slipped in characters from a former, current or future comic he’s writing (following Moon Knight and Thor). This time, of course, the Shogun Warriors make more than a token appearance, but are central to the whole dismal comic.

The Shogun Warriors were a toy tie-in that had their own comic for 20 issues, all but one written by Moench. I confess I’ve never read them, but they look pretty forgettable. Apparently while Moench was able to wrap up their story (in an issue guest starring the FF, or course), he or someone at Marvel decided they needed to tie up the loose end of three enormous robots that could be commandeered by a villain. Hence this issue, in which the robots are destroyed.

While I sort of respect the desire to address the big robot problem, I wish it hadn’t been at the expense of a decent Fantastic Four comic. This story is forced and clunky, with a cheesy lesson in parenting for Reed and way too much energy devoted to the fates of three characters most readers had never heard of. This is probably Moench’s worst issue, and Bill Sienkiewicz, aside from a few bright spots, doesn’t do much to salvage this dreck.

A few side notes: Joe Sinnott is again MIA, with Pablo Marcos and Bruce Patterson inking. And the cover is inked by Bob McLeod, making his FF debut.

What I liked

It’s hard to go wrong with a giant robot splash page:

I liked this fun scene with Ben and Alicia:

What I didn’t like

As ever, Moench is the master of unnecessary exposition. In this case, the villains’s origin is so lame he shouldn’t have bothered with a back story.

So early in the comic Reed patronizes Franklin, then later uses his story of David and Goliath to defeat the Samurai Destroyer, redeeming him in his son’s eyes. It’s as lame as it sounds.

Were they really still using steam trains in Czechoslovakia in 1980?

Overall

The less said about this, the better

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 225

03 Monday Aug 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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Marvel, Fantastic Four, Thor, Marvel comics, 1980, Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz, Fantastic Four 225, Odin

Fantastic Four 225
“The Blind God’s Tears”
Published September 1980
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Pablo Marcos
Letters: Jim Novak
Inks: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Joe Sinnott

Synopsis

Under the threat of death, the Fantastic Four labor to restore the powers of Korgon, the Norseman who was granted immortality and strange powers by a meteor millennia ago. They succeed, and after Korgon uses his power to recharge the battery of his civilization’s ice dome, he asks Mr. Fantastic to restore his humanity. To prevent this, one of Korgon’s henchmen sabotages the machine, flooding Korgon with power. He attacks the FF, who are joined in battle by Thor, dispatched by Odin who seems to be keeping an eye on these former Vikings. Driven mad, Korgon begins destroying the ice dome. Odin then appears and restores Korgon’s sanity, and a humbled Korgon allows the FF to depart.

What’s going on here?

This is another clunky issue, with lots of exposition, a not-terribly-well explained appearance from Thor and Odin and a lackluster ending. There’s a throw-everything-against-the-wall quality to this story, with its lions and tigers in the arctic and Vikings with motorcycles, that leads to clumsy explanations that do little to further the story. The appearance of Thor makes more sense when you realize Doug Moench began writing Thor the next month, and as with last issue’s reference to Moon Knight, he apparently is happy to cross promote his books to goose their sales. FWIW, the appearance of Odin appearing to make everything better occurs again in FF 262 during the Trial of Reed Richards, although it’s handled much more adroitly by John Byrne.

Pablo Marcos handles the inks again, although Joe Sinnott inked Sienkiewicz’s cover.

One oddity: Despite Korgon and his enclave surviving, this is apparently their first and only appearance. Given Marvel’s propensity for mining its back catalog for characters and concepts, their disappearance might say something about how future writers viewed this particular story.

What I Liked

Bill Sienkiewicz’s pencils are again uneven, but he does hit some high notes. This long vertical panel of Korgon going nuts is great:

So is this panel of Thor

This may not be the best drawn panel but I enjoyed watching the FF cut loose a bit:

And I appreciated a few panels of Alicia and Franklin. On too many of the FF’s adventures that are completely absent.

What I didn’t like

If you read the middle panel, you’ll see Reed is attributing his mental agility to the cosmic radiation that gave him his powers. This has been raised a few times in more recent years, but it seems like a pretty big revelation to drop in the middle of an unrelated story.

As mentioned, the appearance of Thor and Odin feels forced and is a bit of literal deus ex machina. It doesn’t help that Odin mentions Loki, suggesting he has something to do with the story (he doesn’t)

Also as mentioned, there are pages of exposition in this comic that feel totally unnecessary. I really did not need to know the secret of the Vikings’ irrigation system.

Anything else?

It’s that time of year again when the TV networks announce their Saturday morning schedules. Here are ads for NBC and ABC’s (CBS’s ran last month). Of note is Thundarr the Barbarian, a show created by Steve Gerber with character designs by comics legends Alex Toth and Jack Kirby, and the Herculoids, a personal favorite designed by Toth. Also, I have no recollection of the Fonz in space.