“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 233

26 Saturday Sep 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 233, Human Torch, John Byrne, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 233
“Mission for a Dead Man!”
Published May 1981
Writer: John Byrne
Pencils: Byrne
Inks: Byrne
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Byrne and Terry Austin

Synopsis

Condemned prisoner Georgie Munson asks a priest to deliver a message to the Human Torch, asking him to exonerate him for the murder for which he’ll be executed. After receiving the letter at the Baxter Building, Johnny, who knew Munson in high school, begins investigating, and eventually follows the trail to “maggia” strongman Hammerhead. The two fight, and while Hammerhead escapes, the police arrest his associates. Johnny eventually uses the Kingpin’s records to reveal Munson was framed for murder while committing a robbery.

What’s going on here?

This is an odd comic, particularly for John Byrne’s second issue in the driver’s seat. It’s a solo story, featuring the least compelling member of the Fantastic Four. It’s a detective story, starring a character who never solves crimes. And it’s basically anticlimactic, since Johnny has to rely on the Kingpin’s records turned up by Daredevil to piece together the mystery. Overall, it reads like an old issue of Strange Tales starring Johnny, rather than the Lee / Kirby FF stories Byrne loved so much. I wish I knew why Byrne chose this story right out of the gate; my guess is he had it in his back pocket — maybe as the plot for a Marvel Team-Up story — and chose to use it here instead.

Byrne’s art is, of course, excellent (get used to me saying that), and the story has its moments, but it takes a while to get going and there is again way too much exposition.

What I liked

As befits his “back to basics” approach, Byrne introduces the Fantastic Four with the Thing and Torch fighting in the Baxter Building, as Jack and Stan did about two dozen times. This fight seems particularly vicious, though, and Byrne does a great job of sequencing the action throughout the panels.

He does something similar here, where you can feel the action move you from panel to panel:

And here, you can tell that after Hammerhead swings with his right, he’s going to follow with his left:

I also liked this panel of Sue dressing down Johnny. After being called out for his immaturity, it raises the stakes as he takes on the responsibility of fulfilling a dead man’s request. Sue’s haircut is great, too.

What I didn’t like

As mentioned, there is way too much explaining going on. This sequence feels very unnecessary:

Byrne also seems to want to explain every facet of the Torch’s powers, even when they don’t make much sense for the situation. Here’s a bad guy running while trying to light a piece of paper on fire. Really? And of course, Johnny has to explain it all to him.

And here, Johnny says his heat can melt bullets before they can hit him. Bullets from a handgun travel at about 1,200 feet per second. I’m not sure how hot he would have to be to melt a bullet traveling that fast before it hit him, but I’m guessing it would be something like the surface of the sun.

Lastly, Byrne, at least early in his scripting career, has a tendency to indulge in some pretty melodramatic writing.

Anything else?

A strange ad for Dungeons and Dragons. You think they could have hired a professional comic artist.

Overall

Solid but unspectacular

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 232

20 Sunday Sep 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Diablo, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 232, Frankie Raye, John Byrne, Marvel, Marvel comics, Terry Ausin

Fantastic Four 232
“Back to the Basics!”
Published April 1981
Writer: John Byrne
Pencils: Byrne
Inks: Byrne (credited to “Bjorn Heyn”)
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Byrne and Terry Austin

Synopsis

Diablo, the evil alchemist, launches a plan to subdue the Fantastic Four by attacking them with four elementals. The FF foil his plans by switching opponents and enlsiting Dr. Strange to track down Diablo.

What’s going on here?

After much anticipation, we’ve finally arrived at the John Byrne era, where we will remain for the next 60 issues or so. By now, there’s not much mystery about how Byrne ended up on the FF; after years of creative conflict with Chris Claremont, he wanted complete control over his own title (and apparently he’s still annoyed at Claremont, since he’s rewriting those comics in X-Men: Elsewhen). Given his childhood enthusiasm for the Lee / Kirby FF, it made sense for him to take on Marvel’s flagship title. To take on the writing, penciling and inking the FF, he dropped all his other projects, including writing and penciling Captain America (eventually he would work on multiple books again). As far as I can tell, this is first time writing and handling all the artwork since his time at Charlton comics.

It’s pretty clear clear Byrne wants to restore the Fantastic Four to the classic Lee / Kirby template — it’s even in the story’s title (“Back to the Basics”). In this issue, at least, there’s no Franklin, and Alicia only makes a brief appearance. Reed is back to his bossy self, and he concocts a scientific solution to defeating the bad guys. I also don’t think it’s an accident the FF fought elementals that are cognates of their own abilities (lest you forget: Reed = water, Sue = air, Ben= earth, Johnny = fire). I’m not sure how many fans jumped on board with this issue, but Byrne made it very easy for new readers to catch up. If this book came out today, it would be a No. 1 issue with a dozen variant covers.

One oddity is the inking is credited to “Bjorn Heyn,” not Byrne. According to the internets, in those days creators were discouraged from having so many credits on any one issue. Times have changed.

Terry Austin inked the cover, which looks great.

What I liked

It’s hard not to gush about this issue after so much mediocrity over the last few years. It’s not perfect (more on that later) but it’s a well told story, with terrific art and lots of fun touches. Diablo is an interesting choice of villain; he’s a throwback to the Lee / Kirby years but not as consequential as Dr. Doom or Galactus. You could see the Mole Man or Red Ghost in this story as well.

Like a lot of Lee / Kirby issues, this one starts with members of the FF out on the town, and as in many of those issues, Sue is doing something pointedly feminine (she’s usually getting her hair down or buying clothes). Byrne at least has a cheeky spin on the trope:

We also get a Kirby-like shot of Reed in his lab (and note his updating of the Baxter Building’s surroundings):

And a here’s a fun scene of Diablo in full Snidely Whiplash mode:

There’s a lot of striking panels throughout, and they hint at what’s to come. Here’s a sample of a few of them (one for each of the FF:

What I didn’t like

Byrne can at times resort to cliches (“shell-like ears” in the above panel will reoccur over and over) and be unnecessarily expository. Do we really need Sue to explain that she’s using her powers in a new way? And would she really call Ben “the Thing?” It feels like Byrne is bending over backwards for new (and very young) readers.

We also get a return of Reed-is-a-jerk, which I assume is Byrne’s attempting to reestablish the team’s hierarchy, but it is very unwelcome:

Byrne also brings back Frankie Raye, Johnny’s erstwhile girlfriend, which seems forced, given how she dumped him in issue 204:

As we shall see, Byrne has plans for Frankie, and so wants her back in Johnny’s life, but this is pretty awkward (and melodramatic):

I’m not sure if this is the fault of Byrne or editor Jim Salicrup, but why do we need an editor’s note telling us who Iceman is:

But we have to look up the issue when Diablo was apparently killed? (It’s FF 194)

Lastly, I didn’t love Dr. Strange’s archaic speech (and thought) patterns. Did he talk like this in his own book back then?

Anything else?

A house ad for the first Superman-Spiderman crossover (which I don’t think I ever read):

Overall

Happy days are here again!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 231

13 Sunday Sep 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Bill Sienkiewicz, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 131, Joe Sinnott, Marvel, Marvel comics, negative Zone

Fantastic Four 231
“In All The Gathered Gloom!”
Published March 1981
Writers: Doug Moench and Roger Stern (credited as “Gurland”)
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz and Al Milgrom (credited as “Moore”)
Inks: Joe Sinnott, Sienkiewicz and Frank Giacoia (uncredited)
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Stern (credited to Jim Salicrup)
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Sinnott

Synopsis

The Baxter Building is trapped in the Negative Zone with a small slice of Manhattan, whose residents blame the Fantastic Four for their predicament. As the FF try to steer their way back, they are attacked by Stygorr, a Negative Zone warlord. Meanwhile, Lew Shiner, a real estate developer stuck in the Negative Zone, rallies a mob to attack the Baxter Building. Mr. Fantastic devises a plan that both defeats Stygorr and Shiner and returns the missing piece of New York back to its own reality.

What’s going on here?

This is an interesting issue, for a number of reasons. I picked it up expecting the worst: The Doug Moench/ Bill Sienkiewicz run has been a disappointment and given this is their last issue the book, I expected them to mail it. And yet it’s a pretty good comic, with a crazy amount of plots and subplots that generate some real suspense and excitement. I was prepared to give Moench credit where credit was due until, researching this issue, I discovered it was both co-written and edited by Roger Stern (apparently Jim Salicrup was sick so Stern filled in as editor and rewrote some of the comic). It’s impossible to know from this distance who did what, but I’m going to guess the more enjoyable aspects were probably from Stern.

The comic’s art is similarly muddled. Most of the comic is laid out by Sienkiewicz, but only the first 21 pages are inked by Joe Sinnott. The next seven were finished by Sienkiewicz, and the last page, strangely, was penciled by Al Milgrom and inked by Frank Giacoia, neither of whom are credited (apparently, the credits were supposed to read (“& more” but it was rendered as just “Moore.”) The Milgrom/Giacoia art looks very out of place:

But the real story here is the unfettered Sienkiewicz. I’ve discussed before how Sienkiewicz said he appreciated Sinnott’s tutelage, but it’s pretty obvious how hemmed in he was by Sinnott’s conservative style. The pages that are all Sienkiewicz have a freedom and loose energy that foreshadows his work on the New Mutants. Here are a few examples:

The shame of it is we didn’t get to see Sienkiewicz unleashed until the last few pages of his run. With all due respect to Joe Sinnott, a Hall of Fame inker, his conservative style did Sienkiewicz no favors. As it happens, this is Sinnott’s last issue for some time.

What I liked

Along with the above-mentioned art, the story was better than most in recent months. Moench (or Stern) puts several stories in motion: The FF’s desperate struggle to return their slice of NYC to Earth, the menace and attack of Stygorr, the unhinged Shiner and his bloodlust, and lastly, Alicia, Franklin and Lorrie waiting at home for the FF’s return. It’s a lot, particularly because the main storyline involves some complicated (and mostly bogus) science, and it would have benefited from more space to tell the story properly instead of cramming it all into one issue. But the storylines come together nicely and it’s a pretty satisfying comic.

I thought this sequence, where the matter of Lew Shiner intersects the antimatter of Stygorr, was impressively dramatic:

I thought this was smart and revealing sequence, where Ben demonstrates his empathy for ordinary people:

And I liked how Lorrie, Johnny’s girlfriend of the moment, just isn’t that in to him:

Lastly, this was a cool idea from Sienkiewicz, as the various types of New Yorkers set out to discover what happened to them:

What I didn’t like

Stygorr is a pretty silly character. By rights the role of Negative Zone baddie should be played by Annihilus, but since the villain is killed at the end, I suspect he was off limits and so Moench/Stern concocted this Stygorr. Like many villains, including Shiner above, he wears purple, and he speaks like a parody of a comic book bad guy.

The whole comic revolves around very complicated distinctions between matter and antimatter, the Negative Zone distortion field, the FF’s containment field and something called sub-space. It’s mostly gobbledegook and Moench/Stern lays it on heavy:

Like a lot of the so-called science in comics, it’s best ignored.

Overall

Better than it had any right to be.

But wait, there’s more!

As I’ve said before, my initial goal for this blog was A, to read the entire Lee/Kirby run, B, re-read the Byrne run, and C, somehow survive the issues in between. I can now tick the last item off the list. The 129 comics (plus a few annuals) between Lee/Kirby and Byrne was a decided mixed bag, with some surprisingly enjoyable comics and an unfortunate about off crud.

Here’s how I rank the various main runs over that span (this doesn’t account for fill-in issues by other creators):

1, Len Wein/ George Perez / Joe Sinnott (issues 184 -192). A disappointingly brief run but features an early Perez firing on all cylinders and solid storytelling from Wein.

2, Archie Goodwin /John Buscema / Joe Sinnott (115 -118) Another too-short run. Goodwin is a great writer and you can’t go wrong with Big John Buscema.

3, Roy Thomas / John Buscema / Joe Sinnott (119, 126 – 132) Thomas had a number of runs with different artists over this span but these were his best stories.

4, Marv Wolfman / Bill Mantlo / John Byrne / Joe Sinnott (210-218) Wolfman’s stories didn’t always soar but it was a treat seeing Byrne’s layouts.

5, Stan Lee / John Romita / Joe Sinnott (103 – 107). Two words: John Romita

6, Roy Thomas / George Perez / Joe Sinnott (164 -167, 170, 172) An uneven stretch but some Perez gems in there. Plus it’s fun seeing Luke Cage in the FF.

7, Len Wein / Marv Wolfman / Keith Pollard / Sal Buscema / Joe Sinnott / Pablo Marcos (193 – 209) Consistent but unremarkable comics. Pollard occasionally shines.

8, Stan Lee /John Buscema / Joe Sinnott. A run that reminds you just how creative was Jack Kirby. (107 -114, 120 – 125)

9, Doug Moench / Bill Sienkiewicz / Joe Sinnott (219, 222-231) Less than the sum of its parts.

10, Gerry Conway / John Buscema / Rich Buckler / Ross Andru / Joe Sinnott (134 -152) Some real stinkers in here.

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 230

07 Monday Sep 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Bill Sienkiewicz, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 230, Joe Sinnott, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 230
“Firefrost and the Ebon Seeker”
Published February 1981
Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Bill Sienkiewicz
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Sienkiewicz and Sinnott

Synopsis

Firefrost, the Ebon Seeker’s companion, explains (at length) their origin — they were created in a black hole billions of years in the future and sent to the past — and tells the FF that if the Ebon Seeker’s energy is not returned to the black hole, it will trigger a new Big Bang, wiping out the universe. Mr. Fantastic siphons energy from the Negative Zone to the Ebon Seeker, whom Firefrost convinces to return to the black hole so he can be reborn as a creature of light, like her. The issue ends with the FF, the Baxter Building and some of New York stuck in the Negative Zone.

What’s going on here

If last issue was all action and no exposition, this issue is the opposite. The first eight pages of this 22-page comic are devoted to first a re-cap of the last issue and then a lengthy explanation of who these new characters are and how they came to be. Another several pages at the end delve into the science of black holes, the Big Bang and the Voyager space probe. It reminded me of the current FF run under writer Ryan North, who seems intent on including a science lesson in each issue.

As discussed previously, the Ebon Seeker is pretty much a straight swipe of Galactus, from his connection to the Big Bang to his hunger to destroy planets to his enlightened, silvery companion. What’s odd is Doug Moench devotes so much time and energy to establishing these characters, only to erase them at the end of the comic. Again, it seems that Moench’s heart is in horror and science fiction, and the Fantastic Four is just the vehicle for him to tell the stories he likes.

Also of note is the appearance of the Avengers, which is pretty brief despite their prominence on the (mediocre) cover. This used to be a pretty common feature of silver and bronze age Marvel: If there was some earth-threatening menace, other heroes would show up, or at acknowledge it. Now, a big, cataclysmic event is the basis for a annual crossover, which amounts to the same thing, but doesn’t reinforce that feeling of a shared universe in the same way.

What I liked

I did enjoy Johnny pulling rank on Captain America:

Given Moench’s predilection for plugging his other books in the pages of the FF, I half-expected to discover he was the new writer of the Avengers. In fact, the Avengers were then being written by assistant FF editor Bob Budiansky (and it was a pretty dismal period for the Avengers so they probably needed the help).

The aliens encountering the Voyager probe far in the future was a nice touch:

Of course, the famous golden recording and image on theVoyager probe — launched in the hope of humanity finally meeting alien life — doesn’t make much sense in the Marvel universe, where encounters with aliens happen monthly. For that reason, I was of mixed minds about this sequence, with Read reading a book by Carl Sagan about the Voyager recording. One would suspect Reed and Sagan were colleagues, and Reed — who has probably encountered more aliens than anyone else on Earth — would have been consulted in the recording.

Also, the the man and woman were buck naked on the real image:

This was mostly a humdrum issue for Bill Sienkiewicz and Joe Sinnott, but I liked this sequence:

What I didn’t like

The explanation of the Ebon Seeker and Firefrost’s origin was hopelessly convoluted and nonsensical. They entered a black hole, encountered “energy beings” there and somehow emerged with new forms and powers. For a writer who seems interested in hard science, Moench seems willing to totally disregard basic physics to suit his story.