Issue(s): Fantastic Four #27
Cover Date: Jun 64
Title: "The Search for the Sub-Mariner!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
George Roussos - Inker

Review/plot: This is a particularly weak issue. The Sub-Mariner can't stand it anymore so he dresses up in a nice suit and comes to ask Sue if he loves her.

When she can't answer him, he kidnaps her and gives her 24 hours to decide if she loves him or Reed. She tells Namor that she loves Reed. Reed was going to pop the question this issue...

...but at the end he thinks that she told Namor she loves Reed just to stop them from fighting. Reed just can't take yes for an answer. I'd kind of like the idea that he was insecure when it comes to personal relationships, but it's not really an idea that gets played up.

When Sue is kidnapped, Reed goes after her alone, so the Human Torch and the Thing feel that they need to summon Dr. Strange for help.

Why? It's not a mystical threat. It makes no sense. Dr. Strange teleports them to Atlantis, where there's a big fight.

The Thing and the Torch use water breathing pills so that they can go down into Atlantis. I bet they do other good things too, since the Thing is in such a hurry to take them.

This issue starts with a creepy scene of Reed undressing a virtual Sue using a "thought projector".

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Sue 'decides' that she loves Reed and not Namor.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Sue Storm is a tease. "Sorry if you misunderstood...the affection I felt." yeah, right. like she hasn't spent a few issues mooning over Namor's photo (that she got where?) and wondering who she liked more. she prolly just finally realized the shopping opportunities were better if she stayed with Reed.

Weak plot, maybe, but the fight between Reed and Namor is one of my all-time faves; and I normally dislike Kirby fights.

And thus, Reed Richards invented "virtual 1964 porn"...and it was good.

This George Roussos ink job is typically sloppy but not quite as crude as we've been seeing in previous issues, thankfully. I think he was doing it all with a brush and not cleaning his brush as often as he oughta. He almost always looks rushed, and unfortunately he inked over a disturbing number of Kirby's pencil pages during this period. JMO.

I'm going through these early FF issues one more time again now, looking for various things, one of which is the emergence of "Kirby crackle" which I still haven't seen yet. I'll be so much happier when I finally get to the Joe Sinnott era. :)

The Kirby Krackle evolved slowly. There are places where you see something like it, but it could be debris, or crude stippling. In my opinion, the first proper Krackle is on the cover of the classic Fantastic Four #51, "This Man... This Monster!"

Yeah, I saw it there recently which is partly what started me on this expedition. It looked really great, all the art I was looking at from #48-#61 looked so much better than this earlier stuff. I was thinking/wondering how much Sinnott might actually have had to do with it.

In one Kirby interview I remember-- I think it was a video or recorded interview on youtube but I'm not sure-- Jack was saying that he had "always" done full pencils, in order to leave nothing to the inkers' imaginations. Not sure how true that might actually be, but on most of the un-inked pages I've seen-- mostly in the Jack Kirby Collector magazine-- the pencils really were highly detailed. Most if not all of them were from later in his career however.

Reed vs Namor was a nice figth, Reed was pissed! Some Creative stuff as reed using his body as a bow to shoot Namor at the soldiers.