Fantastic Four No. 2
“The Fantastic Four Meet the Skrulls from Outer Space”
Published: September 1961
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Pencils: Kirby
Script: Lee
Inks: George Klein (uncredited)
Cover: Kirby and Klein

Synopsis:

One by one, members of the Fantastic Four are shown engaged in acts of vandalism and theft: The Thing demolishes an off-shore oil rig, the Invisible Girl steals a diamond, the Human Torch melts a statue and Mr. Fantastic stretches into a power plant to switch off New York’s electricity. The four are revealed to be Skrulls, shape-shifting aliens who are framing the Fantastic Four as a prelude to their invasion of Earth. The real Fantastic Four are taken prisoner by the US Army, but the FF quickly escape the cells specially designed to hold them.

Now free, the FF devise a plan for the Human Torch to attack a rocket in order to flush out the Skrulls. The plan works, and once Johnny reaches the aliens’ headquarters, he sends a flare to attract the rest of the team who quickly subdue the Skrulls. The team then uses the Skrulls’ space craft (disguised as one of New York’s ubiquitous water towers) to fly to the orbiting mother ship, where, while masquerading as the four invading Skrulls, they present the Skrull commander evidence of the terrible monsters ready to defend Earth (in reality, images clipped from Marvel comics). Terrified, the Skrulls flee, and the FF return to Earth where they clear their name and pacify the remaining Skrulls by hypnotizing them into believing they’re cows.

What’s going on here?

The introduction of the Skrulls is the most significant development in the Fantastic Four’s second issue. While a lot of Marvel’s Silver Age villains appeared once or twice, only to vanish in obscurity, the Skrulls go on to become a major part of the Marvel universe. The basics are all laid out here: they’re a war-like race bent on conquering Earth, and will use their shape-shifting powers to infiltrate human society. Over the years the Skrulls become one of the three major alien empires, with the Kree and Shi’ar, that feature across the Marvel line. Some Skrulls receive individual identities, including various members of the Skrull royal family. At one point it’s revealed that Johnny Storm is married not to Alicia Masters but to Lyja, a Skrull in disguise, and Hulkling, a young hero, is the product of a Skrull-Kree romance. A Skrull incursion became a major cross over event in 2008 (called Secret Invasion, naturally enough), and Skrulls played a major part in 2019s Captain Marvel movie.

The Skrulls are classic Silver Age villains—literally little green men from space—and products of Cold War paranoia, with the menace Communist infiltration is a recurrent theme throughout science fiction. Their shape shifting makes them potent characters and it’s not hard to see what Lee and other writers would return to them again and again.

Anything else of note?

Stan and Jack are still figuring out what the Fantastic Four are. While their individual identities are clearly established, a lot of the team’s familiar trappings—their uniforms, their gadgets, their headquarters—won’t appear until next issue. Instead, they’re dressed as civilians, they’re hanging out in an “isolated hunting lodge,” of all places, and a text block refers to them meeting at “one of the Fantastic Four’s many secret apartment hideouts.” I’m not sure those hideouts every reappear. At this early stage, it’s not quite clear if Lee and Kirby want these characters to be superheroes, or perhaps a band of super spies, like 007.

Despite this being just their second issue, the Fantastic Four are apparently quite famous, and the various imposters are identified by their code names by the public.

The torment of the Thing

Ben Grimm’s anguish at being a monster is again on display, as it will be almost every issue for the next 60 years.

This issue also has him briefly changing back to human form as the FF again passes through “the radiation belt” (not cosmic rays), as they return to Earth from the Skrull ship in orbit. Over the years the FF go to space a lot, but I’m not aware of this happening regularly.

They’re fighting again

Another ongoing feature is Ben fighting with his teammates:

The sexist sixties

Sue is again portrayed as a helpless bystander:

Trapped!

This is the first time the FF are caged in cells designed to neutralize their powers (and which they eventually outwit) but it won’t be the last. This device appears frequently over the years.

Let’s talk about us

Reed’s use of Marvel comics (specifically “Strange tales” and “Journey into Mystery”) to fool the Skrulls is the beginning of a long tradition of Stan and Jack bending the fourth wall by inserting Marvel and its creators into their stories. The in-universe explanation, later retconned, of why this works is that the war-like Skrulls have no tradition of representational art and couldn’t perceive that the images were illustrations.

Dig that Kirby Krackle

Jack delivers some great art in this issue. Here’s a great panel of the army advancing to arrest the FF:

For sale:

A mint edition (9.8) FF 2 sold for $145,000 in 2013.

Pin up time

Bashful Benjamin Grimm gets his own pin-up at the end of the comic, the first in what becomes an ongoing feature. Note the careful qualification “the strongest man-like creature on the face of the earth.”

About those cows

In a clever bit of story telling, and nice use of the Fantastic Four’s history, John Byrne took the throwaway line at the end, about the Skrulls being hypnotized into cows, and built a great horror story around it in 1983’s Fantastic Four Annual 17. The story essentially asks, what happens when an entire town spends years drinking Skrull milk? It’s also a useful reminder that despite Reed’s brilliance, not all of his ideas are thought through to their conclusion.

Next issue: The FF get costumes!