Issue(s): Fantastic Four #257
Cover Date: Aug 83
Title: "Fragments"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
John Byrne - Inker
Ann Nocenti - Assistant Editor
Al Milgrom - Editor

Review/plot:
One of my favorite comics. This issue has Galactus contemplating the meaning of his existence and having a conversation with Death (his sister, daughter, mother, and wife)...

...who convinces him (or decrees) that he has a purpose in the universe and he must not allow himself to die. Then Nova arrives...

...to usher Galactus to a new planet to feed upon. It is the Skrull's Homeworld Throneworld (see Comments for Homeworld vs. Throneworld discussion). Nova and Galactus tear through the Skrull's defenses without effort...

...and then Galactus devours the planet.

Princess Anelle, a minor character who first appeared in Fantastic Four #37, and who, it will later be revealed, is the mother of Hulkling, is killed when the planet is destroyed.

The rest of the issue is dedicated to the FF on downtime. Johnny Storm looks into getting himself a new apartment outside the Baxter Building and hangs out with Julie and Sharon.

Reed and Sue visit Franklin in the hospital and then inform the Thing that they've decided to move out of the Building as well. But they're not leaving the team. Hooray!

Sue (in a secret identity) starts looking for a house in the suburbs.

And Reed stops by Avengers Mansion to take a look at the Vision...

...but gets sucked into space while the Scarlet Witch is fixing coffee.

I just love the insight we get into Galactus in the first half of this story. Very cool stuff.

Click to Galactu-size

Quality Rating: A

Historical Significance Rating: 5 - Skrull Throneworld is destroyed

Chronological Placement Considerations: The scene at the end of Thing #2 is repeated here (and we see it to conclusion this time). This issue ends with Reed Richards being whisked away into space, and Sue Storm is currently visiting a house that's for sale.

References:

• The Fantastic Four's costumes changed colors as a result of the events of last issue and Avengers #233.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Yeeeeaaaars later it will be revealed that time-traveling X-Men were active on the moon of the Skrull homeworld during this story, and that Xavier actually tries to convince Galactus to leave the planet be.

Since this isn't the original Skrull world of Skrullos, but the newer capital Tarnax IV, I think it should be corrected to "throneworld" over "homeworld."

Hey, Thanos6, can you cite your source for that? I'm not questioning you, just wondering where to validate it. I'm fairly certain that throughout this era all the references back to this issue say "homeworld", although i may be misremembering. So i'm wondering if your comment is based on, say, the history lesson in the Celestial Madonna story or if it's from more recent revelations (something in Secret Invasion?) or maybe something in Englehart's Silver Surfer that i haven't gotten to yet or the Handbooks or what?

During the period where the Skrulls are broken out into factions following this story, if one of the warlords had control of the "homeworld" it should have been a significant claim to legitimacy, but i don't recall it coming up so far.

I've long had the same understanding as Thanos6, that it was Tarnax IV, not Skrullos, but I couldn't cite were I read that to save my life. Handbooks is a good guess.

I've just checked and Byrne definitely refers to it as a "throneworld" and not a "homeworld" in both this issue and the previous one. Just wondering where there the distinction between the two was made, and what the significance of the "homeworld" is if the empire was being run from the "throneworld".

The throneworld was most likely at a central point of the Skrull Empire. A world that would be easily defended (from an enemy attack, not Galactus, as shown) and with fairly easy access to everywhere else in the empire. Obviously, the throneworld was where all the royalty, military heads and politicians were living.

The homeworld would not have much of a place of importance, because it's location may have been too remote or at an inconvenient location for running things. It probably had a lot of civilians living there, with a governor overseeing things.

Yeah, I think it was in one of the handbooks. Maybe the Deluxe Edition? It said that eventually they decided Tarnax IV would be a better world to run the empire from, so the government moved there from Skrullos. Skrullos the homeworld is where the Skrull race evolved, but Tarnax IV the throneworld is where the Skrull empire was based.

As for the Skrull civil war, I suppose that it had been so long since the move was made that Skrullos had lost most of its importance, even as a symbol.

Ah, HERE we get A-Grade Fantastic Four! I bought myself this one for Christmas as a teen :-D I have half of the issues from Byrne's first two years on FF...deserving of acclaim as distinctive, well-made and even rather different superhero comics. 1983 always seemed like it had been a cool year to read Marvel...just a little before my time though! The moving of Tarnax IV is the sort of "How would you fix..." item Nathan Adler specialized in before he got sick. I mention this because if any of you out there have some piece of particularly Marvel history you would like to suggest a "fix" for, his friend Ian is trying to assemble essays of that sort as a tribute to Nathan, who has gotten very ill and, as a former social worker, now has medical bills beyond his ability to pay. I only mention this because the assembled book of essays, if finished, is meant to help him (James is his actual name; we corresponded for about three years). Please write Ian Watson at iw@fastmail.co.uk for more information. Perhaps you can use Fnord's chronology project as a jumping-off point for an essay...or offer to buy one of the books if we can get it done. Thank you. Cecil

I've already submitted something. Don't know if Ian will use it, of course. But many of you who comment here have great ideas for continuity fixes, so i encourage you to write something up and send it along.

"Yeeeeaaaars later it will be revealed that time-traveling X-Men were active on the moon of the Skrull homeworld during this story, and that Xavier actually tries to convince Galactus to leave the planet be."

And, I'm gonna add that to the list of things I refuse to believe happened.

I know defending a post-Claremont X-Men story is the sort of thing that can make you into a pariah, but that story's not bad, part of a good Alan Davis run. I do agree that it's a bit of needless messing around with past stories but as near as I can remember it doesn't do any great harm, it's part of a general trend in Davis' run to move the book away from the Magneto-Apocalypse-Sentinels-repeat pattern it had fallen into, and it's basically a fun set of issues, pretty well executed. Naturally enough, Davis' run on the title was so good that Marvel interrupted it every few issues for dull crossovers and then dropped him at the first opportunity.

Alan Davis' short run was mostly him writing what editorial told him to write. I think he admitted it was not so much him being interrupted, as editorial deciding the stories and him writing the plots. All of his run is build up to Apocalypse: the Twelve, after all.

Now, that sounds horrible, but it was actually something of a breath of fresh air at the time. The X-books had devolved into a mess of rotating writers and dropped plot points at the time. The firm editorial grip gave the book a new sense of direction. Plus, Alan Davis wrote everything pretty well, and the book he drew of course looked fantastic. And while the book was in perpetual state of crossover, that was mostly between Uncanny X-Men and Adjectiveless X-Men, both of which were written by Davis. Essentially there was just one twice monthly X-Men title.

After his run they gave the book back to Chris Claremont. He was allowed to have a strong, creator driver voice. Which turned out to be terrible :P

I'm a bit saddened the Empress had few appearances. I remember seeing the Dark Phoneix X-Men cartoon, then I became excited when I saw her origin story a few years ago. I don't know why I expected her to have any sort of gravitas but I did.

Anyway, yes this issue is Fantastic as Byrne somehow both de-mystifies Galactus a little but balances it out by humanizing him. Maybe it helps he ate the Skrull Throne World. Is this the first time we've actually seen Galactus eat a planet with people on it?

It's interesting that the first half of this story focuses entirely on an antagonist, as does all of next issue. And in a couple of issues, we'll get a story from the POV of Paste-Pot Pete.

One of the hallmarks of Byrne's run is that it tries to explore and sometimes explain the characters more fully than previous writers did, and to move them beyond being Kirby archetypes.