Fantastic Four 94 | Percival Henry: The Fantastic Four and more

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1969, Agatha Harkness, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 94, Frightful Four, jack Kirby, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 94
“The Return of the Frightful Four!”
Published October 1969
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Sam Rosen
Cover: Kiby and John Verpoorten

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 94 opens with the team (plus Crystal) assembled to hear Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Girl announce they have named their baby Franklin. When the Thing hears the child’s middle name is Benjamin, he dissolves into tears. Reed and Sue then announce they will be taking Franklin to a nanny who can look after him.

Meanwhile, the villainous Wizard has reassembled the Frightful Four—the Sandman, Trapster and Medusa—to gain his revenge on the Fantastic Four, and after spying on the team, plots to attack them.

The Fantastic Four flies through stormy skies via the Fantasti-car to Whisper Hill, where they meet Franklin’s new nanny, Agatha Harkness. She invites them to spend the night, where they are attacked by the Frightful Four. While the villains quickly gain the upper hand, Medusa—the Inhuman queen and sister of Crystal—turns on them. Then Harkness reveals powers of her own, using sorcery to defeat the villains. The Fantastic Four, baffled by the bad guys’ defeat, find Harkness minding Franklin and leave none the wiser.

What’s going on?

I just loved this comic. It’s a great, one-and done story that upends our expectations, and it’s told with wit, humor and great characterizations for everyone in the story. Stan and Jack set us up to expect the worse from Agatha Harkness and her haunted house on Whisper Hill, then subverts the trope to make the witch the hero. The FF are more-or-less bystanders to the main action, yet they and particularly Franklin remain at the center of the story. Even Medusa, roped back into the Frightful Four without explanation, gets a moment in the spotlight as she turns the tables on her old team. And Kirby and Sinnott do a great job with the haunted house setting, where everything looks extra creepy.

If there’s one negative to the story, it’s that it depicts the Frightful Four as fairly hapless villains, who are really there to further the plot about Agatha Harkness. It’s too bad, because in past issues, notably issue 38, they have proven to be formidable opponents who gave the FF all they could handle and deserve better than being a punch line.

Fantastic Four 94 has two major developments that will have a lasting impact in the Marvel universe. One is the introduction of Agatha Harkness, Franklin’s nanny (or governess, if you prefer) and from the get-go, a pretty powerful witch. She becomes a fairly important supporting character in both the Marvel universe, where she interacts with Dr. Strange and the Scarlet Witch, along with the FF, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well. I don’t know what Stan and Jack had in mind for her when they created her, but she’s proven to have staying power.

Her (and Ebony’s) disposal of the Wizard is particularly impressive.

The other big development is the reveal of Franklin’s name. As I have discussed, Franklin, and later with his sister, Valeria, becomes a key character in the Fantastic Four and it’s impossible to think of the team’s growth without him. It was inevitable that he would have a name, but naming him after Sue and Johnny’s father further establishes the team as a family first. And when they reveal his middle name, there’s not a dry eye in the house.

Now that’s what I call evil

The Wizard is just irredeemably bad, a pure villain. Jack draws him accordingly:

Domestic bliss

I love this splash page, and it’s another useful reminder that Ben is not a giant, despite how some artists insist on depicting him.