Fantastic Four 15
“The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android”
Published March 1963
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Dick Ayers
Letters: Art Simek

Synopsis

In an echo of the first issue, Mr. Fantastic uses a flare gun to summon the team, and informs them he’s been alerted by the police that gang leaders from around the country are assembling in the city. Meanwhile, we are introduced to the Mad Thinker, a genius scientist, who has convened the crime bosses. He debuts his plan to use the predictive powers of his computers to defeat the Fantastic Four and become king of New York.

Putting his plan in place, he arranges for the FF to be drawn away from the team to pursue other goals: Johnny joins his cousins’ circus, Ben become a pro wrestler, Sue makes a movie and Reed becomes a research scientist. All are dissatisfied with their new careers, however, and return to the (newly named) Baxter Building only to find it turned to crystal by the Thinker. The team fight their way in and overcomes a series of traps and obstacles laid by the Thinker, who uses Reed’s own inventions against him. The last is an android, which adapts to its foes, that Reed designed by the Thinker built. The Thinker is finally defeated after Reed prearranged for the building’s power to cut out, shutting down the Thinker’s weapons.

What’s going on here?

A fairly straight-forward issue that introduces the Mad Thinker to the FF’s rogues gallery. While never a first-tier bad guy, he reappears fairly steadily over the years, often teaming up with other villains. He’d often included a in run-down of the smartest characters in the Marvel Universe. The issue also features the first time their headquarters is named the “Baxter Building,” 12 issues after its first appearance in issue 3.

Those guys

FF 15 also marks Ben’s first actual visit to Yancy Street, where he is of course harassed by the Yancy Street Gang. While the fictional Yancy Street is understood to be a stand in for Delancy Street on New York’s Lower East Side, here it’s intersecting with 10th Avenue.

Crime does pay

It seems strange now that the FF would be involved in a story with mafia-type criminals but Marvel had’t fully yet separated its “street-level” books like Spider-man and Daredevil from its more cosmic type comics like the FF and Avengers. So in this issue we get both mob hoods in pin-stripe suits and toothpicks and the Thinker whose ambition to become king of New York is surprisingly literal.

Rasslin’

On his short sabbatical from the team, Ben becomes a pro wrestler and fights Fatal Finnegan.

That foreshadows Ben’s foray into grappling as part of the Unlimited Class Wrestling circuit in his own series in the 1980s (a pretty forgettable story line, to be honest).

Life and times of the Human Torch

Jack Kirby again displays his questionable fashion sense, dressing teenage Johnny in a fedora while on a date.

Johnny signs up, in part because can’t wait to meet those “cool circus chicks.”

They’re fighting again

The sixties are sexist

Sue just isn’t cut out for super-heroing

Kirby Krackle

These two panels are about as Kirby as it gets

These are fun, too.

For sale

A mint copy (9.8) will run you about $70,000.

Pin up time

A rather odd-looking Kirby pin up. I’m guessing it was drawn earlier and saved until this issue.

Next issue: Dr. Doom and the Ant-Man!