Fantastic Four 234 | Percival Henry: The Fantastic Four and more

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1981, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 234, John Byrne, Marvel, Marvel comics

Fantastic Four 234
“The Man With The Power!”
Published June 1981
Writer: John Byrne
Pencils: Byrne
Inks: Byrne
Letters: Jean Simek
Colors: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Byrne and Terry Austin

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Synopsis

The comic begins by following Skip Collins, an average man who unknowingly has extraordinary powers to remake reality. On a business trip to New York, Collins observes members of the Fantastic Four help save lives as gravity waves from space pummel the city. Collins eventually uses his powers to return Earth to normal as the FF travel to space to discover the source of the chaos is Ego, the Living Planet.

What’s going on here?

This is an interesting issue, and one that shows Byrne’s ambitions as a writer, although I’m not sure it’s ultimately successful. Like last issue, it begins with an in-depth focus on an individual unconnected to the FF, but who somehow crosses their paths. As in the last issue, Byrne really emphasizes the celebrity of the Fantastic Four, and contrasts their star power with the ordinary people who view them from afar (and I wonder of Byrne is taking this approach after years of dealing with the outcast X-Men). In this case, the FF never meet Skip Collins, and only the Thing has any sort of encounter with him.

And therein lies the story’s problem: Despite the elaborate build up, Collins is never really the focus of the story’s action, and while we are primed to believe he is the source of the devastating gravity waves, it’s a red herring, since they come from Ego. In fact, it feels like the whole purpose of introducing Collins is for him to clean up the mess the FF leave behind as they fly into space. Byrne essentially introduces a character with Beyonder-like power, then dismisses him before he can ever interact with the comic’s protagonists. By the end of the story, Byrne tells us Collins has lost his powers, and he never appears again.

Terry Austin returns to ink the cover, although his talents seem wasted with this one, and Jean Simek makes her debut as an FF letterer, despite having spent a decade lettering a wide range of titles at both Marvel and DC.

What I liked

The star of the show is again Byrne’s art, which is just off the charts. Check out the detail in the image above (from the title splash page). The FF on the TIME cover, Collins’s band aid, the odd paintings, the carvings on the headboard, the patterns on his pajamas and bedspread. It’s a virtuoso performance, and there another dozen like it in the comic. His best images may be when he shows the before-and-after when Collins uses his powers, like here:

and here:

(I’m curious about the names above the stores (Andrea, Coodie, Mueller, Faulkner. They’re not other comic creators, at least none that I recognize — I’m guessing friends of Byrne.)

This sequence was also impressive:

Byrne’s politics are always a bit of a mystery to me, and hopefully they will become clearer as I re-read his run. Sometimes I think he’s a traditional conservative, sometimes a libertarian, sometimes a liberal. This sequence seems to be saying something, I’m just not sure what:

I liked this sequence with Ben and his friend, Mick Clancy, a bar keeper and former test pilot. Unfortunately, this is first and last appearance.

What I didn’t like

I’ve already explained why I think the story doesn’t really work, and Collins’s elaborate backstory, which includes a flashback to his time in the army when he got his powers from a atomic bomb test, seems unnecessary for a character that never shows up again.

Byrne also continues explaining that which need not be explained, like here:

We really don’t need to know what they chose this particular Fanasticar. We trust them. Really.

Also, this sequence seems a bit unfair to Reed. Reed is an egg head, but we’ve seen that he’s plugged into the world. It seems that a guy who invented a spaceship and met dozens of aliens would have at least heard of Star Trek.