Issue(s): Fantastic Four #1, Fantastic Four #2, Fantastic Four #3, Fantastic Four #4, Fantastic Four #5, Fantastic Four #6, Fantastic Four #7, Fantastic Four #8, Fantastic Four #9, Fantastic Four #10
Published Date: Nov 61-Jan 63
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Sol Brodsky/Joe Sinnot/Dick Ayers - Inker

Review/plot:
I've not read a lot of non-Marvel super hero comics, especially from this time period, but the conventional wisdom is that Stan Lee set out to create super-heroes who were "real" people. The Fantastic Four was his first attempt at this. In some ways, these are real people - they bicker and they worry, they have problems in their love lives, and they have money troubles. On the other hand, Sue Storm is like the most beautiful woman ever, Reed Richards is the smartest man alive, and none of them seem to have to work or go to school. Losing their money was more of a one-time plot point than an on-going struggle. Nonetheless, this certainly started something big. There is at least some focus on "down time" - the team just hanging out in their headquarters, which is kind of interesting and certainly a change from the Golden Age Marvel stories. The most interesting character is Ben Grimm, who is surly and violent, and frequently considers turning to crime in the early issues. The others also have their moments, especially mousey Sue and her obsession with Namor. The Sub-Mariner and the Mole Man are somewhat sympathetic villians, but Doom and the Puppet Master are generic and pure evil at this point. The writing is very corny. The constant bickering between teammates, supposedly the big innovation of the Marvel Age, is contrived - they often fight for no good reason at all - and quickly becomes very annoying. The art on these stories are truly terrible. Sloppy and lacking in detail. Backgrounds are sparse or non-existent. This is not the Kirby you think you know. But these stories still are interesting from a historical perspective, and may have felt like more of an innovation at the time than they do today since i am reading from a vantage point where "realistic" super-hero comics are the norm.

Reed Richards is a dick: In issue #7, the FF helps an alien race that has only two spaceships escape their doomed planet by inventing a shrinking potion so that the entire population can fit on one spaceship. He gives them a canister that he tells them will restore them to normal size once they reach their destination, but he is lying.

All appearances of Dr. Doom are actually Doombots built by Reed: In issue #6, Doom is seen flying off into space on an asteroid. That may be the actual last appearance of Victor Von Doom. In issue #10, Doom re-appears with a cockamamie story about being rescued by a group of aliens with oval heads (called Ovoids, of course), who also teach him the ability to switch his mind with someone else. This is a very strangely structured story. It starts with the Fantastic Four admiring statues of FF villians made by Alicia Masters, when Sue starts lusting after the statue of the Sub-Mariner. Reed says "I always thought we had an understanding, Sue! I thought, when the time was right, that you and I -- I mean --" And suddenly, the entire story is derailed. Dr. Doom shows up at the Marvel Comics office to explain his return, and then forces Stan and Jack to lure Reed to the office so that he can be kidnapped. Then Doom "switches minds" with Reed (uh-huh). Then, "Doom's" plan is to shrink the rest of the Fantastic Four (probably using the same technology Reed used to shrink the denziens of Planet X in issue #7). So Reed, left feeling inadequate due to Sue's feelings for a real man, invents a super-villain for him to dominate, takes on an aggressive, non-stuffy persona, and makes up for his inadequacy by trying to make Sue (and his other teammates) smaller.

Maybe all FF super-villains are really Reed Richards - In issue #2, Reed reveals that he has the power to hypnotize Skrulls. In issue #3, the FF watch a magic show, and then Reed mysteriously ponders the fact that if the magician were to turn to crime, he would be a nearly undefeatable opponent. And then, sure enough, the magician turns to crime, and only Reed's genious saves them. Or were they just hypnotized into believing the whole thing? The Miracle Man is pretty much never seen again.

Reed is a government stooge In issue #7, Reed, after politely listening to all the other members of the team tell him why they don't want to go to a government dinner, tells them "All, right, I've heard all your silly little excuses, and I'm sure you feel better now that you've said them! So, let's start getting ready now, and let's end all this nonsense! You know we can't refuse a request from congress!"

Plot Summaries:

#1 "The Fantastic Four" - The Fantastic Four investigate the collapse of nuclear power stations into the depths of the earth all over the world, and wind up on Monster Isle, where they fight the Mole Man and his hoard of monsters.

This issue also tells the FF's origin: rushing to get into space before the commies, super scientist Reed Richards sneaks onto an experimental rocket with his girlfriend Sue Storm and her kid brother Johnny, as well as pilot Ben Grimm who was correctly concerned about the negative effects of cosmic rays but was badgered by Sue, who he had a crush on. In space they were bombarded by cosmic rays, each given strange abilities that matched their personalities and loosely corresponded to the four classic elements. The Thing, truly dangerous and not at all the cuddly guy you know, is the most interesting.

     

#2 "Meet The Skrulls From Outer Space" - This issue takes place some time after the first one because the FF are already famous, whereas in the first they were unknown. Skrulls impersonating the Fantastic Four commit crimes....

....forcing the real team to have to go into hiding and eventually get caught by the military. They escape...

...capture the Skrulls that were impersonating them, and stop the Skrull invasion fleet by showing the commander pictures from Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery comic books. Considering that just last issue the FF fought the Mole Man and an army of creatures very similar to the ones in the comic books, one wonders why he couldn't just have shown them pictures of the real things.

Anyway, the deception works, and after the FF show the captured Skrulls to the cops, they are taken off the most wanted list. Reed reasons that the Skrulls can't be held in conventional prisons so he hypnotizes them into thinking they are cows (and hooo-boy the trouble that little throw away bit will cause!).

During the course of this story, the Thing is exposed to cosmic rays again and he briefly turns back into Ben Grimm. In an earlier scene, the Thing starts ranting quite a bit and the rest of the team whisper that they need to do something about him.

I've mentioned that the constant bickering gets annoying, but this real anger and danger of Ben Grimm is actually quite good. The Thing is miles beyond the others in terms of power levels at this point, and the fact that he is barely in control and has little regard for the law makes for interesting reading. The Torch does a good job of standing up for himself this issue, though. These aren't the playful fights i'm used to; there is real tension here.

#3 "The Menace of the Miracle Man" - The FF get uniforms and the flying-bathtub Fantasti-car. The car is presented with little fanfare; its first appearance is a tiny panel.

We also see that it can break apart into four pieces a few panels later.

There's a neat cutaway shot of their headquarters which indicates they have a long range passenger missile, a helicopter, and a pogo plane as well as a number of other nifty rooms and gadgets (we are told to clip this panel and save it for future reference).

Considering the amount of equipment the FF have bought and are maintaining, it is no wonder they have gone broke by issue #9, but right now it feels like a turn towards more conventional super-heroics. The Thing's costume includes a helmet that will much later be dredged up after he is injured in a fight with Wolverine.

The entire costume is quickly discarded.

They fight a master hypnotist called the Miracle Man.

At the end of the issue the Thing gets upset that the Human Torch gets credit for blinding the Miracle Man, and the Torch gets upset and quits the group. Reed worries about the fate of mankind if the Torch should turn against them.

#4 "The Coming of the Sub-Mariner" - A search for the Torch. The Inivisible Girl apparently likes freaking people out by drinking sodas in public resturants while invisible.

I could be wrong, but i think Jack Kirby had strange ideas about what kids wore in 1962. I highly doubt they were wearing plaid suit jackets and bow ties.

I could be wrong, i don't know. The Thing finds the Torch and they fight, but the Thing temporarily turns back into Ben Grimm again, and the Torch escapes to the Bowery and winds up in a flop-house where he reads an old Sub-Mariner comic book.

Amazingly enough, the Sub-Mariner is in the flop-house too, in his bearded, amnesiac state. After a fight
with some local toughs the Torch burns off his beard, recognizes him, and flies him to the ocean.

Namor swims home, sees that his kingdom has been destroyed by nuclear tests (the water is still glowing with radioactivity!) and vows vengeance on humanity. He starts by waking the ancient creature Giganto, a really cool looking whale monster with arms and legs.

Johnny calls in the rest of the FF and the Thing defeats Giganto by strapping a nuclear bomb to his back and jumping into the whale's mouth. Holy crap what a crazy idea...!

The Invisible Woman grabs Namor's magic horn, preventing him from summoning any more monsters, but he catches her and... uh-oh, some serious sexual tension kicks in that basically will never go away.

    

After a little scuffle Namor is thrown back into the ocean but he swears to return.

#5 "Prisoners of Doctor Doom!" - The first of four issues in a row where the FF are "Prisoners" or "Captives" of someone. This issue is the really terrible introduction of Doctor Doom. Like a lot of generic villains, he has a lot of pet animals, like vultures and tigers, in this issue.

Johnny is reading Hulk #1 and remarks that the Hulk reminds him quite a bit of the Thing.

While Johnny and Ben are fighting, Dr. Doom covers the FF's tower with a electrically charged web. After forcing Sue to become his hostage (sheesh), the other three are sent back in time by Doom to recover the treasure chest of Blackbeard the pirate.

I guess it is pretty bad-ass to have a pet tiger.

Well, after getting some disguises, it turns out that the Thing is Blackbeard...

...and he doesn't want to go back to modern times, until a tornado destroys his pirate boat. The FF bring back the treasure chest but divide the actual treasure among the pirate crew (which contained Merlin's magic stones - now on the bottom of the ocean due to the tornado). Back in modern times, Doom and the FF fight, but Doom escapes.

First Doombot!

#6 "Captives of the Deadly Duo" - The Thing gets his first insulting mail from the Yancy Street Gang. Meanwhile, Doom and Namor team-up to fight the FF.

I'm not quite sure why Namor didn't realize he was being suckered. His job was to sneak into the FF's building and plant a device. Any henchman or robot, or even Doom himself could have done that. Anyway, Doom activates the device, launching the FF's building into space (as Twisted Toyfare Theater likes to point out, it's his best move)...

...thereby taking care of all super-powered beings who might have been able to challenge him in one fell swoop. Surely Namor could have seen that coming, but he was probably distracted by the idea of seeing Sue again. Likewise, Johnny, snooping through Sue's stuff, finds a glossy 8x10 of the Sub-Mariner hidden behind her bookshelf. Anyway, Namor is able to fly to the rocket Doom is using to drag the building to the sun...

and he stops Doom (who is left hurtling into outer space on an asteroid) using his little used electricity absorption powers.

The Baxter Buidling is returned right back to where it was. I'm sure the plumbing and electrical wires all hooked right back up when the building landed, too. Namor heads back into the ocean where he is not really doing much to locate his people that were displaced by the nuclear tests.

This issue also gives us an updated cutaway of the Baxter Building.

#7 "Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X" - The FF are invited to government dinner in their honor. In order to force them to come to the aid of Planet X, the alien Kurrgo...

...causes all individuals on Earth to start fighting with each other, and, more specifically, hate the Fantastic Four. The FF agree to go to Planet X(more out of curiosity than anything)...

...where they discover that this advanced race has only built 2 spaceships, and they are about to get destroyed by an asteroid. Reed helps by shrinking the entire planet's population down to a size where they can fit on one ship, and they fly home in the other. Reed is described in this issue by Sue (or maybe Johnny) as "The greatest scientist of Earth... perhaps in the whole universe!"

This issue has a little hijinx between the Torch and the Thing. It's a little more good-natured than their previous fights, but there's still some real tension.

#8 "Prisoners of the Puppet Master!" - The Thing is prevented from entering Reed's lab, and he storms off, with the Invisible Girl following - and talking to him while invisible, which attracts the attention of some ruffians, which Ben and Sue kick the crap out of to blow off some steam. Meanwhile, the Puppet Master is using his radioactive clay (sheesh!) to force some poor schlub to commit suicide. The Torch catches the poor guy, and the Puppet Master gets his finger burnt.

He vows vengeance and possesses the Thing. The Puppet Master also makes a point of correcting blind Alicia when she calls him father instead of Step-Father (in later issues his love for Alicia will be his only humanizing trait, but here he doesn't think much of her). The possessed Thing, and a naive Alicia who is dressed up to look exactly like Sue (Alicia having such a close resemblance to Sue may be a key factor in her romance with the Thing - in earlier issues it is quite clear that Ben is in love with Sue)...

...head back to the rest of the FF for a sneak attack. The Thing crashes into the potion Reed was working on in his lab and turns back into Ben Grimm - Reed had been working on a cure for Ben but didn't want to get his hopes up. However, Alicia, who had taken a liking to the Thing, gets confused when she touches him, and Ben quickly turns back into the Thing (neatly setting up the idea that the Thing never turns back because Alicia is in love with the Thing, not Ben Grimm. It's hard to say that was intentional at this point considering he has been temporarily changing back every other issue so far).

When the Thing turned back into Ben, the Puppet Master's control was broken but he's already moved on to inexplicably causing a prison riot. The FF head over to the Puppet Master's house, and they fight a giant robot "puppet" and then the Puppet Master escapes on a flying horse "puppet". While the FF are stopping the prison riot, the Puppet Master returns home (where the FF have irresponsibly left poor blind Alicia - he could have killed her!). He grabs a puppet of himself, somehow thinking that by playing with it he will make himself the king of the world, but instead he drops it, causing himself to fall out the window.

Here's a nice action shot of Reed. I've always found his powers boring, but Kirby does make him look interesting.

#9 "The End of the Fantastic Four!" - The Thing is told by Alicia that he is a White Knight, and pretty much from here on out the Thing is no longer a menacing half-villian.

He's basically a pussycat in a funny body. Women. Anyway, the FF are broke, and they have to sell their equipment and hitch a ride to Hollywood, where they have been offered the chance to star in a movie. But the movie producer is the Sub-Mariner...

...who tries to kill them. With giants!

They fight him, but Sue stops them from beating him, and he agrees to make the movie anyway and they get their money back. Terrible issue.

Here's a cool visual using another of Namor's early powers, when he had the abilities of all the fish in the sea. While it looks nice, it basically means that Sue's powers are useless against Namor, which makes her kind of pointless except as a romantic object.

#10 "The Return of Doctor Doom!" - Reed is attempting to invent something so that he can see Sue even when she is invisible. Why?? This proves the Reed is either a closet super-villain, a pervert, or he's devising ways to defeat all the other members of his team in case they go bad (he was worried about Torch in issue #3 and the Thing in #2).

    

Suddenly, the emergency signal flare appears in the sky, and after discovering that the nuclear lock mechanism is jammed, preventing access to the fantasti-car (it's always comforting when nuclear-powered devices aren't working properly), Reed, Sue, and Johnny cause all manner of havoc and property damage getting across town to Alicia Master's house, where... nothing is wrong. Alicia's just made some statues of all the FF's villians (Mole Man, Miracle Man, Skrulls, Doom, and Namor), presumably based on the Thing's descriptions since Alicia has never seen some of these characters.

Sue contests that Namor does not belong with the villians, leading to some hard conversations between her and Reed. Sue isn't even sure of her own feelings, and Johnny, who in issue #1 revealed that the only thing in the world that interests him more than cars was... being the Human Torch, remarks that he's glad he's not old enough to have these mushy problems. Meanwhile, Dr. Doom shows up at the office of Marvel Comics, where pictures of Thor, Ant-Man and the Hulk can be seen, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (you never see their faces) are working on the next issue of the Fantastic Four.

    

Reed Richards has a working relationship with Stan and Jack, helping with the comic book plots, and Doom forces the creators to lure him to the office, where he is captured and transported to a secret laboratory. Doom tells the story of how he was rescued from the asteroid in issue #6 by a silly group of aliens called the Ovoids, from whom he learned the power of switching bodies.

Doom then switches bodies with Reed, and then the rest of the FF show up and attack Reed/Doom, and lock him into an unbreakable plexi-glass prison.

The next (truly bizarre) scene starts with the FF's headquarters overrun by tiny animals while the Thing reads in the newspaper that all the animals have been stolen from the zoo.

Doom/Reed explains, in a ludicrous tale involving space dinosaurs...

...that he had to steal the animals to test a new shrinking ray that he will use to increase the FF's powers.

The Torch will be able to maintain his flame longer and fly faster. The Thing will be able to turn into Ben Grimm at will, and the Invisible Girl... well, she'll be able to turn parts of her body invisible... great.

The rest of the FF are all over each other for the chance to be the first recipient of the shrinking ray. Meanwhile, Reed/Doom escapes from his prison and seeks out Alicia, but is knocked out by a visiting Invisible Girl. She brings Reed/Doom back to Doom/Reed, and the FF start to suspect that something may be up. In a complicated scheme that includes the Torch impossibly creating a heat mirage, the FF reveal the truth and Doom accidentally switches the bodies back. He then gets hit by his own shrink ray and disappears.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 10 - first Silver Age Marvel Universe, first Fantastic Four, first published Mole Man, first published Dr. Doom, first published Skrulls, first Puppet Master, first Silver Age appearance of Sub-Mariner

Chronological Placement Considerations: When Dr. Doom tries to throw the FF and Namor into space, it is from the perspective that they are the only beings on Earth that could possibly challenge him. When Namor goes on a rampage in NYC, the public assumes that it is the FF that will save them. Based on this, i'm assuming these stories take place before other Marvel heroes appear.

References: Hulk #1 is shown as a comic book read by Johnny Storm.

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks vol.1 (B&N softcover)