“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” Fantastic Four Annual No. 16

19 Monday Oct 2026

Posted by percivalhenry in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1981, Dragon Man, Ed Hannigan, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four Annual 16, Marvel comics, Steve Ditko

Fantastic Four Annual 16
“The Coming of … Dragon Lord!”
Published June 1981
Writer: Ed Hannigan
Pencils: Steve Ditko
Inks: Steve Ditko
Letters: Ron Zalme
Colors: Hannigan
Editor: David Anthony Kraft
Cover: Ditko

Editor’s Note: In my excitement to dive into John Byrne’s Fantastic Four run, it appears I, um, oops, forgot about FF Annual 16, which came out the same month as FF 234. As you will see, there are reasons for that, but because I am committed to reacapping every issue for you, dear reader, I am going back to finish the job.

Synopsis

Ral Dorn, a human from another dimension, comes to Earth fleeing Dragon Riders, who accuse him of murdering the young dragons in his care. His hope is to harness Earth’s Dragon Man as his mount, and he tries to recruit the Fantastic Four to his cause. The FF accompany him to a mine in Pennsylvania, where, after battling the Dragon Riders, he teleports Dragon Man and (inadvertently) the Invisible Girl to another dimension. The FF and the Dragon Riders return to their home dimension, where Ral Dorn, Dragon Man and Sue reappear. Ral Dorn then battles Skagerackrakor (!), the Dragon Lord, in a trial by combat to prove his innocence. Skag cheats, and then admits he killed the young dragons. He then sends riderless dragons to Earth to wreak havoc, but Ral Dorn and Reed track them down and return to them to their dimension. Ral Dorn is proclaimed the new Dragon Lord and the FF return to Earth.

What’s going on here?

Where to begin? This comic is such a bizarre mess that it defies any simple analysis. It seems to be the creation of Ed Hannigan, a true comic book journeyman, who has credits ranging from cover artist of the first Marvel Universe series to penciling Peter Parker to inking Kull to writing the Defenders to coloring Iron Man. But as the expression goes, “jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” and his limitations as a writer are on full display here. The story is overly long, hopelessly convoluted, full of dead ends and plot holes, and ridden with cliches. It reads like a naive, Silver Age story, but it feels totally out of place as a 1980s Fantastic Four annual.

The story reads like an origin story introducing Dragon Lord, with the FF as incidental characters, and my best guess is Hannigan pitched it as a new Marvel title, which Jim Shooter rejected. Because nothing ever goes to waste, I imagine Shooter decided to repurpose it as an FF annual. And Steve Ditko, who at this point in his career was being handed the dregs of Marvel’s titles, was tapped to do the art. You can almost feel Hannigan’s desperation in the note to readers to write in support of Dragon Lord:

Ditko had just one Fantastic Four credit prior to this, as inker on the legendary FF 13, and it’s a shame it took this long for him to pencil an issue

There’s something tragic about Ditko’s decline in the esteem of Marvel, from penciling the first 38 issues of Amazing Spider-Man —one of the most celebrated runs in comics history — to 20 years later being tossed scraps like this annual and Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos. His unique, idiosyncratic style, which served him so well on Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, became more pronounced, and increasingly out of step with mainstream expectations. Unfortunately, his art in this comic did him no favors, as it is at turns cartoony and cramped.

Needless to say, Dragon Lord did not receive the outpouring of support necessary to bring him back, and he faded into obscurity. Bizzarely, he was revived just two years ago by Rob Liefield, of all people, in Deadpool Team-Up, a comic which focues on unearthing forgotten characters. Here he is:

What I liked

Ditko’s art can be endearingly energetic, as in this sequence:

And we still get flashes of his inventive eye, such as in these panels:

I also liked an introductory sequence that showed the FF at brunch, coincidentally using all of their powers (but why is poor Franklin wearing a jacket and tie to breakfast?):

What I didn’t like

There’s no point in detailing all the problems with this comic. Suffice to say almost every page has something I could harp on and it feels mean to kick a comic when it’s down. As we have learned, the Fantastic Four’s annuals are highly uneven, ranging from the extraordinary FF Annual 6 to, well, this one. Thankfully, we will return to a high with Annual 16 in two years.

Overall

Let’s forget this ever happened

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Fantastic Four No. 13

27 Saturday Mar 2021

Posted by percivalhenry in World's Greatest Comic Magazine

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1963, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 13, jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko

Fantastic Four 13
“The Red Ghost and his Indescribable Super Apes”
Published: Jan. 1963
Story: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Script: Lee
Pencils: Kirby
Inks: Steve Ditko
Letters: Art Simek
Cover: Jack Kirby and Don Heck

Synopsis

In his lab, Mr. Fantastic unveils his latest discovery to the rest of the team: A substance retrieved from a meteor crater in Arizona that provides “limitless energy.” He tells the team he intends to use to travel to the Moon, as he believes the “the reds” have found a similar substance in Siberia, and he wants to win the space race. The rest of the team persuades him to bring them along.

Meanwhile, “behind the Iron Curtain,” Ivan Kragoff launches his own rocket to the moon crewed by a team of trained apes. He leaves his ship unshielded to deliberately expose himself and the apes to the same cosmic rays that transformed the Fantastic Four. His plan works and the four gain powers.

Both ships land on the Blue Area of the Moon, which contains an oxygen atmosphere and the ruins of an ancient civilization. As the Thing confronts Kragoff, now called the Red Ghost, and his apes, the Watcher appears. An ancient alien tasked with observing the Earth, he instructs the Ghost and the FF to “fight it out” for control of the moon. The Ghost captures the Invisible Girl, but as a hostage, she manages to free the apes and foil the Ghost’s plan to use a disintegrator ray on the Human Torch. The Ghost tries to escape, but is bewildered in the Watcher’s house, and is captured by a paralysis ray invented by Reed. He escapes again, only to be pursued by his apes as the FF return to Earth.

What’s going on here?

Fantastic Four 13 marks the first appearance of the Red Ghost (and his Super Apes), a recurring villain who never quite rises to the ranks of the A-list, but appears in plenty of comics over the years.

More notably, it’s the first appearance of the Blue Area of the Moon and its most famous denizen, the Watcher. Both appear prominently over the years and across Marvel’s entire line of comics. The Watcher often serves as a Greek chorus, introducing particularly big stories—among them Uncanny X-Men 137 and the death of Phoenix—and “hosted” the What If? comic, where he would introduce stories from alternative timelines. Uatu was killed in 2014’s Original Sin crossover event (he less said about that the better) before being resurrected in last year’s Empyre crossover.

As originally drawn by Kirby in FF 13, the Watcher (not yet named Uatu) has spindly limbs and an enormous head, giving him a distinctly alien appearance.

A few years later, in FF 48, Kirby made him significantly beefier.

By the time What If? 1 comes out in 1977, he’s pretty much unrecognizable.

It’s not until John Byrne takes the reins of the FF does he revert back to his original proportions.

FF 13 also introduced the Blue Area of the Moon, another fixture of the Marvel universe. Created by the Skrulls, it became the home of the Inhuman’s city of Attilan, and featured prominently in X-Men 137, as a battleground between the X-Men and the Shi”ar Imperial guard. Byrne, then the X-Men’s penciler, drew heavily on FF 13 for his images of the Blue Area.

Both the FF and the X-Men arrive at the same location, for example:

Later, both the FF and the X-Men pass the same alien machinery

The homage extends to a sequence when the Ghost invades the Watcher’s home, which Byrne duplicates with Wolverine.

Fantastic Four 13 is also notable as the only regular issue of the comic inked by Steve Ditko (he also inked stories in a pair of annuals). Ditko, better know as the penciler of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, is a good choice here, given the story has few Kirby-esque brawls, but is more about the spooky landscapes Ditko excels at. Despite that, I think his influence is most noticeable in close ups of the FF, and particularly Reed.

Red Menace

The Cold War and space race features prominently in the comic. Reed is determined to beat “the reds” to the Moon, while Kragoff wants to the extend the “communist empire.” Stan is notably averse to mentioning the Soviet Union by name even if Kragoff’s ship features a hammer and sickle.