Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: June 11, 1963
Cover: September 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
21 pages
It’s perhaps cheating that I’ve seen so many later renderings of Super-Skrull, but hindsight being the new year, that’s not a great image of Super-Skrull on the cover. It suggests only that he has Human Torch powers. No hint that he has the powers of the entire Fantastic Four (well, no visual hint. I guess the text tells you). He should be rocky and flaming and stretching and invisible. My two cents. Though he’s also never rocky in the issue, just strong. But he should be rocky.
At this point, the earth has been invaded by about a dozen alien races this year. All of whom have given up and withdrawn entire fleets at the slightest hint of possible resistance. The Skrulls are the first to return, to try again after their ignoble defeat.
Their plan is to make an agent powerful enough to stop the Fantastic Four, reasoning it was the FF who defeated them before. But the Fantastic Four did not defeat the Skrulls, at least not with their powers. The Skrulls were scared off by pictures of monsters in comic books. So really, they should make an agent powerful enough to fight all the monsters that scared them away.
We learn that the home planet of the Skrulls is in the Fifth Quadrant of the Andromeda Galaxy. The 5th Quadrant… Let’s consult Merriam-Webster for a moment: Quadrant. Noun. “Any of the four quarters into which something is divided…” Hmmm… I see no problems here.
Anyways, Super-Skrull is a really powerful foe. All the powers of the Fantastic Four, plus a lot more!
Lucky for earth, Mr. Fantastic is quite clever.
The idea of Super-Skrull is that he had all the FF’s powers but better. Stronger than Thing, able to stretch further than Mr. Fantastic, more powerful flames than Human Torch… but they apparently couldn’t figure out how to make Sue’s powers any better. So they had Super-Skrull turn invisible and also have hypnosis, to one-up Invisible Girl. Despite how unrelated to invisibility hypnosis is. In Fantastic Four #10, Dr. Doom did propose some modest improvement to Sue’s powers, suggesting she could turn partially invisible and maintain invisibility longer. In the near future, the creators will figure out an even better extension to invisibility powers that will make Sue a more effective superhero…
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 55/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1. You can also find it in Fantastic Four Epic Collection vol. 1 or Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four vol. 2. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Susan Storm/Invisible Girl
- Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
- Ben Grimm/Thing
- Johnny Storm/Human Torch
- Skrull King
- Super-Skrull
Story notes:
- Newscaster reporting on battle with Dr. Doom from #17, suggesting that the fight was very recent.
- Ad for Tootsies dog food.
- Reference to Mickey Mouse Club and Mouseketeers.
- Reed and Sue taking passenger ICBM to Waikiki for a couple days. It takes half hour to get to Waikiki from New York.
- Ben taking Alicia North for fishing.
- Home planet of Skrulls in fifth quadrant (?) of the Andromeda Galaxy, light years away.
- Super-Skrull retrieves specto-fish from Skrull Sea.
- Power to Skrull world supplied by “cosmic generator”.
- Narration includes “One week later…”, suggesting the issue takes place over the course of at least a week.
- Super-Skrull lands in Times Square and claims Earth in name of Imperial Skrull Empire; plants Skrull flag.
- Human Torch notes they fought the Skrulls a year ago.
- Power rays being beamed to earth from 5th quadrant to keep Super-Skrull charged.
- The final battle is on Crater Isle. I think this is not a real island.
- Pogo plane forerunner of America’s X-15 rocket plane.
- Super-Skrull’s power is jammed and he is sealed in crater.
- Super-Skrulls powers: Super-Skrull can stretch further than Mr. Fantastic, can stretch hundreds of miles in seconds. Super-Skrull can fly faster and maintain his flame longer then Human Torch, and has an anti-matter fireball that can destroy the peak of a mountain. Thing can lift 5 tons; Super-Skrull over 100 tons. Super-Skrull can turn invisible and has hypnosis powers.
#91 story in reading order
Next: Strange Tales #112
Previous: Amazing Spider-Man #4
