Issue(s): Fantastic Four #72
Cover Date: Mar 68
Title: "Where Soars the Silver Surfer!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
The Silver Surfer decides to attack the world in order to give the nations of Earth a common threat so that they will stop all the madness.

The Watcher "doesn't interfere" by explaining to the FF that while the Surfer's goal is noble, his methods are downright stupid. Reed and Sue had just quit the FF...

...and were traveling by train when the Watcher shows up and asks the train conductor to please stop.

Reed and Sue begin to debate getting involved with the team again, but as soon as Reed says he'll go back, the Watcher cuts off the conversation, teleporting Reed back to NYC (and leaving Sue to hike there on her own).

The FF attack the Surfer...

...but fail to stop him. However, when they protect him from a "sonic shark" cosmic energy rocket that Reed designed and the army launched, the Surfer realizes he's been acting like a nitwit. The end of this issue seems to imply that the Surfer has lost some of his power due to the rocket's explosion.

When Sue calls the Silver Surfer all-powerful, the Watcher says "There is only one who deserves to be called All-Powerful, and His only weapon is love". In case you didn't get the reference, he's referring to me.

There's a General in this issue, in charge of the army division responsible for launching the sonic shark. He looks a lot like General Ross to me, but the Marvel Chronology Project have him listed as General Fredricks, who also appeared in some issues of the X-Men. There's no evidence in this issue either way, but i've listed him as Fredricks.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel's Greatest Comics #42

I did get the reference.

I did, too. I've always wondered if this story influenced Alan Moore's Watchmen, you know, with the whole lets give them a common enemy to unite mankind theme.

Watchmen (and probably this story) were inspired by an Outer Limits episode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Architects_of_Fear

Cool. I didn't know that. You know, I've never thought that the plan would work for any length of time. Once the threatened aliens did not appear, people would just go back to hating one another. You want proof? The various African tribes united against European colonists and eventually set up their own independent nations. After this, many of the old tribal wars broke out again with attempted genocide is several instances.

Not that this thread really belongs on this site, but Alan Moore was NOT inspired by Architects of Fear, and he'll cast a spell on you if you suggest he was. It was just an unfortunate coincidence, that Len Wein took way too seriously, as the notes on that Wikipedia link make clear. Plus, as this other web page points out, the Outer Limits was far from the first to use this particular idea: http://www.comicsbeat.com/did-watchmen-steal-from-the-outer-limits-or-from-jack-kirby/

The really crazy thing, is this is not the first time this happened to Moore. One of his first stories, called Skizz, is about an alien who crash lands in London and is befriended by the locals, who try to protect him from evil government agents. As he was writing it, E.T. came out, and Moore had to have his characters say stuff like "This is kind of like that American movie!"

Alan Moore had to have been aware of Reagan's 1985 speech suggesting an alien threat would unify us. Maybe Reagan was an FF reader.

This issue's cover and #74's both featured the Silver Surfer and didn't show the FF (except in the corner box).

Yeah, those two FF covers, #72 and #74 heralded ;) the Surfer's own comic a few months later in 1968.

@Andrew - good link, thanks for sharing. Seems likely then that this issue is not Kirby being inspired by the Outer Limits, but rather recycling parts of the plot of Tales Of Suspense #2, earlier work of his from 1959. (Which itself might be inspired by some earlier sci-fi comic or novel.)

Also interesting that Anthony Eden said something similar long before Reagan.

Off-topic, but that Len Wein Ozymandias looks awful, Wein really seems to have a bee in his bonnet about the Outer Limits plot point.

That bottom panel of General Fredericks looks like a Romita face correction.