Issue(s): Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2
Published Date: Aug 74
Title: "Cataclysm! / George Washington almost slept here! / The great Grimmsby / Time enough for Death!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
John Buscema - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot:
The problem with annuals and these giant-size issues is that either something important happens in them which annoys people who only read the main series, or they are largely filler. This one falls into the filler category, as the FF chase Willie Lumpkin through time to prevent him from altering history.

Reed and Johnny go back to the Revolutionary War and hang out with General Washington.

Medusa and the Thing go back to the roaring 20's. The Thing is briefly reverted to his Ben Grimm form. The title of this chapter is "The Great Grimmsby".

Willie was under the control of an extra-dimensional being named Tempus, who wanted to uproot the tree of time, or something.

The Watcher non-interferes by wiping Willie's memory.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Tempus

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Referring to the Watcher, Roy Thomas writes "Everyone here remembers Baldy from Fantastic Four #49,50,51, etc?". The Watcher did not appear in Fantastic Four #51.
  
• Johnny says, "Someone must have broken in [to the Baxter Building] -- just like the Frightful Four" in Fantastic Four #148.
  
• The Fantastic Four captured Doom's time machine in Fantastic Four #5 - "though Doc Doom's borrowed it once or twice since then" - which is a lazy way of justifying how the time machine has appeared all over the place since its first appearance. I prefer the explanation that the FF's time machine is a replica built by Gregory Gideon in Fantastic Four #34, myself.
  
• Willie Lumpkin has appeared in "Various issues of the FF's own mag". There really haven't been that many at this time: Fantastic Four #11, Fantastic Four #15, and Fantastic Four #135.

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #2, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #3, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #4, Marvel Selects: Fantastic Four #5 (reprinted as a back-up broken up over the four issues)

Tempus' reason for existence was sorta rewritten in Avengers Forever.

The third chapter's title refers to "The Great Gatsby", an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel people are forced to read in high school.