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.
Continue reading “Fantastic Four #31”