Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: January 1, 1966
Cover: April 1966
12 cents
Written in the masterful manner of Stan Lee
Illustrated in the magnificent mode of Jack Kirby
Inked in the majestic mood of Joe Sinnott
Lettered in the nick of time by S. Rosen
20 pages
| Previous | #516 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Four #48 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #50 |
| Fantastic Four #48 | Fantastic Four | Fantastic Four #50 |
Of what import are brief, nameless lives… to Galactus??
It is not my intention to injure any living being! But… I must replenish my energy! If petty creatures are wiped out when I drain a planet, it is regrettable… but unavoidable!
I am supreme unto myself… I am Galactus!
This planet contains the energies to sustain me! I shall absorb it at will… as I have for ages in countless galaxies throughout the cosmos!
Destroy is merely a word! We simply change things! We change elements into energy… the energy which sustains Galactus! For it is only he that matters!
No! No! We all matter! Every living being… every bird and beast… this is our world! Ours!
Perhaps we are not as powerful as your Galactus… but we have hearts… we have souls… we live… breathe… feel! Can’t you see that?? Are you as blind as I?
Never have I heard such words… sensed such courage… or known this strange feeling… this new emotion…! There is a word some races use… a word I have never understood… until now! At last I know… beauty!
But look! Look at the city below you! Look at the people! Each of them is entitled to life… to happiness… each of them is… human!
All I need do is link these two igniters… and all the seas of Earth shall be transformed into purest energy… enough energy to sustain me until I find the next such planet somewhere in the endless cosmos!
Trust me! Banish fear from your heart! You shall travel by time space distortion! We must force open the very fabric of time itself! Let it be done… now! You are traveling back… far, far back… into the center of infinity!
There’s always a chance, darling… so long as we’re alive!
Perhaps for the first time within memory… I have found something worth protecting!
This is the middle chapter of the Galactus saga. In many cases, the middle chapter of a saga is the weakest. But the odd structuring of the story makes this the best issue. The first issue was beset by having to finish off the Inhuamns saga before getting started. The last issue will oddly finish halfway through and then become about college football.
Making this the only chapter that dedicates 20 pages to being about Galactus.
I have a book collecting some Jack Kirby Collector magazines, which includes some pencils for this issue. Comparing Kirby’s pencils with the finished artwork can help us understand what Joe Sinnott brings to the table with his finishes.
Let’s dive in and I’ll make some comments as we go.
That’s one hell of a first page.
