“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine”: Fantastic Four No. 14

10 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1963, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 14, jack Kirby, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 14
“The Merciless Puppet Master”
Published: Feb. 12, 1963
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Dick Ayers
Letters: Art Simek
Cover: Kirby and Steve Ditko

Synopsis

The Fantastic Four return from the Moon and are greeted as heroes. Meanwhile, the Puppet Master, last seen falling to his death, has survived and plots his revenge, using his radioactive clay to manipulate the Sub-Mariner into destroying the FF.

Under the control of the Puppet Master, Namor uses a “hypno-fish” to compel the Invisible Girl to join him underseas (so double mind control, for those keeping track), then taunts the rest of the team into pursuing her. Once in the Sub-Mariner’s underwater citadel, the team battles Namor, and the Thing rescues Sue from the clutches of a giant octopus. The octopus then breaks out of Namor’s lair and attacks the Puppet Master in his submarine. Once free of the Puppet Master’s control, Namor orders the FF to leave, but not before making another bid for Sue to remain at his side.

What’s going on here

A pretty straight-forward issue that recycles two previous antagonists. The story is a bit clumsy, and the FF never actually confront the villainous Puppet Master, but it has a clear beginning, middle and end. Perhaps the most significant development is the furthering of the Reed-Sue-Namor love triangle sub-plot, in which Sue’s interest in Namor now seems to be more than a passing crush.

Early in the comic we see Sue using Reed’s “roving-eye” device (basically a drone with a camera) to find Namor:

Reed, naturally, is not thrilled that his fiancee is pining after the Sub-Mariner.

As the team battles Namor, Sue comes to his defense …

… before finally declaring that despite her “fascination” with Namor, her loyalties lie with Reed. Not exactly an ardent pledge of devotion, and Reed looks understandably skeptical.

That cover

Fantastic Four 14 features a great Kirby cover inked by Steve Ditko, and introduces the cover box, which becomes a Marvel staple. Not every FF issue has a cover box—there was a stretch of about 70 issues in the 70s when it didn’t appear at all—but it always seems to reappear, often drawn by the penciler of the time and reflecting the team’s current membership. Here are few from over the years.

The Briney Deep

The Sub-Mariner deploys an unusual array of aquatic life in his plot to defeat the FF, some which seem suspiciously useful for the occasion.

Not only can the hypno-fish mind-control Sue across great distances, but it flies and creates an air bubble.

The Flame-Eater is handy when fighting the Human Torch.

And then there’s the super-strong fungus when you need to battle the Thing.

The Sexist Sixties

This issue may be Stan and Jack’s low point (so far, anyway). First “nutty females” mob Reed.

The Sue offers to do some house work over Reed’s objections. And he wonders why she’s lukewarm about him.

Finally, this gem from Ben.

Whoops

It seems the only reason Stan adds this stuff about the leaving the FF’s secret files with the police is to explain why Jack doesn’t have Reed and Johnny accompany Ben. It doesn’t get mentioned again.

Kirby Krackle

A pretty cool panel from the King. Note the Human Torch sleeping ablaze (in a space ship, no less)

For sale

A mint (9.8) copy sold for $15,000 in 2012. It would probably be closer to $20K today.

Next issue: The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Fantastic Four No. 13

27 Saturday Mar 2021

Posted by percivalhenry in World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1963, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 13, jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko

Fantastic Four 13
“The Red Ghost and his Indescribable Super Apes”
Published: Jan. 1963
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Steve Ditko
Letters: Art Simek
Cover: Jack Kirby and Don Heck

Synopsis

In his lab, Mr. Fantastic unveils his latest discovery to the rest of the team: A substance retrieved from a meteor crater in Arizona that provides “limitless energy.” He tells the team he intends to use to travel to the Moon, as he believes the “the reds” have found a similar substance in Siberia, and he wants to win the space race. The rest of the team persuades him to bring them along.

Meanwhile, “behind the Iron Curtain,” Ivan Kragoff launches his own rocket to the moon crewed by a team of trained apes. He leaves his ship unshielded to deliberately expose himself and the apes to the same cosmic rays that transformed the Fantastic Four. His plan works and the four gain powers.

Both ships land on the Blue Area of the Moon, which contains an oxygen atmosphere and the ruins of an ancient civilization. As the Thing confronts Kragoff, now called the Red Ghost, and his apes, the Watcher appears. An ancient alien tasked with observing the Earth, he instructs the Ghost and the FF to “fight it out” for control of the moon. The Ghost captures the Invisible Girl, but as a hostage, she manages to free the apes and foil the Ghost’s plan to use a disintegrator ray on the Human Torch. The Ghost tries to escape, but is bewildered in the Watcher’s house, and is captured by a paralysis ray invented by Reed. He escapes again, only to be pursued by his apes as the FF return to Earth.

What’s going on here?

Fantastic Four 13 marks the first appearance of the Red Ghost (and his Super Apes), a recurring villain who never quite rises to the ranks of the A-list, but appears in plenty of comics over the years.

More notably, it’s the first appearance of the Blue Area of the Moon and its most famous denizen, the Watcher. Both appear prominently over the years and across Marvel’s entire line of comics. The Watcher often serves as a Greek chorus, introducing particularly big stories—among them Uncanny X-Men 137 and the death of Phoenix—and “hosted” the What If? comic, where he would introduce stories from alternative timelines. Uatu was killed in 2014’s Original Sin crossover event (he less said about that the better) before being resurrected in last year’s Empyre crossover.

As originally drawn by Kirby in FF 13, the Watcher (not yet named Uatu) has spindly limbs and an enormous head, giving him a distinctly alien appearance.

A few years later, in FF 48, Kirby made him significantly beefier.

By the time What If? 1 comes out in 1977, he’s pretty much unrecognizable.

It’s not until John Byrne takes the reins of the FF does he revert back to his original proportions.

FF 13 also introduced the Blue Area of the Moon, another fixture of the Marvel universe. Created by the Skrulls, it became the home of the Inhuman’s city of Attilan, and featured prominently in X-Men 137, as a battleground between the X-Men and the Shi”ar Imperial guard. Byrne, then the X-Men’s penciler, drew heavily on FF 13 for his images of the Blue Area.

Both the FF and the X-Men arrive at the same location, for example:

Later, both the FF and the X-Men pass the same alien machinery

The homage extends to a sequence when the Ghost invades the Watcher’s home, which Byrne duplicates with Wolverine.

Fantastic Four 13 is also notable as the only regular issue of the comic inked by Steve Ditko (he also inked stories in a pair of annuals). Ditko, better know as the penciler of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, is a good choice here, given the story has few Kirby-esque brawls, but is more about the spooky landscapes Ditko excels at. Despite that, I think his influence is most noticeable in close ups of the FF, and particularly Reed.

Red Menace

The Cold War and space race features prominently in the comic. Reed is determined to beat “the reds” to the Moon, while Kragoff wants to the extend the “communist empire.” Stan is notably averse to mentioning the Soviet Union by name even if Kragoff’s ship features a hammer and sickle.

They’re fighting again

This time it seems more playful.

Dig That Kirby Krackle

This is a fun sequence.

And so is this panel.

Oops

It seems like Stan is trying to explain why Jack drew this thing.

The sexist sixties

More cringing from Sue

For sale

A mint (9.8) edition of FF 13 will cost you about $68,000

Next issue: The Puppet-Master and the Sub-Mariner team up!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Fantastic Four No. 11

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1963, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 11, Impossible Man, jack Kirby, Stan Lee

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Fantastic Four 11
“A Visit with the Fantastic Four” and “The Impossible Man”
Published: Feb. 1963
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Dick Ayers
Cover: Kirby

Synopsis

This is an unusual issue in that there are two short stories instead of one, full-length story. The first is devoted to character building and revealing more of the Fantastic Four’s back story, allegedly in response to readers’ requests. The plot, if you can call it that, begins with the FF showing off in front of their fans, then reading fan mail after Ben is (again) temporarily turned human again by a concotion of Reed’s. They recount the team’s origins, filling in some important details about Reed and Ben’s time together in college and in the military, before they have a surprise birthday party for Sue.

The second story introduces the Impossible Man, a recurring character—slash—blight from the planet Poppup who reappears over the years. In this story, the FF are summoned to capture the Impossible Man, who can change his form into any object or substance. After futilely chasing him around New York, Reed decides it’s best to ignore him and the Impossible Man grows bored and eventually returns home.

What’s going on here

Both stories are significant, although for very different reasons. For better or worse (and it’s mostly been worse), the Impossible Man is an established part of the Marvel Universe, showing up over the decades in stories that tend to be full of gags and fourth-wall breaking. Your mileage may vary, but I tend to loathe these stories, which often feel self-indulgent and pointlessly silly. He’s very much a character of the Silver Age, and a reminder that these publications are called “comic books” for a reason. The Impossible Man owes a lot to Plastic Man, a Golden Age character with similar powers and tone, but his role as antagonist to the FF is most reminiscent of that of DC’s Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, who would make life miserable for Superman and Batman (and their readers), respectively.

In the first story, Stan and Jack eschew the normal conventions of the genre, dispensing with a villain and fight, and instead spend 10 pages developing the characters and filling in some of the blanks of their story. We learn that Reed and Ben were roommates in college, where Ben was a football star “from the wrong side of the tracks” while Reed was a pipe-smoking “millionaire’s son.” We also discover the served in World War II—Ben as a pilot in the Pacific theater, Reed as an OSS operative—placing their ages around 40 in 1961. That eventually gets retconned as another, unnamed conflict as Marvel’s sliding time scale means they are too young to be WWII veterans.

We also learn how Reed and Sue met, when Reed describes them as “kids together living next door to each other.” Sue continues to be ambivalent about Reed in this issue, which he attributes to her interest in the Sub-Mariner.

Growing up as kids would suggest they were roughly the same age, but later stories establish Reed as significantly older than Sue. In Fantastic Four 291, from 1986, John Byrne describes Sue as a 12-year old (who looks like a six-year-old, complete with doll) with a crush on the college-aged Reed.

Later creators realized the creepiness of that scenario, and in 2013, writer Matt Fraction retconned Byrne’s retcon, making Sue more age appropriate.

The editors were upfront about the need to address the age issue (thanks to Brian Cronin in CBR.com for detailing this history).

They’re (not) fighting again

Fantastic Four 11 contains a nice moment where Johnny, concerned about the implications of Ben reverting back to human, reveals his actual feelings about his frequent sparring partner. (A TR-4 is apparently a sports car made by Triumph).

Meet the Yancy Street Gang …

FF 11 also marks the first time Bn is pranked by the Yancy Street Gang, a group from his old neighborhood on the Lower East Side. The Yancy Street Gang becomes another recurring feature of the FF, and Yancy Street (a riff on the real-life Delancy Street) grows in importance as a touchstone for Ben over the decades. The FF’s current headquarters is located there.

… and Willie Lumpkin

We’re also introduced to Willie Lumpkin (referred to here as Mr. Lumpkin, or Lumpy), the FF’s elderly letter carrier with the “power” to wiggle his ears.

In a fun bit of casting, Stan Lee played Willie in the 2005 Fantastic Four movie.

The sexist sixties

In a strange sequence, Sue recoils at the letters that point out that she’s not pulling her weight on the team (probably an accurate reflection of the real-life letters Marvel was getting).

Before noting the times Sue has rescued the rest of the team, against the Skrulls and Dr. Doom, Reed makes a bizarre analogy to Abraham Lincoln’s reverence for his mother as evidence of Sue’s value (and of course the FF has a bust of Honest Abe in their home. Who doesn’t?).

Ben later suggests if readers want to watch women fight, they should “go see lady wrestlers.”

Let’s talk about us

The issue opens with a knockout Kirby splash page with the FF, dressed like they’re in the 1940s, lining up to buy the latest edition of the Fantastic Four comic.