Fantastic Four 211
“If This Be Terrax!”
Published July 1979
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Joseph Rosen
Colors: Ben Sean
Editor: Wolfman
Cover: Byrne and Sinnott

Synopsis

As part of their bargain with Galactus, the Fantastic Four are transported to an alien world, where they are to locate a new herald. They are captured by stone-based robots and summoned to the throne room of the local warlord, Tyros the Terrible, and after besting him in battle, it is revealed he is to be the new herald. Galactus transforms him in Terrax the Tamer, imbuing with potent earth-based powers, and, with the FF, departs for Earth to battle the Sphinx.

What’s going on here?

This is the best FF issue in quite some time, and not coincidentally, it’s the one that most feels like a John Byrne comic. Despite Marv Wolfman being credited with the writing, it would not have felt out of place during Byrne’s later run when he wrote and plotted the stories. I have no way of knowing how much of this story was Byrne’s vs. Wolfman’s but if I were to bet, I’d say it was mostly Byrne.

Much of the story involves Galactus’s transformation of Tyros into Terrax, and Byrne takes his time demonstrating both the power of Galactus and then Terrax.

I’ve always liked Terrax as a villain, in part because he featured prominently in Fantastic Four 260, my first FF issue and (I still maintain) one of the best single FF issues ever. It makes sense that he is a Byrne creation, since he contains so many traits Byrne loves in his bad guys: pomposity, arrogance and cosmic power.


What I liked

This issue spells out why Galactus chose Tyros to make into his herald: His powers are earth based, following a roster of heralds with similar, element based powers, which I’m guessing was a coincidence up to this point: the Silver Surfer (water), Airwalker (air, duh) and Firelord (also duh). And since the morality of other heralds got in the way of their service, this time Galactus deliberately chose an amoral asshole.

I’ve groused about how the effects of the Skrull’s aging ray, which is suppossed to rapidly age and kill Reed, Sue and Ben, have been more or less ignored by Wolfman since they were zapped in issue 206. But here, Byrne visibly ages Reed and Sue without calling attention to it. In fact, the only reference to their altered appearance comes from Tyros, who objects to Sue’s wrinkles (although he will still ad her to his harem):

I also liked how Ben points out that a life of servitude to Galactus is what Tyros deserves after subjugating his own people.

And lastly, there are some just great Byrne panels and sequences throughout, like this

and this:

and this:

What I didn’t like

Not much. As I said, this is a really good comic and I’m just picking nits here. I thought this was an oddly formal turn of phrase from Johnny:

I also thought is was strange that the aliens on this planet initially communicate telepathically — which makes sense because they don’t speak English! —then just start speaking English after a few page:

Anything else?

Some fun new ads. Did anyone have a banana walkie-talkie?

Overall

An excellent comic