“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four No. 65

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1967, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 65, jack Kirby, Kree, Ronan the Accuer, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 65
“..From Beyond This Planet Earth!”
Published: May 1967
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

Fantastic Four 65 begins in the midst of a dream, with the team held captive by the Kree’s Supreme Intelligence as punishment for destroying the Kree Sentry last issue. As the FF wakes up in the Baxter Building, they realize they’ve all had the same nightmare. After some hijinks, the team separates: Johnny goes joy-rising in a new hot rod with Crystal while Reed and Sue go out on a date. And in a subplot teasing the next issue, Alicia Masters is led away by a mysterious stranger with the power to travel through walls.

Meanwhile, Ronan the Accuser, dispatched by the Supreme Intelligence, arrives on Earth to exact revenge. The members of the FF disappear from their activities and are reassembled by Ronan under his “cone of inpenatrability” (sic) where he attempts to pronounce his sentence. The team fights back but he proves their equal using his club-like weapon. Eventually the team triumphs when Ronan disappears, after his weapon discharges while he was on top of it.

What’s going on here

This is a bit of an odd comic. For the first time in what seems like many issues, the FF are at home and relaxing as civilians, and those pages flow easily. But when the FF is engaged with Ronan, the storytelling becomes cramped and off-key. Both the art and storytelling seem rushed and a bit sloppy. Take, for example, this splash page:

Normally a splash page is an opportunity for Kirby to cut loose, but here it’s just another panel. And Ronan’s dialogue—explaining what Reed is doing with his arms—seems oddly expository (also note the spelling of “thru”).

Another strange element that suggests Kirby was rushing: A number of panels, spread over several pages, are drawn from the same perspective, looking down from above Ronan’s right shoulder.

Another oddity: Reed directing Ben with a code for a maneuver. It’s something Cyclops used to do with the X-Men, but I don’t believe we’ve seen it in the Fantastic Four.

Who is this guy?

FF 65 marks the first appearance of Ronan the Accuser, who goes on to appear in dozens of of comics over the years. Notably, he is pink-skinned here, before later becoming blue skinned like most of the Kree. He spends his first decades as a bad guy before his story becomes more interesting with his arranged marriage to Crystal in the War of Kings miniseries. In a coincidence, Crystal is in this issue, although they didn’t encounter each other.

War of Kings 1 (2009, art by Paul Pelletier and Rick Magyar)

Despite the arranged nature of the wedding, the two fall in love, before they are separated in a deal struck between Black Bolt and the Supreme Intelligence. Eventually Ronan is captured and tortured by Kree fanatics before he is put out of his misery and killed by Black Bolt. Will he stay dead? Seems unlikely, but who knows.

Death of the Inhumans 3 (2018, Donny Cates and Ariel Olivetti)

The sexist sixties

This sequence is really excruciating.

Word Power

Ronan really likes his adverbs.

They’re fighting again

It’s been a long time since we’ve had one these.

What year is it?

A couple of topical references in this issue, to Bobby Kennedy and Simon & Garfunkel (and check out Johnny’s vanity plate).

New York’s finest

Of course the cops have an “all-purpose blaster.” I’m sure they would never abuse it.

Weird Science

Ronan projects an “aura of negativism,” something my wife accuses me of doing on occasion.

Young Love

Panels like this are good reminder that Jack drew about a million issues of romance comics in the 1950s

Dig that Kirby Krackle

A pretty cool sequence of Ronan approaching Earth.

Also cool:

Also on Newsstands

In May 1967

Next issue: Alicia and the mystery of the Beehive!

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Fantastic Four No. 64

12 Sunday Jun 2022

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1967, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 64, jack Kirby, Kree, Sentry, Stan Lee

Fantastic Four 64
“The Sentry Sinister”
Published: April 1967
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek
Cover: Kirby and Sinnott

Synopsis

After their recent battle with Blastaar, the Fantastic Four decide to go on a vacation (minus the Human Torch, who wants to stay behind with Crystal). The Thing randomly selects an island in the South Pacific where, unbeknowst to the FF, an archaeologist has awakened a slumbering alien robot, a Sentry left by the Kree. As the FF approach the island in their pogo plane, they enter a “vibration field” and only the Invisible Girl’s force field protects the team.

On the island, the three members battle the Sentry, which maintains it’s only following its orders to destroy the team, when Sue manages to send an emergency message to Johnny. Lockjaw teleports him to the island just in time to save the other members from a crushing tidal wave created by the robot. Johnny’s flame ignites a Kree power source and the team, along with the archeologist and his guide, teleport away from the island and the Sentry just as the island threatens to explode.

What’s going on here?

Aside from the creaky plot device of the Fantastic Four encountering trouble while on vacation (previously deployed in FF Annual 1), this is a brisk, well-told comic that balances some of the playful characterizations we have become familiar with compelling action and a villain the FF really are no match for.

Most notably, of course, FF 64 introduces the Kree, one of the three major alien empires in the Marvel Universe (along with the Skrull and Shi’ar) and maybe *the* most significant alien race in Marvel (I would even expand it to say in all of comics, except for the progeny of a little planet called Krypton).

The Kree-Skrull war is one of the most notable events in early Marvel history, the Kree created the Inhumans, Marvel’s original Captain Marvel was a renegade Kree, and Carol Danvers—first Ms. Marvel, then Binary, Warbird and now Captain Marvel—got her powers via the Kree. The new Ms. Marvel, Kamal Khan, became a hero indirectly via the Kree, since she was exposed to the Inhuman’s Terrigen Mists.

In fact, the significance of the Kree is making me re-evaluate my unofficial designation of FF 44-60 as the highpoint of the Lee-Kirby creative partnership and extend it to FF 67, which would include not only the creation of the Kree but the realization of the Negative Zone as an alien dimension, and the introduction of Blastaar, Ronan the Accuser, the Supreme Intelligence and Him, later to become Adam Warlock (much more on all of that to come). It’s both evidence of Stan and Jack’s creative energies, and Marvel’s ability to take hold of good ideas and nourish them over the years, giving them new life again and again.

Interestingly, the antagonist in this issue, the Kree Sentry robot, sort of fades in importance as the actual Kree take shape. He’s sort of a stalking horse for the much bigger empire to come. But you wouldn’t know that from this issue, and this amazing Kirby splash page. And, it should be noted, he pretty much wipes the floor with the FF, who only escape by teleporting off the island.

At one point the Sentry declares it is “no mere robot” and calls itself a living Sentry. Certainly, it’s vocabulary suggests it’s not from the robot-school of speaking. What mere robot uses so many adjectives?

The sexist sixties

This is a pretty egregious issue for ’60s-style sexism, starting with Sue huffing over being ignored while Reed and Ben are working.

It gets worse when Reed barks orders at her during a battle (note: this could have been filed under the “Reed Richards is a Jerk” heading).

Further, Reed is engaged in some revisionist history when he claims it was headline writers that pinned the name “Mr. Fantastic” on him. Because if you’ve read FF No. 1, you’ll recall it was Reed who gave himself that moniker.