Fantastic Four 179
“A Robinson Crusoe in the Negative Zone!”
Published November 1976
Writers: Roy Thomas/ Gerry Conway
Pencils: Ron Wilson
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Joe Rosen
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Thomas
Cover: Al Milgrom and Sinnott

Editor’s note: Apologies for the two week absence. It’s summer vacation season!

Synopsis

While Mr. Fantastic is trapped in the Negative Zone, his evil doppleganger infiltrates the Fantastic Four. Tigra—who is hanging around the team along with Thundra and the Impossible Man—has her suspicions, but before she can reveal them to the Thing, the two fight and defeat a giant bank-robbing robot. The comic ends with Reed about to confront Annihilus in the Negative Zone.

What’s going on here?

This is an odd issue, one that interupts the momentum of the recent arc and contains a lot of character development and banter but not much plot. That may be because of the divided authorship, with Gerry Conway returning to plot the comic. The battle with the robot — called Metalloid on the cover but never identified in the issue — seems to serve no real purpose other than to insert an obligatory fight scene, although it may play a larger role in the next few issues. What stands out is the interactions between Johnny, Tigra, Thundra and Ben, and Ben’s obvious discomfort at being an object of attraction. Also of note is the very creepy dynamic between Sue and the imposter Reed.

The credits for this issue are peculiar:

This was Conway’s first FF credit since issue 152. For this month alone, Conway is credited with writing eight (!) comics for two companies: Ms Marvel 2, Ghost Rider 22, Superman 308, Avengers 156, Defenders 44, Iron Man 95 and Spectacular Spider-Man 3, along with this issue of the FF. Why they called on the busiest man in comics to plot this issue doesn’t make much sense, but from the lack of coherent story it’s pretty clear Conway was overstretched.

This issue also marks the Fantastic Four debut of Ron Wilson, who handled the pencils. Wilson would only draw a handful of FF issues, but would have a very long run drawing the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One and the Thing’s subsequent solo book. The cover was drawn by Al Milgrom, using a very Kirby-esque design. Milgrom inked an earlier issue but this is his first FF cover.

What I liked

The scenes of the FF hanging out with their guests are genuinely fun. Johnny flirting with Tigra, Tigra swatting him down, Thundra’s pursuit of Ben, and Ben’s unease with her.

(What’s unclear is who among the writers speaks Yiddish, or if any readers understodd the reference to the “whole magilla.”)

The team then adjourns to watch the Bionic Woman:

This is a great splash page from Wilson:

What I didn’t like:

It’s implied that the imposter Reed sleeps with Sue, which today can only be understood as rape. It’s not exactly swept under the rug here, but the magnitude of the crime isn’t made clear, either. We’ll see if it’s addressed more fully in subsequent issues:

Less seriously, there’s a bit too much fourth-wall breaking by Thomas:

And this reference to Bruce Wayne wasn’t very subtle (or in character for Reed):

Lastly, this is pretty silly. Flint can create a spark, but it’s a stone and doesn’t burn:

Anything else?

Here’s a look at the Marvel masthead, the first time I recall seeing this printed:

Lots of familiar names.

This is a cool looking toy:

Overall

A decidedly mixed bag