Fantastic Four 158 | Percival Henry: The Fantastic Four and more

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Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 158, Inhumans, Marvel comics, Rich Buckler, Roy Thomas

Fantastic Four 158
“Invasion From the 5th (count it, 5th!) Dimension!”
Published Feb. 1975
Writer: Roy Thomas
Pencils: Rich Buckler
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Joe Rosen
Colors: Janice Cohen
Editor: Thomas
Cover: Buckler and Al Milgrom

Synopsis

Quicksilver is teleported from Atillan, home of the Inhumans, to New York to summon Medusa home. After a brief scuffle with the Human Torch, he explains Atillan has been invaded by Xemu, a tyrant from the Fifth Dimension, and plans to use Black Bolt’s voice to power his Thunder Horn, thereby conquering Earth (Medusa is required to coerce Black But to use his powers thusly). The issue ends with the Fantastic Four vowing to end this menace and taking off in their ICBM for Atillan.

What’s going here

There’s a lot to like in this issue, one of the best in many years. It also has an interesting origin, which may or may not explain why it’s better than other recent issues: According to an answer to a letter in this issue, this story was originally created for Giant-Size Fantastic Four 5, but penciler Rich Buckler ran afoul of “personal problems” and was unable to complete the story slated for FF 158. As a result, they chopped this story in two, with the second half to run in FF 159 while Giant-Size FF 5 became a fill-in issue. Whew!

Fantastic Four FF 158 reads like Roy Thomas at the peak of his powers. The story has lots of fun touches and bits of characterization, there’s an obligatory call back to an obscure comic, and he gets to show off his erudition as Ben and Alicia discuss Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. More importantly, while the plot structure is a pretty familiar one to FF readers, it’s suspenseful, well-paced and moves along briskly.

As Thomas notes in an editor’s note, Xemu and his Fifth Dimension first appeared in Strange Tales 103 from 1962 (although he was called Zemu back then), and you couldn’t not imagine a more Silver-age-ish comic than this. It has wonderful pencils from Jack Kirby, and is inked by Dick Ayers

Teenage Johnny investigates houses sinking into the muck on Long Island, discovers it’s an alien plot, is abducted to the Fifth Dimension, is taken prisoner, escapes with the help of sympathetic locals, starts a war, leads an uprising that liberate the planet, and returns home — all in 14 pages!

It’s clear Thomas has a lot of affection for this era of storytelling and he returns to it over and over throughout his career.

What I liked

The opening sequence, when Ben and Alicia are leaving the opera, was well handled, with the right amount of humor and genuine affection between the two. I liked how the splash page was a riff on the splash page from Giant-Size FF 4 (and recall how this story was originally supposed to be in GSFF 5), with Alicia turning the tables on ben and taking him to the opera. I also liked how Thomas poked fun at the silliness of the Fifth Dimension conceit in the title.

The fun banter between Ben and Alicia continues, and when Ben falls into his familiar woe-is-me routine, Alicia harmlessly bats it aside, recognizing it’s Ben’s schtick.

Thomas checks in on the rest of the FF as well. Johnny heads to a single bar, looking to, well, get laid. I love how the woman mocks his lingo, another subtle dig by Thomas at how dated Johnny’s slang was when written by Stan Lee.

Then we have a brief interlude with Reed and Sue — Sue’s first appearance in many issues. This is the first I’ve heard of Sue becoming a private detective, and I don’t know if anything became of it but it’s a great idea for a comic (she was later retconned as a super-spy who does missions for Nick Fury in the 2019 Invisible Woman mini-series, which is sort of a similar idea).

Lastly, we get a panel of Medusa, which seems to tell us what Thomas thinks of her as as story-telling material and which I suspect is a prelude to her leaving the FF.

And, randomly, Thomas introduces Barney Slocum, who lasts all of two panels. (I would not be surprised if Thomas resurrected him decades in the future as a new villain).

What I didn’t like

While Thomas seems to be having fun digging up Xemu, he’s a pretty tired concept, and he feels like a cross between Ming the Merciless and Xemnu, the Hulk villain. And his Thunder Horn seems lot like the Climate Cannon the evil Ternak planned to use to subjugate humanity in FF 145. (At least Xemu acknowledges it’s a silly name)