Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: February 14, 1967
Cover: May 1967
12 cents
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Inking: Joe Sinnott
Lettering: Sam Rosen
20 pages
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| Fantastic Four #61 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #63 |
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There is so much yet to learn… so much to see, and marvel at…! What a pity it must all end so soon… before I have a chance to unravel the myriad mysteries of this strange, uncanny universe! But, there will be others… those who come after me… and they will unlock the secrets of the cosmos… one by one… For, the mind of man is the greatest key in the world… the key which may one day open the door to… immortality!! And each of us, in his own way, does what he can for those who will follow! That is the only true legacy we can leave to those we love… that we have made the world a little better than we found it!
Last issue saw Reed trapped in Sub-Space hurtling toward his imminent death. With none who could save him.
I guess we may as well start preparing ourselves emotionally.
Though the title is “And One Shall Save Him”… so maybe there is one who can save him. Can’t imagine who, though.
Tell her… how much… I loved her… tell her… I’ll.. always lover her…
We reach another moment where the technology of the time wasn’t up to Kirby’s ambition. Modern comics have printing that bleeds to the edge of the page frequently. Two-page spreads are common, as are panels that spread across two adjacent pages. We’ve not yet seen it in our reading. And this is the first attempt at it.
Kirby drew a picture large enough to fill two pages. But they could only print it one page at a time.
And in my copy at least, the pictures don’t even line up, because they never print the art straight onto a page. You could imagine cutting out these two pictures and putting them together for something cool. I’m not willing to do that with my copy, but I am willing to use Macbook tools to mess with it.
This is the best I could do. The two halves don’t align perfectly.
Anyways, I appreciate what Kirby’s attempting here.
Stan earns his paycheck as well. Reed has quite the dying soliloquy. We quote it above.
Meanwhile, the Inhumans have settled on some island, which some soldiers make the mistake of trying to conquer.
The Inhumans will be the secret to Reed’s salvation. In particular, Triton can swim through Sub-Space like it’s an ocean.
Meanwhile, we learn there is life in this Sub-Space/Negative Space/Negative Zone. A ship drops off a dangerous prisoner.
Triton does rescue Reed, and take him home, but that prisoner follows them to our world. His name is Blastaar.
Reed and Sue embrace, to Ben’s chagrin.
Love! Yecchh It’s just a lotta mush! At least.. that’s what a slob like me.. hasta keep tellin’ himself!
Blastaar and the Sandman enter into a super-villain team-up. And we’ll pick up there next issue.
First, I’d like to discuss a note from Stan. Stan thinks we may be wondering how an alien from another dimension seems to speak English. I was wondering that. In fact, I’ve wondered that about the several dozen alien races that have come to Earth in the last 6 years of our reading.
We learn that Blastaar, like many aliens who have come to Earth, has a universally-approved Automatic Translator. This allows Sandman to hear him in English and him to hear Sandman in his native negative zone language.
This is the first mention of the technology in Marvel, but it does seem implicit that many aliens have had similar technology.
I most associate the idea of a universal translator with Star Trek, which premiered about 6 months before this comic was released. As best as I can tell, this issue predates Star Trek being explicit about universal translators. Like with Marvel, it was implicit they could talk to all these aliens somehow. The first reference I can find is from the episode Metamorphosis, which came out about 9 months after this comic.
The concept of a universal translator is similar to that of the Babel fish, introduced in the famous radio play Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, released about a decade after this comic. This device can automatically understand any new language, no matter how alien (unless the aliens use too much metaphor), and instantly solve interspecies communication difficulties.
I’m not certain when the first instance of such a device in fiction was. I assume it’s not here.
This Wikipedia article unhelpfully credits the idea to Murray Leinster, and his short story, First Contact. I think that article is incorrect. In that story, they build a specific translator to aid in communication with a specific alien species. It’s not at all universal. It didn’t just work. They had to work out some common vocabulary amongst the races first. The translator from that story was as functional as Google Translate, offering instant translation between specific known languages.
The device that can just pick up a language automatically is not one we’ve yet invented. Nor one imagined by Leinster.
Rating: ★★★½, 67/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
Blastaar is a significant enough villain to justify the extra star.
This goes on the Best We’ve Read, but kicks off Thor #127. I think it may soon be time to expand that list past a hundred. Too many good stories.
Characters:
- Thing
- Invisible Girl
- Human Torch
- Mr. Fantastic
- Crystal
- Lockjaw
- Gorgon
- Medusa
- Karnak
- Triton
- Blastaar
- Sandman
Story notes:
- “The Grieving FF learn: To abandone hope is to abandon life!”
- Reed just sucked into Negative Zone/Sub-Space.
- Thing uses Trans-Barrier Phone to try to contact Reed.
- Reed caught in Debris Belt, being drawn toward Exploding Area around Earth.
- Coloring issue makes Johnny look like Reed in one panel.
- Lockjaw’s power of inter-dimensional travel is instantaneous.
- In the Negative Zone, two pilots plan to dump a dangerous prisoner in the Debris Belt, as he is too powerful to destroy.
- Figure left within adhesion suit by magna-crane in Debris Belt. The ship departs.
- Reed sees the rocket craft and deduces there must be some form of intelligent life.
- Worth noting Reed needs no helmet in this space.
- Reed clings unknowingly to the same boulder as the prisoner.
- On a small island off the coast of Europe, a group of possibly Soviet soldiers seeks to take control. Their nuclear sub had slipped through the NATO radar net. They will conquer the island with their atomic nullifier/ray cannon. They will ring the island with an atomic curtain.
- Black Boat destroys the cannon with a fusillade of electrons from his fingertip.
- Black Bolt encases the soldiers in an Electron Field.
- Triton disables the sub and they radio to NATO for help.
- Thing destroys the scanner so they don’t have to watch Reed die. Because doing something is better than doing nothing.
- Deepest space, positive or negative, is like an ocean. Triton can maneuver.
- Ben opens the Space-Time Chamber slowly, one safety chamber after another. Last issue it seemed like to open it at all would be dangerous.
- Triton does refer to it as Sub-Space.
- Triton encounters the monster from Negative Space we’d seen in FF #56.
- Reed had originally been investigating the Negative Zone to free the Inhumans.
- As Triton gets ahold of Reed, Blastaar breaks free.
- Rocket blasts fire from Blastaar’s fingertips, propelling him through Negative Space.
- Blastaar refers to Sub-Space and the Negative Zone interchangeably.
- Blastaar sees Reed and Triton approaching the Fourth Dimension.
- Johnny notes Ben should not have broken the scanner.
- Reed and Triton return to our world, but nobody notices that Blastaar follows.
- Blastaar needs an ally to guide him in the strange world, until he is ready to dispose of him.
- Blastaar is surprised to find cities that reach skyward instead of being built underground. He finds that primitive.
- Sandman grabs Blastaar, thinking he’s found one of the FF.
- Blastaar outfitted with universally approved automatic translator.
- Sandman and Blastaar team up.
| Previous | #663 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Four #61 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #63 |
| Fantastic Four #61 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #63 |
