Issue(s): Fantastic Four #234, Fantastic Four #235
Cover Date: Sep-Oct 81
Title: "The man with the power!" / "Four against Ego!"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
John Byrne - Inker

Review/plot:
The first part of this two issue arc is more of a classic sci-fi story than a Fantastic Four plot. It follows the life of a mild-mannered man...

...who doesn't know that he has vast reality-manipulation powers due to his participation as a soldier in radiation testing many years ago. When he sees something that doesn't seem right to him, or when he particularly wants something, reality just changes to accommodate.

Since he's not a particularly ambitious or evil person, nothing really good or bad ever happens to him, so he just lives his life this way. When the world starts falling apart...

...he simply corrects it.

The second issue deals with why the world is falling apart. It's because Ego the Living Planet has arrived...

...and his proximity to the Earth was causing massive havoc. The FF don't know why the world stops falling apart, but they head off to Ego to investigate him. Ego has gained control of the thrusters that Galactus installed on him, and now he's tracing after Galactus for revenge. The trail has led him to Earth.

The biggest problem with Ego is that while he's an awesome visual and an awesome concept...

...unless he's fighting something as big as he is, like Galactus, you're basically stuck drawing shots of his opponents walking around on his surface and fighting the old "anti-body" cliches. That's what Byrne is forced to do here.

The art is great, of course, but the story is a little bit of a let down. The Thing manages to carry a bomb to Ego's core...

...which only enrages Ego. However, since one of the power packs of Ego's engine had been removed to use as the bomb, Ego flies off course and is dispersed by the Sun's gravity.

Meanwhile, Frankie Raye discovers a shocking secret about herself, but we don't get to learn what it is yet.

Byrne has a really good handle on Reed. The FF are looking upon Galactus thrusters and Reed starts analyzing them. The Thing says "Geez! Can't you just say 'wow' like the rest of us, big brain?" and Reed says "This is no time for your peculiar sense of humor, Ben." which is just a really great line of dialogue that says a lot about Reed.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The FF are left near Mercury, and it's said that it will take them a few days to get home.

References:

• Ego fought Galactus twice before, in Thor #160-161 and Thor #225-228.
  
• Galactus last came to Earth in Fantastic Four #213.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The title to #234 refers to the classic 1956 science fiction novel by Frank Robinson(also made into a movie in 1968).

In an interview for the first issue of Amazing Heroes, Byrne called Gerry Conway's origin for Ego both "silly" and "very bad". He also stated that the Impossible Man's kids and Quicksilver & Crystal's kid would be born in a special double-birth issue, that the "real" Tomazooma would be seen in Wyatt Wingfoot's return, and(most significantly) that "[Sue]'s not going to turn into the Invisible Woman".

Agreed that the original Conway origin of Ego is not so hot, but this quick Byrne version needs more work, too. I like the almost Solaris-like origin Kirby hinted at in an interview. (Now, supposedly, though, Ego, along with Alter-Ego, was actually created by The Stranger ....)

Byrne also here interprets the repulsion of Galactus in Thor #161 along the same lines as you do, fnord: "With the aid of the Thunder God, Thor, Ego repulses Galactus." Ego is the subject of that sentence, not Thor, who merely provides "aid."

The poor Wanderers are dispatched in a single flashback panel, but what did anyone really expect was going to happen there.

Byrne does a lot here to throw out Ego's Conway appearance, with the version of "Ego's brain" Thor beats up in that story to make Ego submit showing up here as an obvious decoy that the FF see through almost immediately.

The shot of the Thing carrying the bomb into Ego's core must be a homage to the Thing/bomb sequence from FANTASTIC FOUR #4.