Issue(s): Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3
Cover Date: Nov 74
Title: "Where lurks Death ... ride the Four Horseman! / ...There shall come Pestilence / ...And War shall take the land! / ...And the children shall Hunger! / ...All in the valley of Death!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Script
Gerry Conway & Marv Wolfman - Plot
Rich Buckler - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
This is a real dog of a story where some aliens modeled after the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse return to Earth after (they say) having conquered it during Earth's pre-history and then being driven away by "a race even mightier than our own".

Now, i certainly perked up when i read that. Who could have driven them off? The Celestials hadn't been invented yet. The Kree? The Inhumans? The Asgardians? Well, it turns out that it was just us humans, because apparently the Horsemen just kind of disappear whenever we touch them.

So despite this being an all-fight giant-size issue, the battles are kinda dumb and the whole story feels more than a little pointless.

The Horsemen did spread around their war, hunger, pestilence, and death before the Fantastic Four drove them off, but there's no depiction of the aftermath of that.

It's said that Earth is "the nexus -- the celestial center of the circle of civilized worlds".

I think that basic idea is true (in the comics!) and used to justify the repeat visits from various aliens as well as the reason we get sucked into the Kree and Skrull plots all the time.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP puts this between FF #154-155.

References:

• When the Human Torch flies into battle without a plan, the Thing wonders if he's still possibly bothered by Crystal's marriage in Fantastic Four #150.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The Four Horsemen appear again in Quasar.

Looked them up and tagged them. The Stranger sure was doing a good job cleaning up the Marvel Universe; if only he'd been left alone to keep all these random guys in lock-down.

Aren't the Horsemen supposed to be the same kind of aliens as the fake Norse gods in Invaders #1-2?

Yes, they're Axi-Tun. Their race shows up again in the rather obscure Star Masters team book and Cosmic Powers Unlimited in the mid-90s.

Thanks guys. I've put a note in the Invaders entry. I actually like the fact that this alien species has been consolidated with those guys; they obviously have a similar motif.

In Comics Interview #50, George Perez stated that while acting as Rich Buckler's assistant, he contributed layouts to this issue.

The story makes a lot more sense if you assume Reed is wrong and that the "ancient curse" is actually a curse; certainly the Horsemen's powers feel more like magic than science.

Still a dog of a story, though.

I agree that this story is somewhat underwhelming, but I also regard GS FF #3 as having some of the best work that Rich Buckler did on Fantastic Four.