Issue(s): Fantastic Four #302
Cover Date: May 87
Title: "And who shall survive?!"
Credits:
Tom DeFalco - Script
Roger Stern - Plot
John Buscema - Breakdowns
Sal Buscema - Finishes
Daryl Edelman - Assistant Editor
Don Daley - Editor

Review/plot:
I mentioned in the wedding issue that we don't see a lot of Alicia's life outside the FF, so it's nice to see her on her honeymoon with Johnny in this issue, and getting all the attention.

The town, Athenville in upstate New York, is coincidentally under martial law, and there are also townspeople - mostly artists and other creative types - who have been disappearing and then coming back crazy and missing memories.

It turns out to be the work of a group of survivalists...

...who are creating the means to escape the earth in the event of nuclear war.

The people turning up without memories were people that had second thoughts about joining the colony. That would be relatively harmless, but it turns out one of the members of the Project intends to launch the colony using the detonation of stolen nuclear warheads (hence the military presence in the area).

It won't surprise you to learn that the Human Torch puts a stop to all of this.

Meanwhile, Mr. Fantastic is quantifying his son's powers.

Now that the Thing reconciliation and the wedding are over, i was hoping to get a glimpse from this issue about what a "regular" Roger Stern's FF issue might have been like, despite DeFalco's scripting. Unfortunately this issue is a bit... mundane (i know, a story where a group of people intend to launch a colony buried inside a mountain into space using nuclear bombs is "mundane". I'm really jaded, arent' i?). To make excuses, it seems the story was plotted at a comics convention (The "folks at Omacon 6" get a special thanks for "all the story ideas"). That doesn't help with my disappointment, though.

Statement of Ownership Total Paid Circulation: Average of Past 12 months = 251,083. Single issue closest to filing date = 232,700.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Nah, "mundane" is the word; it's a fairly standard "misguided kook nearly destroys the world" plot, neither the sort of universe-expanding material or creative plotting one generally expects from the FF's title at its best.