Tag: red ghost

Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: May 12, 1964
Cover: August 1964
12 cents
Written with a dash of greatness by: Stan Lee
Drawn with a hint of glory by: Jack Kirby
Inked with a touch of drama by: Chic Stone
Lettered with a bottle of India ink by: S. Rosen
22 pages

This is pretty easily my favorite cover so far. Years before I’d ever read the issue, I’d been enthralled by the cover. It seems to promise so much potential. What started on Yancy Street? Important enough to attract the attention of the Watcher.

Beyond my fascination with the ominous mood the cover suggests, there really hasn’t been a cover at all like this yet in our reading. First of all, it’s definitely the first Fantastic Four cover without a hint of a villain. The closest other example is Fantastic Four #13, which only shows Red Ghost’s hand. The mood of the characters is entirely different from the norm. Usually they’re mid-battle or primed for battle, with only a couple exceptions, notably FF#13 again. Now, they seem nervous, uncertain, hesitant. Moods that have never made it onto a cover. Reed is holding Sue’s hand. Ben looks uneasy. Johnny is nervously looking around.

Behind them all, the visage of the Watcher lurking ominously with glimpses of the cosmos behind him.

And yet. And yet. While almost everything about the visuals of the cover suggest this serious tone, we must also look to the street sign. Yancy Street. That creates an association which is far from serious. Since we first learned of the Yancy Street Gang back in issue 6, they have been comic relief, existing to knock Thing down a peg, to keep him humble. There is then some irony on the cover. Perhaps the super-serious tone is not meant to be taken quite so seriously.

Will the story live up to the incredible cover? As with most great works of this era, parts of it do and parts of it do not. In particular, the revelation of just what was happening on Yancy Street proves somewhat disappointing.

The first page seems almost a continuation of the cover, the Fantastic Four walking down Yancy Street, uncertain quite what they are looking for. Yet, the ominous tone of the cover is mixed with a certain wackiness as Thing steps in gum and somebody hurls lettuce at Mr. Fantastic. They are indeed on Yancy Street.

The first 5 pages of this comic are a quirky mix of foreboding and humor and relationship drama. The Fantastic Four get attacked by unseen members of the Yancy Street Gang. Reed bewilderingly concludes that a super-villain must be behind the Gang.