Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: July 9, 1964
Cover: October 1964
Written by: Stan Lee, the man with the talented typewriter!
Illustrated by: Jack Kirby, the man with the power-packed pencil!
Inked by: Chic Stone, the man with the panoramic paint-brush!
Lettered by: S. Rosen, the man with the leaky lettering pen!
21 pages
I’d like to reflect back to Fantastic Four #11. Things were revealed there which are contrary to my general impression of these characters. Some key facts were that Reed and Ben had served in World War II. Prior to the war, they had both finished college. Further, he and Sue were sweethearts prior to the war.
We did a lot of math about what that meant, math I’m sure Stan Lee never did. But he must have had some sense of what he was saying. He had been a sergeant himself in World War II. He must have known that claiming Reed and Ben served in the same war he did made them about his age. He similarly knew that it was quite odd to have a sweetheart for 20 years and still not be married. He must have known these things.
The one thing I suspect he didn’t think about was that Johnny was in high school. This necessarily put a gap of almost twenty years in age between brother and sister. I have a friend whose brother is 30 years older than he, so I know this is possible. But I really don’t think Stan intended it.
Stan certainly gives the impression in the stories that Reed has let Sue stay single too long, but I assume he intends to mean she should have been married by 23 and she’s now like 26 or something. But that’s inconsistent with the World War II facts, which suggests she’s pushing 40 and still unmarried, but with at least two suitors.
Either way, Johnny is in high school. And whether his sister is ten or twenty years older than he, she is definitely much older and seems to be his guardian. There has been no mention of parents.
Until now.
There are an interesting lack of biological parents in these stories, especially given the number of teenage superheroes. The X-Men live in their boarding school; we’ve only met Jean’s parents. Peter was living with his Aunt and Uncle when we met him. His parents have not been mentioned. We learned the story Matt’s childhood and his father’s death, but his mom was already out of the picture before the story began. Rick Jones is an orphan.
The only active parent in these stories is Thor’s dad; Thor and his dad fight a lot because his dad won’t accept that he’s hundreds of millennia old and able to make his own life decisions. Thor’s mom is also around but we’ve only briefly glimpsed her.
Apparently Reed never knew anything about Sue’s father, and had never met him. When he sees the picture, he mistakes him for an ex-lover of Sue’s, which is weird. Sue had told Johnny their dad was dead.
We get only hints of his story here. He had been a great surgeon, then something happened. He hurt their mother somehow, and ended up in jail. He recently escaped prison, but allowed himself to be captured because only he could perform the surgery Sue needed.
It’s quite the ending to the issue.
Unfortunately, the previous 18 or so pages don’t live up to it. The Mole Man returns for a particularly uninteresting battle.
These superhero stories overdo the “damsel in distress” trope. It’s not great at the best of times, and worse when the damsel is the Invisible Girl, who should be powerful enough to fend for herself.
This whole scene reads as absurd to me. Mole Man is pointing a gun at Sue. The Fantastic Four see no choice but to surrender.
They even fight the Avengers to prevent them from attacking Mole Man and endangering Sue.
They at least try to address why Sue’s force field wouldn’t have helped, though it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
They also do the thing where they go on and on about how dangerous the Mole Man is. He really doesn’t seem like he should be able to do much against the Fantastic Four.
Mole Man “knew it was only a matter of time before they would pick up the trail.” Dude, you stole a city block. They “picked up the trail” by going to where there was a giant block-sized hole in the ground.
The mostly worthless battle ends with an explosion that injures Sue, which leads to the actually interesting final two pages where we meet Dr. Storm and get tantalizing hints about who he is.
There was also a pretty funny scene at the beginning.
“Are you tryin’ to hint that I’m dumb?!”
“Who’s hinting?”
“I accept your apology!”
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 50/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Scans are taken from a reprint in Marvel’s Greatest Comics #23 (1969).
I read this story in Fantastic Four Epic Collection vol. 2: The Master Plan of Dr. Doom. You can also find this story on Kindle.
Characters:
- Thing
- Human Torch
- Invisible Girl
- Mr. Fantastic
- Mole Man
- Captain America
- Iron Man
- Thor
- Giant-Man
- Wasp
- Dr. Storm
Story notes:
- Earthquake in New York.
- Walter Cronkite reference.
- Newspaper (Post-Standard) speaks of escaped fugitive from State Prison. Sue is upset.
- Sue’s father has been in prison for years.
- Third battle with Mole Man.
- Thor agrees to give the FF 24 hours to solve the problem before the Avengers step in.
- Iron Man lends Reed transistor devices.
- Reed notes Iron Man is Stark’s bodyguard, refers to him as the Golden Avenger.
- Reed’s gadgets: transistorized detector, hover cycle
- Reed apparently mistakes Sue’s father for an ex-lover.
- Sue had told Johnny their father was dead. She lied; he’s in prison.
#250 story in reading order <– That’s cool.
Next: Journey Into Mystery #109
Previous: Tales of Suspense #58, Story B
