Fantastic Four 108
“The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man!”
Published: Dec. 1970
Story: Stan Lee
Pencils: Jack Kirby, John Buscema and John Romita
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Sam Rosen
Cover: Buscema and John Verpoorten

Synopsis

In a lengthy flashback, Reed reveals the origin of Janus, the Nega-Man, a former colleague who tapped the power of the Negative Zone to heal an injury only to divide into good and evil versions of himself.

What’s going on here?

Jack’s back! Well, sort of. The comic’s pencils are credited to Jack Kirby, and quite a bit of the comic is drawn by him. But there’s a lot of John Buscema in here, too. It’s pretty clear from reading the story that Marvel decided to salvage some unpublished artwork by Kirby, using it in a flashback device to explain the origin of the new villain, Janus. In his blog, longtime Marvel editor Tom Brevoort confirms as much, explaining the Kirby sequences were intended for FF 102, but Stan Lee, unsatisfied with the story, set them aside. This was taking place in the weeks prior to Jack’s departure for DC, so there may have been some bad blood involved as well. It makes sense the ever-parsimonious Stan would find a way to reuse those Kirby pages, even if they are shoe-horned into a story that makes little sense.

What I liked

The Kirby art! Duh. This may not be peak Kirby, but it’s a reminder of what we lost when Jack decamped for DC. Check out this awesome panel:

Also, after years of cataloging all the times Sue is slighted by Reed, here’s a rare example of Reed actually taking her on a mission (not that she gets to do much, but baby steps):

What I didn’t like

The story is unfortunately incoherent. The flashback structure doesn’t help, adding a layer of complexity to an convoluted story, but the way the ploy unfolds is just a mess to begin with. The story does end with a tease of an appearance of Annihilus in the next issue, so here’s hoping things get back on track.

Anything else?

Here’s some more Kirby art:

Overall

A melancholy reminder of what was