Fantastic Four 28 | Percival Henry: The Fantastic Four and more

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1964, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 28, jack Kirby, Stan Lee, X-Men

Fantastic Four 28
“We Have to Fight the X-Men!”
Published April 1964
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Chic Stone
Letters: Art Simek

Synopsis

At the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four discuss the exploits of the X-Men, whom they read about in the newspaper. Meanwhile, the Mad Thinker summons the Puppet Master, and enlists him in a plan to defeat the Fantastic Four. Following the Thinker’s instructions, the Puppet Master creates a replica of the X-men’s leader, Professor X with his “radioactive clay,” then uses it to control Prof. X, who orders the X-men to attack the FF.

The X-Men fly to the Baxter Building in their “jetcopter,” and are welcomed by the unsuspecting FF. They then launch an attack and the teams battle until Mr. Fantastic, unable to understand the X-Men’s motives, orders the FF to surrender. The X-Men take the Invisible Woman as a hostage (of course they do), and the FF pursue the X-Men to a desert mesa, where the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master reveal themselves.

Still under the sway of the Puppet Master, Prof. X orders the X-men to battle the FF until the Puppet Master’s clay figurine of Prof. X is destroyed. The two teams then join forces to fight the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android until Prof. X, still in Westchester, uses his telepathic powers to shut down the android. The villains escape before they can be captured, and the two teams of heroes part as allies.

What’s going on here?

A fun issue! Yes, the fight between the X-Men and FF is contrived, and yes, it is clearly designed to promote Marvel’s new X-Men title—FF 28 is published between issues 4 and 5 of the X-Men—but it still delivers. The action is dynamic, the story moves along, and Kirby particularly is on his game. It might help that Chic Stone inked this issue, after a run by George Roussos, giving Kirby’s pencils a crisper look than what we’ve seen in the last few issues.

The big development is the appearance of the X-Men, marking the first of many meetings between the teams. The X-Men, of course, go on to become a global phenomenon, but in these early days, they were very much a work in progress (Cyclops fires “power beams” and not optic blasts, for instance, and Prof. X’s powers work on an android). However, as Austin Gorton notes, in his always X-cellent blog, X-amining the X-Men, the X-Men more than hold their own against the FF and it’s Prof. X, not Reed, who saves the day.

Tracking down all the joint appearances between the teams would be exhausting, but here the covers from some notable ones:

The teams interacted in less splashy ways over the years too. One of my favorites came in Uncanny X-Men 522, when the X-Men have relocated to San Francisco and are in one of their periodic us-against-the-world phases. Magneto is using his powers to pull an enormous, bullet-shaped rocket carrying Kitty Pryde from deep space, and Cyclops doesn’t want anyone on earth to know about it. Reed isn’t having it:

Read all about it

Once again, the FF use the strange and awesome technology of the newspaper to keep up with events. They are also surprisingly up to date on the activities of the X-Men.

Kooky Kredits

Stan is at it again

The sexist sixties

Would it be an issue of the FF if Sue wasn’t taken hostage?

Oops

Cyclops references the Mad Thinkers plan here, although at this point, he is unaware of the Thinker and Puppet Master’s control over Prof. X and thinks he’s merely following the professor’s inscrutable orders.