Fantastic Four #58

Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: October 11, 1966
Cover: January 1967
12 cents
A Stan Lee * Jack Kirby powerhouse production
Inked by: Joe Sinnott
Lettered by: Artie Simek
20 pages

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“Hah! The once-mighty Silver Surfer! Now, barely able to move a muscle since your new master has stripped you of your power!”
“Master? Galactus had been– my master! You– are but– a flea!”

Dr. Doom’s head appears in the air. I appreciate that Reed just thinks it’s a random pattern from the electrical storm. Smartest man in the world.

But then the pattern randomly looks like Dr. Doom again, and Reed begins to do the math on the odds of that.

Doom takes his surfboard and heads to America to confront the Fantastic Four. That’s right. He’s surfin’ USA.

This comic has a weak plot point, which is unfortunate, as it’s mostly so excellent.

Reed knows Doom is up to something. He pretended not to so as not to alarm Sue. But with Johnny away, he leaves Ben alone and goes off on holiday with Sue. It doesn’t quite make sense to me. It sets up the plot of the issue, in which Dr. Doom easily dispatches with the Fantastic Four one at a time. But it doesn’t feel right.

The last great Dr. Doom story was the Battle of the Baxter Building, culminating in Fantastic Four #40, where Thing crushed Dr. Doom’s hands in a famous moment. Dr. Doom has not forgotten that indignity, and now he takes revenge.

Kirby depicts quite the slugfest. But really Doom is just toying with Ben. This is how the recent Thing/Silver Surfer fight went. It was also quite the slugfest, but only because the Surfer didn’t bring his powers to bear.

Dr. Doom leaves an immobilized Thing in Central Park, where a couple mistakes him for a statue. The man thinks that statue hadn’t been there earlier, but the woman insists it was. I find that hilarious, because it’s almost identical to a joke I love from The Tick, which I wrote about at some length here. Makes me wonder if this scene inspired Ben Edlund.

With the Thing defeated, Dr. Doom attacks Reed and Sue in Southampton. Reed deduces that Doom has the Surfer’s powers, which they refer to as “cosmic power”.

It’s time you learned that destructive power alone can’t always guarantee a victory! The greatest weapon of all is a man’s brain– and the greatest defense is his refusal to surrender!

Lockjaw had sensed the threat of Doom, so like a good Inhuman dog, he brought Johnny and Wyatt to the Baxter Building from the weird other dimension they were in last issue.

Human Torch is the next to confront Dr. Doom.

We get the second flaw of the issue. This is one of the many script/art dichotomies we’ve seen. Where what Jack drew and Stan wrote just don’t align. Let’s try to follow.

This page ends with Doom seeming to get the upper hand against the Human Torch. The script tells us he’s going to unleash a final surge of heat.

The next page begins with an explosion. It’s not clear what became of Johnny. Except, from Stan’s dialogue, it is. He’s flown his way over to Reed and Sue and is standing next to them but just off panel. Reed talks to him and he responds. Reed tells him to fly away. So he’s presumably gone by the third panel. Obviously that’s not the story Jack had. If he wanted Johnny to be in that scene, he would have drawn Johnny there.

But then on the next page, we see Human Torch back by Dr. Doom. Which is where he should have been. I think the story Jack drew is that Johnny was unseen after the explosion, and the others feared the worst. But then on the next page he turns up alive to confront Doom again.

For some reason, Stan wrote instead this odd scene where Reed tells him to fly away. So he does… and then comes right back.

Those pages are wonky, and Reed’s choice to take a vacation after Doom’s visage appeared doesn’t make sense to me. These concerns detract from what is otherwise one of the great Fantastic Four stories.

Doom decides not to kill them… yet.

Fantastic Four Fan Page.

We’ve reached October, 1966. Let’s take a walk around the newsstand with the help of Mike’s Amazing World and the Grand Comics Database.

• Adventures into the Unknown #169, ACG
• Archie’s Madhouse Annual #4, Archie
• Captain Atom #84, Charlton
• Sweethearts #91, Charlton
• War and Attack #58, Charlton
• Justice League of America #50, DC
• Strange Adventures #195, DC
• Swing with Scooter #4, DC
• Tales of the Unexpected #98, DC
• Mighty Heroes #1, Dell
• Girl from UNCLE #1, Gold Key
• Laurel and Hardy #1, Gold Key
• Blondie #166, King
• Little Lotta #69, Harvey
• Tippy Teen #10, Tower
• Eerie #7, Warren

Rating: ★★★★☆, 77/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆

I almost love this issue enough to forgive a couple script oddities. But I’m docking it a half star for them.

This takes its place among the Best We’ve Read, sadly leaving no room for the introduction of SHIELD.

Unfortunately this is a four-part story, so four great comics are falling off the list.

Characters:

• Dr. Doom
• Thing
• Mr. Fantastic
• Invisible Girl
• Silver Surfer
• Human Torch
• Lockjaw
• Wyatt Wingfoot

Minor characters:

• Tom

Story notes:

• A lightning flash atop the Baxter Building takes the form of Dr. Doom. Then another. The storm ends quickly. Reed suggests it’s nothing, and keeps up the pretense to not alarm Sue.
• Ben reading a ghost story and thinks Reed is a ghost?
• Reed and Sue going to cottage in Southampton for weekend. Sue suggests Ben call Alicia if he’s lonely.
• Doom attacks “a few minutes” after Reed and Sue leave, but they are already far enough away that they don’t notice the commotion and continue to Southampton.
• Dr. Doom freezes Thing by slowing the vibration rate of his body.
• Johnny and Wyatt has been trapped in another dimension, but Wingfoot was training Lockjaw to transport them on command. It worked, and Lockjaw took them to New York. Lockjaw brought them there because he sensed danger.
• Reed and Sue have made it to Southampton, and Doom attacks them there.
• Reed testing conductive-inverter while Sue dressed. The plan was a weenie roast in the garden.
• Reed suspects Doom has Surfer’s power.
• Doom refers to it as “Cosmic Power”.
• Doom creates energy-activated mace with power; he can create any weapon he desires.
• Human Torch finds frozen Thing and goes to lab for metabolism accelerator of Reed’s.
• Torch sends Wyatt to help Ben and seeks out Reed and Sue in Southampton.
• Doom found Reed and Sue with his powers.
• Johnny notes he is expendable. Reed and Sue need to escape and plan.
• Doom can absorb Johnny’s flames and is resistant to fire.
• Human Torch increases heat intensity and destroys house.
• Wyatt restores Thing.
• Doom freezes Johnny with cosmic drop in temperature.
• Wyatt and Thing join Reed and Sue; Wyatt brings experimental anti-grav disruptor.
• Human Torch facing off with Doom, despite Reed telling him to take a break.
• Human Torch threatens super-nova blast, but it’s a bluff because it would kill half the population of the hemisphere.
• Wyatt fires anti-grav disruptor to no effect.

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Fantastic Four #57	Reading order	Fantastic Four #59
Fantastic Four #57	Fantastic Four	Fantastic Four #59