Fantastic Four #20

Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: August 8, 1963
Cover: November 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Dick Ayers
22 pages

“This proves that some form of life must exist in outer space!”

Reed.

You’ve fought the Skrulls twice. You’ve traveled to Planet X, and transported its population to another planet. You’ve met the Impossible Man and the Watcher. You’re about to meet the Watcher again this issue. You’ve seen the ruins of a lost civilization on the moon.

Plus, if you’ve been paying attention, you would have noted earth has been recently invaded by several other alien races, from the Toad Men to the Stone Men from Saturn.

Of course there’s some form of life in outer space!

Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Perhaps he’s not speaking of other worlds or moons or even spaceships, but within space itself.

I love the Watcher, and so am excited to see him back. His schtick is that he watches and never interferes. Except that this is our second time meeting him and his second time interfering in things. There are exceptions to his rules, apparently. The first is if people actually show up near his house; then he can interfere in their conflict. This new exception to the rule is because the entire universe is in peril, even his own race.

Though, come issue’s end, he’s happy to just kind of fix New York after the Molecule Man’s rampage. Just because.

In concept, I’m pretty excited by the Molecule Man. He can command molecules to do as he pleases. The comic correctly notes this gives him the power of a god. The Watcher describes his power as a threat to the entire universe. That type of scale has always excited me.

In execution, I’m less impressed by the issue. The Molecule Man uses his godlike power for fairly simple parlor tricks, and is ultimately overcome pretty easily.

Here is the Watcher being oddly judgmental and superficial when it comes to the Molecule Man’s origin.

The Watcher notes the odds of Molecule Man surviving the atomic accident were a trillion-to-one. Given just how many people we’ve seen survive atomic accidents, I suspect they’re a little higher than that.

Did Molecule Man work for Acme Atomics Corp. or Acme Electronics? Best guess is the company changed its official name at some point and the boss still tends to refer to it by the old one.

Reed describes molecules as the “smallest groups of atoms which form any element”. Seems basically on point. A check of Google clarifies they could form any element or compound, e.g. water as well as nitrogen.

The Fantastic Four find unlikely allies in the Yancy Street Gang. They claim only they are allowed to pick on the Thing.

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 58/100
Significance: ★★★★☆

Some of the scans above are taken from a reprint Marvel Collectors Item Classics #14. However, the binding on my book made some of the later pages very hard to get a good scan of, so I reverted to the digital version.

I read this story in Fantastic Four Epic Collection vol. 2: The Master Plan of Dr. Doom. You can also find it in Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four vol. 2. Or on Kindle.

Characters:

• Human Torch
• Invisible Girl
• Mr. Fantastic
• Thing
• The Watcher
• Molecule Man
• Alicia

Story notes:

• Strange meteor fell on a farmer’s property; Reed purchased it from the farmer.
• Fiery blue ball gateway to Watcher’s dimension.
• Atomic accident scarred Molecule Man’s face.
• Watcher stayed too long in “ephemeral sphere”, presumably referring to the dimension inside his fiery blue ball.
• Molecule Man receives painful feedback if he tries to manipulate organic molecules.
• Molecule Man apparently needs his wand, or at least thinks he does.
• The Watcher takes the Molecule Man prisoner and undoes all his deeds — that sounds like interfering to me.

#111 story in reading order
Next: Amazing Spider-Man #6
Previous: Strange Tale #114, Story B