Issue(s): Fantastic Four #322
Cover Date: Jan 89
Title: "Between a rock and a hard place!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
Keith Pollard - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Steve Englehart has said that when he was fired off of the West Coast Avengers because of Mantis, he moved the character and the plots over to Fantastic Four, and that's why issues #322-325 feature Avengers villains (Graviton this issue, mainly Kang for the other parts, although Necrodamus shows up too). Personally, if i had never known that, it wouldn't have made a difference to me. The one thing i love about the Marvel universe is that rogue galleries are fluid (i'll be returning to this point at greater length when we get to Acts of Vengeance). Certainly Kang has every right to appear in a Fantastic Four book, and i think Graviton makes makes a great cosmic force type villain for the FF.

And we'll see that Englehart really does make an effort to fit these plots into FF themes (he says on his own site, only "with middling success", but i think he's underrating himself here). So i think the transplant didn't hurt the book, and Englehart isn't just coasting on already-written plots. It does make me wonder what he did have planned for this book, though, because after we get through these Mantis issues we begin the period where Englehart was forced to return Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman to the team and that's when the book gets really weird. Oh wait, i remember know: we'll find out exactly what Englehart had planned. Ok, we'll get to that later.

I should say that while Englehart talks about this as part of the Mantis phase, this issue actually doesn't include Mantis and has nothing to do with her. But it is an Inferno issue; i wonder if it was FF or West Coast Avengers that was originally going to participate in Inferno.

We begin with an outrageous explanation for how Graviton survived being flung into space in his last appearance. He originally had some atmosphere with him on the piece of rock that he was tossed out with. But when he ran out of that, somewhere in deep space, he drew the atmosphere off a "passing world" and amazingly mixed the elements in just the right proportions.

And then i guess he just floated home.

He returns to find a Manhattan under the effects of Inferno.

The Fantastic Four (or Three) are currently patrolling the streets observing the weirdness (They say it's as "weird out on the street as it was upstairs"; i wonder if they were in the building during the period where Dormammu had folded up the building in Doctor Strange #2 and have been trying to walk out since then).

While they're walking, it's observed that Ms. Marvel has mutated further, similar to how the Thing did in his early appearances.

The Thing tells Sharon that it should be possible for her to change back into her human form, since the reason he wasn't able to do so was psychological. But before they pursue that further, they come across Graviton and the Thing tries to get the drop on him.

But it doesn't work out so well.

Meanwhile, the Human Torch had flown off to get Alicia to the relative safety of Four Freedoms Plaza. She already had a suitcase packed "from last time the city went crazy" (maybe a reference to Fall of the Mutants). On the way back, Johnny raises the possibility of asking Reed Richards to design a security system for her apartment, but instead they decide Alicia might as well just move into FF headquarters.

As they're flying back, Alicia asks if Johnny can do anything about the heatwave. And he says that he can only absorb the heat from his immediate area, not Manhattan. I remembered that the Torch's powers get out of control during Inferno, but i had forgotten the specifics, and i thought maybe that he does try to absorb all the extra heat in the city and that's what caused him to lose his ability to flame off, but that's not what happens.

Instead, the Torch comes across Graviton after he'd finished defeating the two Things...

...and interestingly, the Torch becomes the star in the fight against Graviton.

What i think is interesting is that Graviton is nutty, always going on about how he's a deity because he controls one of the fundamental forces of the universe. And we know, thanks to Steve Englehart's educational efforts in West Coast Avengers #12-13, that the other fundamental forces are electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. But Johnny claims that as the Human Torch, he controls one of the fundamental forces: fire.

Now, i expect the Torch to be almost willfully ignorant of science, and he may have the classical elements in mind. But Graviton was originally a scientist. So you'd think he'd just laugh that idea off. But the Torch really plays it up, and i think he's playing a psychological game with the unstable Graviton.

And it works, and the Torch is able to take out the usually mega-powerful Graviton pretty much all by himself.

It's a nice use of the Human Torch, who has been taking a bit of a back seat while Englehart has focused on the relationship between the Things.

But when the fight's over, he does find that he's having trouble flaming off.

I guess it's reasonable that the magical heat of Inferno is affecting Johnny's flames, but it seems kind of arbitrary, and i think it would have been cooler and helped tie the FF more directly into Inferno if he had deliberately tried to absorb the magical heat into himself as i misremembered.

As it stands, the non-mutant tie-in books are pretty much just using Inferno as a backdrop similar to (as i've said probably too many times now, and i know it's not a direct comparison) the snow in the Casket of Ancient Winters storyline. Which is fine too.

Watching all of this is the young Watcher that we've been seeing recently in this title.

But merely watching is "not enough for this Watcher", and he's planning to start getting involved in some way. However, he takes a lesson from the FF/Graviton fight. Noting that Graviton was a being possibly powerful enough to stop what was going on in Inferno, he says that by defeating him, the FF stopped the one being who might have saved the city. But doing nothing to stop the super-villain could have been wrong too. So it leaves him debating action vs. passivity.

It's an interesting issue, and definitely feels like an FF issue despite the supposed plot (or at least villain) transplant.

This issue is also the last by longtime inker Joe Sinnott.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Graviton fights some actual demons, but they may be from the small group that came with N'astirh. The level of menace in the city feels more like it takes place prior to X-Terminators #3/New Mutants #71, despite the demons.

References:

• Graviton got flung into space at the end of West Coast Avengers #13.
  
• No footnote, but the idea that the Thing had actually mutated and not just gone through art changes in his early appearances was established in Marvel Two-In-One #50.
  
• Again no footnotes, but the Thing found out that his inability to change back into Ben Grimm was psychological in Thing #23, but at that point the Thing had given up his human side in Thing #22.

Crossover: Inferno

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A