Issue(s): Fantastic Four #220, Fantastic Four #221
Cover Date: Jul-Aug 80
Title: "...And the lights went out all over the world!" / "Tower of crystal... dreams of glass!"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
Ooh, a preview of John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four as a writer/artist.

The FF investigate strange goings-on in the arctic and find an alien race that went into hibernation centuries ago when there was no intelligent life on earth. While they were investigating our planet, the Earth's polarity reversed itself. This rendered their equipment useless and stranded them on the planet. They went into hibernation and let their robots build a device that would re-reverse the polarity. That would apparently have a devastating effect on the planet.

But Sue, showing very effective use of her powers, makes her way to the aliens and they realize their mistake...

...life on Earth has evolved since they went into hibernation. Luckily Reed is able to fix their ship for them. Reed thinks to himself that it's "ironic" that they could have "performed this circuitry alteration themselves". We all know that he's calling them stupid. Jerk.

This was very enjoyable as a sci-fi tale. And watching the FF fight the aliens' adaptable robots, as depicted by the pencils of John Byrne, was very nice as well.

It also was the best Sue Storm we've seen probably ever to date. The perpetual debate on the usefulness of Sue has been heating up in the lettercol again. This may have been a reaction to that.

Avengers Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, and Scarlet Witch cameo. Vindicator also shows up briefly when the FF fly into Canadian airspace without permission, but he's cool about it.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Needs to be placed somewhere that fits for Iron Man and Captain America. For Iron Man, placing it before his trip to England in #136 works.

References:

• There's a flashback to Fantastic Four #1, just because.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A