Fantastic Four #105-116Issue(s): Fantastic Four #105, Fantastic Four #106, Fantastic Four #107, Fantastic Four #108, Fantastic Four #109, Fantastic Four #110, Fantastic Four #111, Fantastic Four #112, Fantastic Four #113, Fantastic Four #114, Fantastic Four #115, Fantastic Four #116 Review/plot: It starts with a two part story featuring an anti-war scientist who thought it would be a good idea to give his son the power to disable any weapon. Instead it turned him into a monster. Reed is forced to choose between abandoning the Thing in the middle of another cure attempt or save Sue from the monster. His solution is to freeze the Thing in a block of ice, accomplished by the Human Torch sucking all the heat out of the room. Also in these issues, it is determined that Crystal's metabolism can't handle the pollution in the modern world, so she is once again forced back to Attilan, resulting in teen angst for Johnny. Issue #106 ends with Reed and the anti-war scientist curing the monster, turning him back into the scientist's son, but the Thing is still stuck in a block of ice, thanks to an unusual use of the Human Torch's powers. {Chronology note: This is where issue #106 ends. If necessary, i could break up the run here since it is potentially an indeterminate period of time before Reed gets back to the Baxter Building to work on the Thing again. Furthermore, this break also marks where John Romita Sr.'s short run of the Fantastic Four ends and John Buscema takes over on pencils. However, since keeping the FF run together doesn't cause any problems and allows for a more continuous story, my preference at this point is to not break it up.} Returning to the Baxter Building, Reed administers the latest cure to the Thing, and now Ben can control his transformations, like the rest of the team. Reed wants to do further tests but Ben is too overjoyed and brushes him off. We often hear that the reason Ben rejects the Thing Cures is because he thinks that Alicia only loves him when he's the Thing. In this arc we get a glimpse of things from Alicia's side, where she voices the concern that the Thing could love a blind girl but a normal man could find someone else. Later on, as Ben becomes more aggressive as a result of the side-effect of the cure, he actually voices that as a threat. In the meantime he is becoming more and more nasty. Two issues after Crystal leaves, in what must be about 2 hours in Marvel Universe time, the Human Torch is already complaining that he hasn't heard "a single word from her". Reed buries himself in lab work and is particularly dismissive of Sue. There's not even an immediate threat on the horizon so it's especially troubling. Sue heads off to Agatha Harkness' place at Whispering Hill (in the Adirondacks!), where Franklin is already displaying extra-sensory powers - he can see Sue even though she is invisible. Meanwhile Janus shows up at the Baxter Building and forces his way into the Negative Zone. But wait, who is Janus? The Fantastic Four seem to know who he is, but us readers haven't met him yet. The reason for this is that Janus was featured in an issue of the Fantastic Four that Jack Kirby was working on when he left the FF. In 2008 Marvel published it as "The Lost Adventure", but i never picked it up due to the fact that it is essentially featured in Fantastic Four #108, only cut up and placed in between John Buscema-drawn bookends (Footnote: "If none of this makes sense to you, don't worry about it. Only mixed-up Marvel would attempt to show flashback scenes from a story we've never printed before! - sincere Stan"). The bookends are funny, with an increasingly grumpy Ben Grimm basically saying 'how come you keep telling us things we already know'?' while Reed keeps saying 'think back to that time we fought Janus...". In the flashback, the Thing and the Human Torch fight a Nega-Man... ...who has tapped into the power of negative energy (!), while Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl answer a call for help from a former classmate of Reed's named Janus. In another Jekyll and Hyde type experiment, Janus created a negative energy version of himself. After the Nega-Man defeats the Torch and the Thing, he returns to where Janus and Reed are talking, and Janus shoots him with an ordinary gun, killing him (Sue, supposed to be the invisible ace-in-the-hole, is completely useless this entire encounter. Not that Reed actually does anything, either.). But now the Nega-Man persona is back, and wants power he thinks he can get in the Negative Zone. The original story doesn't seem all that good and the original pencils don't seem all that 'lost' so i don't know why it was decided to re-publish the issue recently. In the Negative Zone, Janus meets Annihilus, who laughs at Janus' power. Sue is once again left behind as the rest of the FF head into the Negative Zone. When Agatha Harkness calls to tell her to come pick up her son, Sue becomes hysterical, torn between the busy-work monitor duty job given to her by Reed and her responsibilities as a parent (unshared by her husband). It's an interesting character study in early 70s marital relations although it's still unclear to me whether or not it is intentional. Annihilus tosses Janus into the Debris Belt area of the Negative Zone that causes positive matter creatures to explode... ...and he does a good job of tearing into the FF as well. In one of the most contrived scenes we've seen in a while, Reed loses his homing gyro device that will lead him home, but he has to stay behind to hold off Annihilus and his army so that the Thing and the Torch can get home without leading Annihilus to the positive world. There is no reason whatsoever that the Thing and the Torch can't share a gyro, leaving one with Reed. Interesting note in Marvel Selects #3 (reprinting FF #109): This issue focuses on the Negative Zone, one of the strongest visual concepts created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and certainly the most baffling. ... But then what is this "antimatter zone" with an "exploding atmosphere"? In FF Annual #6 Reed speculates that the planet at the center is the Negative Zone counterpart of Earth, but no story has ever taken us there. In the next issue, the rest of the FF realize that Reed has sacrificed himself. I agree with the Thing, who says "He knew the risk! He shouldn'ta gone after Janus! But him -- he hadda be a hero!". This is supposed to be showing the continued degradation of the Thing's personality due to the side-effects of the cure that lets him control his transformation, but really, Reed's sacrifice was entirely unnecessary. Anyway, in a bizarre use of the Torch's powers, Johnny manages to embed his gyro in a fireball and throw it to Reed. We're going to chalk up the fact that this actually works to Agatha Harkness' magic since she uses her magic to prevent Annihilus from following Reed as he returns home. Harkness' spell also causes a tornado in NYC, causing consternation at the Daily Bugle. Meanwhile, the Thing is becoming more and more of an ass. I liked this scene of him standing around with no shirt on smoking a cigar and telling Sue to call Franklin by his middle name ("Ben") while everyone else is worried about Reed. He's becoming more and more unstable, and he leaves this issue in a rage. {Chronology note: This is another potential splitting point in this run. While the Thing leaves the FF in issue #110 and is next seen in the streets outside the Baxter Building in #111, it doesn't necessarily mean that the issues have to take place immediately after each other. But again, since it doesn't cause issues elsewhere, we can leave them together.} As the Thing rampages though New York and the people of New York turn against the FF... ...Reed has Johnny sky-write a summons for Bruce Banner, in hopes of working jointly on a cure for the Thing. This of course results in a battle with the Hulk. After a huge and enjoyable battle with the Hulk... ...the Thing is distracted by Alicia and is apparently killed. In an interesting turn on convention, Reed spends the entire issue building a doohickey but for once, instead of saving the day, building the device delays him and the Human Torch from entering the fight with the Hulk, leading to the Thing's "death". The Hulk turns back into Banner after the fight and slinks away. Especially in light of the fact that Reed had a subsequent revelation that the Thing's madness has simply worn off (without Banner's OR Reed's help), this makes the entire Hulk fight sequence pointless, unless Reed deliberately summoned Banner knowing that he would turn into the Hulk and attack the Thing (which would be worse, considering the damage to the city). Due to the massive destruction caused by the Hulk and the Thing, the police have orders to arrest the FF, but in a rare instance of Reed not obeying authority, he makes a break for it. The rest of the FF join him and they head back to the Baxter Building where Reed reveals that the Thing is still alive (you just can't hear his heartbeat under his armored skin) and what's more, the madness has worn off. The Thing destroys the machine that would enable him to continue changing back into Ben Grimm, saying that he likes being the Thing. Let it never be said that Reed wasn't able to cure the Thing; he did it right here in Fantastic Four #113. Immediately afterward, the Torch leaves to think about Crystal's departure, and then the Watcher shows up, warning Reed and Sue about the 'Overmind'. Then Agatha Harkness sends a mystical message saying essentially the same thing. The FF go to the mayor's office to try and get the order for their arrest revoked, but the mayor is under control of the Overmind. Reed gets everyone out of jail by posting $20,000 in invention money as bail. What's glossed over here is that the FF really are guilty of destroying the city due to Reed's experiment with the Thing causing him to go mad and cause lots of property damage. Furthermore, it makes no sense with regard to the Overmind's plot to have them arrested and subsequently released on bail, especially since the next time the Overmind meets the FF he doesn't seem familiar with them at all. It's very fuzzy plotting. The FF run into the Overmind, who is a super-powerful alien, perfect in mind and body. He starts off in a weird metal suit but switches to hippie clothes for a while for no significant reason. He defeats them and erases the memory of the encounter from their brains. Agatha Harkness contacts the Watcher on the Fantastic Four's behalf, and he tells them the Overmind's origin. The Overmind is an Eternal (which, the footnotes in the Marvel's Greatest Comics reprints keep telling us have nothing to do with "the Eternals who so recently were involved in Mighty Thor's magazine". The Eternals the footnote are referencing are Kirby's Eternals, which were brought into Marvel continuity with with Thor #284-301 and annual #7.) I had trouble paying attention throughout the labored explanation of his origin, but the gist of it is that his universe conquering race was attacked and nearly destroyed by another race and so the Eternal survivors transferred all of their remaining power into him. The process put him into an Eon's long incubation period, however, and he is just waking up now to fulfill a prophesy that says he will destroy a universe. No clear indication of why he had to come to Earth to do it, however. Then Reed actually starts getting all arrogant and mean. Moreso than usual. It turns out that Reed is possessed by the Overmind. The rest of the FF try to fight Reed and the Overmind but they are defeated. The Invisible Girl escapes, and sees that the entire city is possessed, fighting each other. Sue says she's tried to contact other super-heroes but "The Avengers, Daredevil, Spider-Man... all the other super-beings I've tried to contact are too critically occupied"; presumably dealing with the fact that the city has gone crazy. At Agatha Harkness' suggestion, Sue contacts Dr. Doom, who is enjoying the chaos from his Latverian embassy in New York, instead. He teams up with the remainder of the FF, which is kind of interesting but should have been a little less compressed to really be enjoyable. While he does better than the FF, Doom isn't really very effective against the Overmind either, though, and it takes a deus ex machina from the Stranger to set things right. The Stranger is given an origin this issue (#116), which is that he is the analogue to the Overmind; he is the sum of all the people of the race that once defeated the Eternals (the Stranger's people come from a... very large planet called... Gigantus.). This seems to contradict the Stranger's comment in his very first appearance that his "people" are interested in mutation; if he's a gestalt being he really doesn't have any people anymore. This point will eventually be addressed in Silver Surfer in a way that puts this origin into doubt. The Stranger shrinks the Overmind until he can rest on a universe in a mote of dust, and tells him to fulfill his prophesy in that universe instead. Doom wanders off, muttering threats. The FF are put off by the fact that they were essentially useless but Uatu assures them that if they hadn't fought the Overmind first, the Stranger wouldn't have been able to do what he did. Whew. Long one. So basically it goes like this: FF #105-106: The FF fight the anti-war scientist's son. At the end of #106 the Thing is frozen in a block of ice. FF #107-110: The FF fight Janus the Nega-Man in a battle that leads them into the Negative Zone. At the end of #110 the Thing quits the team and storms out of the Baxter Building. FF #111-112: The Thing goes on a rampage and winds up fighting the Hulk. #112 ends with the Thing seemingly dead. FF #113-116: The FF fight the Overmind. Not an epic storyline, just a series of stories that run into each other. Hulk/Thing fights are always fun. Most of the rest of this is essentially forgettable. Plot points tend to get confused or abandoned. The most interesting aspects are actually when the Thing starts to go crazy and when Reed is taken over by the Overmind. In both cases it reminds you of how the FF used to be when the personalities were more distinct and they were more hostile towards each other. They've basically become tuned down over the years, especially the Thing. In these issues we see the development of Agatha Harkness into a powerful witch, and heavy handed hints that Franklin is also a mystic. Sometimes the hints don't even make sense, such as when Franklin says "da-da" (a perfectly normal thing for a baby to say) and Sue takes it to mean that he knows that his father is in danger - during a time when Reed is actually not in any danger; he's working on a cure for the Thing's madness that won't actually get used. Overall, it's not a bold new direction after Kirby's run; instead it seems to be an attempt to continue in the same vein but not quite achieving that goal. The last two issues of this run are written by Archie Goodwin because Stan Lee was doing something in Hollywood. Similarly at this time Roy Thomas temporarily took over writing duties on Spider-Man. Quality Rating: C- Chronological Placement Considerations: See above for the justifications to leave this gigantic run all together. The Hulk's appearance can fit in pretty much any gap in his stories, although Bruce Banner does seem to be living in an apartment building in New York City at this time, which suggests placement around Hulk #142. This takes place concurrently with the Kree-Skrull War (and explains why each team doesn't get too involved in each other's major conflicts) but since both events are massive sprawling things, they don't have to be placed right next to each other. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: Marvel's Greatest Comics #85, Marvel's Greatest Comics #86, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #1, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #2, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #3, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #4, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #5, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #6, Marvel's Greatest Comics #83, Marvel's Greatest Comics #94, Marvel's Greatest Comics #95, Marvel's Greatest Comics #96 Inbound References (15): show 1971 / Box 6 / Silver Age CommentsKirby's initial version of the Janus story was supposedly rejected because Stan Lee couldn't dialogue it effectively. Considering that Stan had done issues with worse problems for the past year, I'm guessing he just got fed up with it and put his foot down. Posted by: Mark Drummond | August 13, 2011 4:48 PM There was so much of importance contained in these issues that I could write several paragraphs. Nevertheless, to be brief, let us mention the main points: (1) The Overmind arc was superb, one of the best in my opinoin. (2) Issue #116 is probably the best FF issue of all-time. The art was smashing and having Dr. Doom lead the FF in battle against Overmind and Mr. Fantastic was magnificent. The drama of seeing Mr. Fantastic come within seconds of choking his wife to death was unreal. (3) John Buscema's art is involved in most of these issues and he is probably the best FF artist ever, even better than the fabled Jack "King" Kirby. A few of the drawings of Susan Storm shown above are some of the best ever done of her! (4) The scene where the Invisible Girl becomes hysterical in issue #109 was as classic a Sue Storm as ever shown! Actually, possibly the most beautiful Sue Storm drawing ever was the one that comes after what you showed above, where tears are streaming down her face and where she complains about Agatha Harkness scolding her for missing an appointment. (5) One final note of import is that issue #116 was a giant-sized issue and we were told at the end of the story that the price was rising and that we would henceforth get larger issues. Well, for whatever reason, this never happened. Either Marvel discovered that they did nto have the staff time to produce larger issues or they were afraid the price increase would hurt sales. Posted by: Frightful Four fan | May 9, 2013 4:38 PM Hulk vs. Thing fights were always great back then. It was really cool seeing Dr. Doom leading the FF for a bit. From the cover of the Essential I figured it was going to be another Reed-Doom mind switch thing. I liked Overmind and it's here that the Fantastic Four are less loved by the population for a while. It seemed like a lot of Marvel heroes were dealing with protests and counter-culture. Spider-Man had it best since from the first issue a lot of the public did not trust him, same with Hulk and I think the Fantastic Four handled it pretty well too. Posted by: David Banes | November 23, 2013 5:08 PM C-....yeah right! One of Marvel's best written, best drawn, best storylines ever and you "pooh-pooh" them with a below avg grade. Shame on you. I snuck a peek at what you gave an A+ to. Thor turns into a frog. Really? A Thor-Kermit tie in??? Anyway I have to rag on you for dissing something I love and then claiming a silly frog-turned-hero theme to be great, before giving you props on this whole site. Even though you grade most of the comics from my golden era a C+ at best, you put them all up for me to see again and I have to thank you for that. Good work. (bad grading!) Posted by: Mike | June 15, 2014 7:23 PM Thanks, Mike. Take a look at the Quality Rating link on the sidebar if you haven't already, but also please do feel free to continue to dispute the grades. I've been enjoying your commentary. Posted by: fnord12 | June 15, 2014 7:32 PM Thanks and sorry if I come through a little harsh on a few of these comments. Being an artist myself I really take note of the detail whether I see it as positive or negative. Anyway thanks for the reply and I have to admit once again that I love your site. My collection is sitting in a warehouse at the moment and looking at these that classics I've collected before really brings back a flood of good memories. I'm also a Marvel trivia fan and I enjoy reading Mark Drummond's comments a lot. Hope this site stays up, it's in my favorites and I'll let a few other Marvel comic fans know about it too. Posted by: Mike | June 29, 2014 8:03 PM FF #114 was one of the first comics I ever owned (along with DD #85). A kid in elementary school gave it to me and I held onto it and reread it so much that I almost memorized the script! It's hard to believe that years later I finally got some closure to this story when I found issues #116, then #115 at the old comic shop in downtown Honolulu. That ominous ending in #114 had me hanging on a cliff wondering the outcome for quite some time. On another note, classic FF issue #112 was a tough find in that old shop back in the day. People obviously held onto this one. I went to that store every weekend to thumb through the FF boxes for it and then one day - viola!! Issue 112 in nice condition with the Hulk and Thing squaring off on the cover! And under 2 bucks! Posted by: Mike | July 12, 2014 4:49 PM I've lately found myself strangely interested in the final part of this arc and the battle with the Over-Mind. My favorite aspect of it all is how it displays the hubris of a man who calls himself Mr. Fantastic. I don't think we're ever told directly, but based on what the Over-Mind says in #116 it seems like Reed's plan was indeed to lure the Over-Mind to him and "match wits" with him. This would mean that Reed's callous statements about the worth of the rest of the team were only half-influenced by the villain's control (similar to how someone under hypnosis is said to be incapable of doing anything they don't subconsciously want to do). That so arrogant a plan would put Richards under the control of a character literally called the Over-Mind is pretty brilliant. The presence of the Watcher and the recap of the Over-Mind's creation are also great sources of wonder. It definitely feels to me like we're not getting the full story from someone here, and that there may be more going on "behind the scenes" in the cosmos at the time. All of this just makes me sad that the Over-Mind was never used more. Posted by: TCP | April 18, 2016 11:50 AM Now that FOX has nearly succeeded in ruining the Fantastic Four, what better way would there be to reintroduce the power of FF to the Silver Screen than a Thing vs Hulk misunderstanding side battle in an upcoming marvel studio release? Posted by: Rocknrollguitarplayer | June 22, 2016 12:55 AM Sue may be misspeaking in claiming she's failed to contact "The Avengers", since the opening section (seen above) only makes reference to Cap/Iron Man/Thor, none of whom are full-duty active at the moment. That's only Vision/Scarlet Witch/Quicksilver/Goliath (Clint) right now, and it's more likely they're in the Arctic battling Ronan, as seen in Avengers #90-91. Avengers #89 was published the same month as FF #112, but takes place a little later (presumably while the FF are having their initial troubles with the Overmind) as the Avenger quartet has to respond to Reed's Negative Zone alarm because the FF are away from the Baxter Building when Annihilus is trying to break through (in response to the events of FF #109). So even though FF #115 came out the same month as Avengers #92 (which opens with that group just chilling in NYC, and clearly available to help out until H. Warren Craddock starts making trouble), it's more likely that there's a bit of a time-lapse, and the Avengers don't get swept up in the Kree-Skrull War until after the FF have dealt with the Overmind situation. (It would be odd for the FF to be testifying at the Avengers' hearing if their own legal status was in question, I'd think.) Posted by: Dan Spector | June 14, 2017 10:14 AM Zak-Site says this is a poorly recycled Jack Kirby plot from FF 48-50. Posted by: Dailyskew | November 15, 2017 5:57 PM Kirby had been well on the way to making Sue a more decisive and powerful character but in these issues all that gets reversed. The pseudo-science of the Negative Zone and "negative energy" is best understood when you realize that in FF #51 Reed (incorrectly) started referring to anti-matter as "negative" and regular matter as "positive" matter. In FF #51, which was actually pretty consistent in and of itself, it was explained that the NZ was made up of anti-matter, although the term "negative zone" was not being used at the time. Terms like "sub-space" and "crossroads of infinity" were being tossed around. Very confusing, but in order to access this zone, Reed goes through a "radical cube" "where all positive matter is transposed into negative form" (i.e., anti-matter). The Earth at the middle of the "exploding atmosphere" was actually our Earth, which, unlike Reed, had not been transposed into anti-matter: "... here in sub-space all matter is negative, while Earth is positive!! Therefore, whatever strikes the atmosphere of Earth must instantly explode!" (#51, p. 15, pan. 3) Most of this has been subsequently forgotten and revised to a point where no single explanation can suffice, but so it goes sometimes. The term "Negative Zone" was originally used for the barrier around the Inhumans' Great Refuge, but after the barrier was gone, the term got recycled or confused. Similarly, I think Janus' "nega-" powers refer to this same pseudo-negative-anti-matter type energy. Posted by: Holt | December 14, 2017 4:35 PM Comments are now closed. |
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