Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: April 8, 1965
Cover: July 1965
12 cents
Spellbinding script by: Stan (The Man) Lee
Astonishing artwork by: Jack (King) Kirby
Inked by: V. Colletta
Lettered by: Artie Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #368 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Four #39 | Reading order | Daredevil #8 |
| Fantastic Four #39 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #41 |
Stan’s repeaing himself here. He used those same credits in Journey Into Mystery #107 the previous year. Stan (The Man) Lee. Jack (King) Kirby. Basically every comic has had a different nickname for the creators. These may be the first repeats. They are certainly the most famous and today recognized as the semi-official nicknames of the two creators.
Dr. Doom purloins Reed’s remote-control TV eye. Basically what we today would call a drone. Now readily available. Invented 60 years ago by Reed Richards. Reed refers to the drone as a “flying spotter”. Another invention Reed refers to is the “electronic stimulator”. I wonder if that resembles any modern devices?
We’ve seen Daredevil’s billy club has some neat tricks, like becoming a grappling hook. But now we see it’s a gun. That’s new.
The FF enter the building but now must contend with their own defenses. While they work their way upstairs, Daredevil stands alone against Doom.
We are reminded Doom doesn’t like to be touched. He likes to do his science and sometimes his magic, and not engage in hand-to-hand combat himself. He’ll probably kill Daredevil for the insult.
“Never having seen Ben Grimm, Dr. Doom is not aware that he himself was once the mighty Thing!”
Now, he obviously has seen Ben Grimm. They went to college together. It’s believable he’d have found Grimm beneath his notice and paid little attention. Also, Ben turned briefly human during their battle with Doom in issue 17. So Doom really has seen his face before. And even if he hadn’t… he knows they’ve lost their powers… there are only four of them… “Who are you?” asks Doom the super genius.
Ah, that’s right; the electronic stimulator is the device they used to get their powers restored in issue 37. Reed uses it again.
Wait… why didn’t he just do that in the first place. Ah, they address this. It needed a few days to recharge. I’ll buy it, I guess.
This scene is interesting. Thing’s whole tragedy is that he accidentally got turned into this monster. He’s gone back and forth on whether he wants to be cured, sometimes thinking Alicia might actually prefer him this way. But now he has been cured.
The other piece of the tragedy is that Reed always blames himself for the space disaster that turned Ben into a monster.
Except he can get over that now. The Q-bomb cured Ben.
Except now Reed is going to use the electronic stimulator to turn Ben into a monster on purpose. Because they need his strength. Without asking. Even against Ben’s apparent wishes. Reed makes the call.
Now that’s something to feel guilty about. Yet for years, Reed is going to keep moaning about the now irrelevant space flight. When Ben is actually a monster because of this moment when Reed fired a ray gun at him.
Dr. Doom still hasn’t figured out that guy was the Thing.
Did Doom just call Thing an atavism? That’s quite the insult.
Dr. Doom and a very angry Thing have a heck of a battle over 6 pages. It ends the only way it can.
I think those top 3 panels of Thing just ripping Doom’s circuitry to pieces is an impressive moment, my favorite in the issue.
They let Doom go for the same reason they did last time. Diplomatic immunity. Which I don’t think applies when your country has actually been invaded. Doom, leading the attack, is a legitimate prisoner of war.
Thing quits the team. I don’t blame him.
The next issue will pick up right here, but this seems like a good point to pause and check in on the rest of the universe.
Remember, everything is happening fast now.
Rating: ★★★★½, 81/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 2.
Characters:
- Dr. Doom
- Thing
- Mr. Fantastic
- Human Torch
- Invisible Girl
- Daredevil
Story notes:
- Picks up where last issue left off.
- DD’s billy club can be a gun.
- Doom’s armor’s force field can generate 100,000 megavolts of electricity.
- Doom’s sensitizer holds Thing down.
- Doom fires intensified molecules at Thing.
| Previous | #368 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Four #39 | Reading order | Daredevil #8 |
| Fantastic Four #39 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #41 |
At this point, it became impossible to not check in on the Fantastic Four each month – and it stayed impossible, even when it was obvious things had gone off-topic (Inhumans are bad guys/no they aren’t /yes they are! Evil scientists create Him. They’re not evil! Yes they are!) until the moment when we have to acknowledge that Kirby gives up (“The Not-That-Threatening Menace of the Guy Named After a Monocle”) at which point we didn’t want to believe an era was over.
Sure sure, Daredevil can turn his billy club into a gun, sure. But, why does he need to put the sight at the end of it?…
I’ve given this a lot of thought and have two explanations. The first is that it’s just how the billy club comes off the shelf. Weaponized billy clubs is already a niche market. Weaponized billy clubs that can only be used by the visually impaired with enhanced radar senses just wouldn’t sell.
The second is that Daredevil’s blindness is a closely guarded secret, and the sight is a ploy to help protect that secret.
This was the first Colleta inking of the FF. He was NOT bad here, but according to Comics Historians, Stan put the pressure on him to speed up his work and then my resentment grew. Kirby’s eyes became a “dot with a straight line to depict an upper eyelid.” And Kirby’s faces looked less Kirby-esque……….. Before the COVID lockdowns I saw downloads of Jack’s pencils of 1) Thor Annual #2, 2) J into Mystery 3) 126, Ulik-Thor battle (can’t remember the issue) and 4) the second involving Mangog (either 155 or 156). I saw WHY he was quick. He ignored a Hell of a lot background. Backgrounds were one of the things that placed Kirby above others in his era. We will never know the outrageous grandeur of his drawings. …. And it took me 10 or 12 years to forgive Stan for Colleta’s inking in a ONCE IN A LIFE TIME EVENT! Sue and Reed’s wedding in FF Annual #3. Stan had Frank Giacoia (or “Ray” to keep other publishers from legally combating Frank over his employment) and Joe Sinnott in the bullpen.