Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: October 8, 1864
Cover: January 1965
12 cents
Rapturously written by: Stan Lee
Deliciously drawn by: Jack Kirby
Impeccably inked by: Chic Stone
Lavishly lettered by: Art Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #284 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Sgt. Fury #13 | Reading order | Strange Tales #128 |
| Fantastic Four #33 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #35 |
We begin with Ben and Johnny fighting as usual.
Then Ben trying on the Beatles wig he received from the Yancy Street Gang.
Mr. Gideon is a ruthless multi-billionaire financial wizard. By his reckoning, he is about 3 years away from buying out his top competitors and gaining financial control of the world. Impatient, he proposes they speed things up with a gamble. They propose the challenge. If he wins, they sell out now; if he loses, he stops trying to conquer the world. The challenge they propose: the defeat of the Fantastic Four.
The title of this comic is “A House Divided”. This references Jesus as quoted in three Gospels.
Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
Matthew 12:25
And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
Mark 3:25
Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and house falls upon house.
Luke 11:17
And was famously quoted by Abraham Lincoln during the Republican convention of 1858, arguing that the slavery issue must be settled definitively one way or the other if America is to endure.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
Abraham Lincoln
So Mr. Gideon seeks to turn the Fantastic Four against each other by planting fake evidence. Thing is convinced Mr. Fantastic is a Skrull; Invisible Girl believes Human Torch to be a robot of Dr. Doom’s; while Human Torch believes Invisible Girl to be under Puppet Master’s control.
Honestly… given their enemies… suspicion seems natural. That all sounds pretty plausible. Plus Dr. Doom knows how to switch bodies with people and once switched with Reed. If they’ve traded notes with the Avengers, they would know the Space Phantom can also impersonate people. They are long past the point where they should have code phrases worked out to verify each other’s identities.
The main plot of the comic is the Fantastic Four being tricked into fighting each other. Unrelatedly, the comic opens as many do with Ben and Johnny fighting each other with no particular impetus.
There is a weird scene where part of Gideon’s plan was to leave a random ray gun lying around, trusting Mr. Fantastic would pick up the strange gun on the street and just start shooting at his teammates.
Mr. Fantastic did not disappoint.
Gideon has a time displacer. His plan is to use it to trap the Fantastic Four in the past, thereby defeating them. Can one think of nothing better to do with a time machine?
They seem to imply that Gideon himself owns the Baxter Building. Actually, they imply Gideon owns almost everything. It’s treated as a throwaway detail. Gideon’s son’s thought balloons tells us he owns the building, referring to the Baxter Building.
Ultimately, we get a redemptive arc for the villain. We see he’s been so obsessed with buying the entire world for his family that he never sees his family. And while he is trying to destroy the Fantastic Four, his son Thomas actually idolizes the Fantastic Four.
It takes Tom falling for Gideon’s trap and getting stuck in time to make Gideon realize the error of his ways. He plans to donate all his money to charity and spend more time with his family.
We’ve seen this theme a few times already in these stories, where the villain has a family member they love for whom they are seeking to acquire wealth or power, but where their loved one just wants them to come home and be less evil.
Think of the good Mr. Gideon could have accomplished with all that wealth if he hadn’t been so evil and greedy. For example, he could have become Batman.
Moral of the story: impose a wealth tax.
We get a somewhat humorous pin-up of the team on Yancy Street, with Dr. Doom lurking mischievously in the background.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 55/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Fantastic Four Epic Collection vol. 3: The Coming of Galactus. You can also find it on Kindle.
Characters:
- Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards
- Thing/Benjamin “Ben” J. Grimm
- Invisible Girl/Sue Storm
- Human Torch/Johnny Storm
- Alicia
- Gregory Hungergord Gideon/Mr. Gideon
- Mrs. Gideon
- Thomas “Tom” Gideon
Minor characters:
- Commander Vanvroot
- Tamiroff
- Favorsham
- Smedley
- Agent R
Story notes:
- Gideon has teleconference with: Commander Vanvroot in South Africa; Tamiroff in Cairo; Favorsham in London.
- Thing convinced Reed is a Skrull; he has workmen take fantasti-car, missile, pogo plane.
- Editor notes previous Skrull encounters: FF #2, 18, 32.
- Sue convinced Johnny is a robotic impersonator sent by Dr. Doom; Johnny suspects Sue is under Puppet Master’s control. They fight in suburban home.
- Mr. Gideon unconcerned with details.
- Thomas Gideon reading a Fantastic Four magazine; his favorite heroes.
- Sue must become visible to project her force field.
- Gideon’s time displacer modeled after Dr. Doom’s. It cost $30 million.
- Tom tries to warn the FF of his father’s trap and gets trapped in time.
- Gideon repents, comes to value wife and son, and renounces fortune.
| Previous | #284 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Sgt. Fury #13 | Reading order | Strange Tales #128 |
| Fantastic Four #33 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #35 |
