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Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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FANTASTIC FOUR IN THE BRONZE AGE!

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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“Superman in the Bronze Age”! JULIUS SCHWARTZ, CURT SWAN, Superman Family, World of Krypton miniseries, and ALAN MOORE’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, art & comments

by ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, CHAYKIN, PAUL KUPPERBERG, OKSNER, O’NEIL, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SAVIUK, and more. Cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ and SCOTT WILLIAMS! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

“British Invasion” issue! History of Marvel UK, Beatles in comics, DC’s ‘80s British talent pool, V for Vendetta, Excalibur, Marshal Law, Doctor Who, “Pro2Pro” interview with PETER MILLIGAN & BRENDAN McCARTHY, plus BERGER, BOLLAND, DAVIS, GIBBONS, STAN LEE, LLOYD, MOORE, DEZ SKINN, and others. Fold-out triptych cover by RON WILSON and DAVE HUNT of Marvel UK’s rare 1970s “Quadra-Poster”!

“Bronze Age Backup Series”! Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Metamorpho, GOODWIN and SIMONSON’s Manhunter, PASKO and GIFFEN’s Dr. Fate, “Whatever Happened To…?”, Nemesis, Rose and the Thorn, Seven Soldiers of Victory, art and commentary by CARY BURKETT, JOHN CALNAN, DICK GIORDANO, MIKE GRELL, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, DAN SPIEGLE, cover

by GRELL and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

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“Bronze Age B-Teams”! Defenders issue-byissue overview, Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, PETER DAVID’s X-Factor, Teen Titans West, Legion of Substitute Heroes, an all-star chatfest of Doom Patrol interviews, plus art and commentary by ROSS ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, KEITH GIFFEN, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ERIK LARSEN, GEORGE PÉREZ, BOB ROZAKIS, cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.

“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang.

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“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!”

LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!

TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.

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“Incredible Hulk in the Bronze Age!” Looks into Hulk’s mind, his role as a team player, his TV show and cartoon, merchandising, Hulk newspaper strip, Teen Hulk, villain history of the Abomination, art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, PETER DAVID, KENNETH JOHNSON, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, EARL NOREM, ROGER STERN, HERB TRIMPE, LEN WEIN, new cover by TRIMPE and GERHARD!

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Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Feature, Strange Tales, Showcase, First Issue Special, New Talent Showcase, DC’s Dick Tracy tabloid, Sherlock Holmes, Marvel’s Generic Comic Books, Bat-Squad, Crusader, & Swashbuckler, with BRUNNER, CARDY, COLAN, FRADON, GRELL, PLOOG, TRIMPE, and an ARTHUR ADAMS “Clea” cover!

“Robots” issue! Cyborg, Metal Men, Robotman, Red Tornado, Mister Atom, the Vision, Jocasta, Shogun Warriors, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, plus the legacy of Brainiac! Featuring the riveting work of DARROW, GERBER, INFANTINO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, MILLER, MOENCH, PEREZ, SIMONSON, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and more, behind a Metal Men cover by MICHAEL ALLRED.

“Batman’s Partners!” MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS on their Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing flies solo, Man-Bat history, Commissioner Gordon, the last days of World’s Finest, Bat-Mite, the Batmobile, plus Dark Knight’s girl Robin! Featuring work by APARO, BUSIEK, DITKO, KRAFT, MILGROM, MILLER, PÉREZ, WOLFMAN, and more, with a cover by ALAN DAVIS and MARK FARMER.

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Volume 1, Number 74 August 2014 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Keith Pollard and Josef Rubinstein (art from the “One Minute Later” collection of Michael Finn)

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COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek Rob Kelly Sean Kleefeld Peter B. Lewis Andy Mangels Franck Martini Marvel Comics Robert Menzies Jason Shayer Joe Sinnott Andy Smith Anthony Snyder Andrew Standish Roy Thomas Len Wein Marv Wolfman

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: The Fantastic Four in the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Building upon the foundation laid by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby FLASHBACK: Human Torch Solo, a No-Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Marvel’s kinda-sorta efforts to spin off Johnny Storm BACKSTAGE PASS: The Fantastic Four and Other Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 A television history of the animated FF INTERVIEW: Marvel Comics on the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 Tune in to The Fantastic Four Radio Show!

WHAT THE--?!: The Impossible Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 The Bronze Age return of the pest who was never supposed to come back OFF MY CHEST: The Fantastic Four: Going Cheap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 Rob Kelly remembers the once-plentiful Mego FF figures BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Galactus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 The Devourer of Worlds is not your average supervillain FLASHBACK: The Fantastic Four in the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 A time of maturity and change for the FF and friends BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Captain and Colonel Future, reader comments about BI #69, and some FF extras

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office.

Cover art by Keith Pollard and Josef Rubinstein. Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2014 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing.

BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Art by Earl Norem, from the children’s storybook Fantastic Four: Island of Doom (Marvel Books, 1984). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

SPECIAL THANKS Terry Austin Jerry Boyd Jonathan Rikard Brown Robert Brown Tim Brown Rich Buckler Jarrod Buttery Dewey Cassell Chris Claremont Gerry Conway Steve Englehart Michael Finn Stuart Fischer Grand Comics Database Haffner Press Ben Herman Heritage Comics Auctions Joe Hollon

& © Marvel. Casper © Harvey. King Fantastic Four and Spider-Man TM Jungle © Jay Ward Productions, Kong © RKO Pictures. George of the © 20th Century Fox Television.

Earth the of r Cente the to y Inc. Journe

by

The first Marvel comic I bought cover-featured Mr. Fantastic.

And Casper. And King Kong.

Television was my gateway to comicbook superheroes, beginning on January 12, 1966, when Adam West as Batman knocked me POW! BAM! ZAP! into a world from which I would never exit.

Back then I was strictly a DC man (make that boy … I was barely eight). I peeked at Marvel’s comic books a few times, but to my young eye they seemed course, primitive—although Marvelites might call that “energy” or “Kirby magic.”

Some 19 months after discovering Batman, television led me to another comic, The Fantastic Four … courtesy of the Hanna-Barbera animation studios (see Stuart Fischer’s article on page 25 for the full story). Hey, I’d grown up on a diet of H-B cartoons—Ruff and Reddy, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Jonny Quest—and some of the voices and sound effects from those and other Hanna-Barbera favorites popped up on Saturday morning’s FF show.

What was new to me, though, was the dynamic of this group. They weren’t like the other teams I’d encountered. They often didn’t agree, and would argue. One was a know-it-all, one wore a lot of hairspray, one was a teenage hothead, and one was big, loud, and grumpy. This “Fantastic Four” reminded me a lot of my extended family! (Without the Southern accents. Or cigarettes. Or sweet tea and banana pudding.)

And thus, my first comic featuring the FF was America’s Best TV Comics, a 25-cent, 72-page issue released in 1967 by Marvel, in conjunction with ABC-TV. This one-shot promoted ABC’s fall Saturday morning cartoon lineup with a collection of comic-book stories, some reprinted (albeit truncated) from other sources and some produced for this publication. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s “Prisoners of the Pharoah” from Fantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963) was butchered from 22 to ten pages for TV Comics, but to the eyes of this nine-year-old, it was fascinating. I had entered the Marvel Age. So by the time the Bronze Age kicked into gear, I was a regular Fantastic Four buyer and had the good fortune to pick up the majority of the comics covered in this issue, right off the stands. For me and for many of you, this issue is Kirby-inspired nostalgia … with fresh perspectives from the people who crafted these stories which still deserve our inspection lo, these many years later. Kudos to our BI writers for these looks at FF lore familiar and rare—especially Jarrod Buttery and Franck Martini, for each taking on the Galactus-sized mission of surveying a full decade of FF adventures. What more could any fan want?

Well, maybe articles on Herbie the (hated) Robot, Dr. Doom, and Marvel Two-in-One … but, True Believer, BACK ISSUE has been there, done that!

For the benefit of our newer readers (or for those requiring a memory refresher), previously covered FF topics are bulleted at right.

And since it was Hanna-Barbera’s FF that made me a fan of “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine,” please indulge me as I share with you my meager cartooning efforts from … >gasp!< … 30 years ago.

Animation fans should recognize the inspirations for the faces of my H-B FF. Hide your pic-a-nic baskets, here comes the Sandbear!

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Michael Eury

PREVIOUSLY COVERED FF TOPICS: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

FF Roundtable of 21 creators (BI #7) Herbie the Robot (BI #25) Dr. Doom villain history (BI #27) Black Panther (BI #27) Sub-Mariner (BI #27) Hulk vs. Thing (BI #28) Ron Wilson interview/Marvel Two-in-One and Thing’s solo book (BI #28) Byrne’s FF (BI #38) Byrne’s She-Hulk (BI #39) The Last Galactus Story graphic novel (BI #46) The Inhumans (BI #65) Marvel Two-in-One (BI #66) Super-Villain Team-Up/Dr. Doom (BI #66) FF Centennial issues (BI #69)

by

Jarrod Buttery

Stan and Jack. It’s possible the comics industry might have survived without them. There’s a chance that we may be reading comics—and even magazines about comics—today, although they’d almost certainly be very different. But it is impossible to overestimate the contribution these two creators made to the industry, starting with Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961).

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby produced 102 consecutive issues of Fantastic Four, plus six Annuals, before Kirby left Marvel Comics. John Romita, Sr. took over as artist with issue #103 (Oct. 1970), penciling the last two installments of a three-part story featuring Magneto and the Sub-Mariner. Romita also drew the next two issues as Johnny’s Inhuman girlfriend, Crystal, leaves the team. Her physiology is no longer able to withstand the pollution of our world and she is forced to return to the Inhumans’ city of Attilan. John Buscema took over with FF #107, as Ben Grimm is given the ability to change back and forth into the Thing.

Fantastic Four #108 (Mar. 1971) used portions of an uncompleted Lee/Kirby story, introducing the character of Janus the Nega-Man. Kirby’s original intentions were reconstructed and documented by John Morrow in Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure #1 (Apr. 2008). Buscema depicted the return of Annihilus in issues #109–110, followed by the rampage of the Thing—driven insane by his latest “cure” in issue #111. A crazed Thing is confronted by the Hulk, in one of their classic slugfests, in FF #112.

The next four issues depicted the threat of the Overmind. Stan Lee plotted the whole story but Archie Goodwin scripted issues #115–116, becoming the first person besides Stan to write Fantastic Four. Roy Thomas explained the situation in Tom DeFalco’s book, Comics Creators on Fantastic Four (Titan Books, 2005): “Stan was going to do a movie project with Alain Resnais and he needed to get rid of the few remaining books on his plate. I wanted to write Fantastic Four [but] I took [Amazing] Spider-Man because that’s what Stan wanted me to do.”

With Reed possessed by the seemingly limitless mental powers of the alien Overmind and the entire Earth about to be destroyed, Sue turns to an unexpected ally—after all, it’s Dr. Doom’s world, too. Doom initially refuses to help and Sue laments that, despite their past differences, she had always thought him noble. In one of his characterdefining speeches, Doom replies, “Many demons rule Victor von Doom, but not those of pettiness or fear. Very well, I am with you.” With Doom’s (and the Stranger’s)

The World’s Greatest Comic Makers!

stan lee

jack kirby

Stan “The Man” Lee and Jack “King” Kirby, co-creators of the Fantastic Four, were winding down their collaboration by the time issue #100 (July 1970) arrived in the early Bronze Age. Fans wondered, would the FF survive without them? Cover by Kirby and Joe Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Bad Ben and Bad Guy by Big John (left) Original art page from “The Thing Amok,” from Fantastic Four #111 (June 1971),

by Stan Lee, John Buscema, and Joe Sinnott. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonyscomicbookart.com). (right) The same art team on the cover to issue #120 (Mar. 1972).

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

help, the Overmind is defeated in issue #116 (Nov. white supremacy upon our continent.” Therein, 1971)—the tenth anniversary of the book’s debut. This T’Challa announces that he has changed his alias to was also the month that Marvel briefly flirted with the Black Leopard. When Ben inquires about the increasing the size of its comics from 36 to 52 pages, change, T’Challa replies: “I contemplate a return to making this issue an extra-sized spectacular. your country, Ben Grimm, where the latter term has …

Goodwin also wrote the following two political connotations.” issues as Johnny attempts to reunite with The change didn’t last long, as T’Challa Crystal—only to find her under the reclaimed the Panther title in Avengers hypnotic control of Diablo. The conclusion #105 (Nov. 1972). “Stan insisted that in issue #118 (Jan. 1972) was only ‘Panther’ become ‘Leopard,’ to avoid 15 pages long. The comic included confusion with the Black Panthers a six-page backup story where Ben group,” explains Thomas. “I didn’t and Lockjaw travel to an Alternatelike the idea, but saw his point. Stan Earth, meeting a Reed Richards who soon saw that ‘Black Leopard’ didn’t became the Thing. Thomas was work as well, so he wanted it asked if he had any insights into the changed back.” origin of this short story: “That was Stan returned for a four-part the time when the books had Galactus story—which also introduced jumped to 52 pages for one or two his newest herald, Air-Walker—in roy thomas issues … then publisher Goodman issues #120–123, followed by the suddenly decreed that we go back two-part return of the Monster from to 36 pages. That left us having to split stories in two the Lost Lagoon. His duties calling him elsewhere, Stan and fill the back-end of the second issues with other left the title for good—handing it over to Thomas who, material. I did a King Kull poem in Conan and a short in issue #126 (Sept. 1972), retold the FF’s origin and first story in Hulk. Archie came up with this one. I think all adventure. This progressed into a three-way subterthese things turned out rather well, considering they ranean conflict between Mole Man (from FF), Tyrannus were emergency fill-ins.” (from Incredible Hulk), and Kala (from the Iron Man Thomas wrote issue #119 (Feb. 1972), depicting story in Tales of Suspense #43, July 1963). “As you the Black Panther imprisoned in a neighboring African probably know, I’ve always enjoyed tying together country: “One of the last remaining strongholds of threads of the Marvel Universe,” confirms Thomas.

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commence his run: “It was fun for a couple of reasons.

BATTLEGROUND: THE BAXTER BUILDING Injecting some cosmetic changes, Thomas changed First of all, I was taking over from Roy, who had plotted Johnny’s costume to red and asked Buscema to draw the issue. My job was basically just to come in and write Johnny’s flame a little more realistically. Sue is also the dialogue, which made it much easier for me to depicted more three-dimensionally—chafing when start off on the book because I wasn’t required to come Reed suggests she ‘stay home with the baby.’ This up with my own idea right off the bat. But the two comes to a head in issue #130. After defeating the things that made it really special for me was, one, writing Frightful Four, Sue snaps, “In the heat of battle, you a character like Thundra, who is a very powerful female didn’t think of me as a member of the team—not even figure. The second, and probably more fanboyish element for me, was the opportunity to work with [artist] as a wife—only as the ‘mother of your child!’”

Ramona Fradon, who was also a powerful Sue leaves with Franklin, but Medusa, female, whose work I had really loved who helped against the villains, stays for years on Metamorpho. She was such with the team. Part one of this story, an interesting stylist and so different in issue #129 (Dec. 1972), introduced from anything than any artist that Thundra—initially as a new member had been working at Marvel at that of the Frightful Four, but someone time. It was a lot of fun.” who would soon become an ally of our Immediately from issue #134, heroes. Still pining over his girlfriend, Conway exhibits his penchant for Johnny gatecrashes Attilan in issue subplots and Marvel history. Having #131—discovering that Crystal has lost Crystal, Johnny decides to visit fallen in love with Quicksilver! old girlfriend Dorrie Evans, staple of Thomas told DeFalco: “I was trying to shake things up a little bit. I had gerry conway no great feelings for Crystal as a character. I thought it would be fun to get rid of her and I liked the idea of bringing in Quicksilver.” Everyone must put aside their differences in issue #132 to battle Omega, an artificial being powered by the racial prejudice of the Inhumans toward their sub-caste Alpha Primitives. Did Thomas want to highlight the plight of the Alpha Primitives?

“I guess so. I didn’t think of it that way … just as a reasonably good story idea that made a point.”

Gerry Conway became the regular writer of Fantastic Four with issue #133 (Apr. 1973), featuring the return of Thundra. Conway admits a liking for strong female characters and was asked if this was a fun issue to

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Ladies Welcome! (left) Buscema/Sinnott cover to FF #133 (Apr. 1973), with Thundra (and FF member Medusa). (right) Interior art page from that issue (courtesy of Heritage) penciled and signed by the artist best known for DC’s Aquaman and Metamorpho, Ramona Fradon. Inks by Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Happy Days If Ben and Reed were looking for Richie Cunningham and Arnold’s Drive-In in 1958, they’ve made a wrong turn! From the Heritage archives, a stunning splash page illo’ed by John Buscema (pictured below) and Joe Sinnott. From Fantastic Four #137 (Aug. 1973).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

john buscema

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his solo run in Strange Tales—only to find her married … with children. After leaving with Franklin, Sue is staying with friends on a farm in Pennsylvania—that is, until she is kidnapped by Dragon Man, under orders from Gregory Gideon (first, and only, seen in FF #34, Jan. 1965).

The Shaper of Worlds restructures reality into a bizarre futuristic/1950s pastiche in issues #136–137. Setting things aright, the Shaper departs with Gideon’s terminally ill son, Thomas—who would later return as the Shaper’s protégé, Glorian.

A newly empowered Miracle Man (from FF #3, Mar. 1962) returns in issue #138 as Alicia leaves and Wyatt Wingfoot returns. When asked about these issues, Conway explains, “That was part of my campaign at that point at Marvel to bring back obscure villains. They hadn’t been overused, so it was an opportunity for me to have fun with them.”

Problem Child (top) John Romita, Sr.’s startling cover to FF #141 (Dec. 1973). (bottom) Original art (courtesy of Heritage) to #141’s final page, depicting the gut-wrenching breakup of the FF.

By Conway/ Buscema/Sinnott.

THE END OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR Over the years, the Fantastic Four seemed to break up with alarming regularity, but events were about to take place that would seemingly cause irreparable damage to the team—and the family.

To save the lives of his wife and unborn son in Fantastic Four Annual #6 (Nov. 1968), Reed had to procure an energy source from the Negative Zone. That energy belonged to Annihilus. In revenge, in FF #140–141 (Nov.–Dec. 1973), Annihilus plans to steal the latent cosmic energy stored within Franklin. “Those two Annihilus issues were the only two issues of Fantastic Four that I actually scripted in advance,” remembers Conway. “They were kind of rare. I wrote them as full scripts and even did sort-of-like little thumbnail layouts for the first issue—just for the heck of it.”

Annihilus is defeated, but his tampering unleashes Franklin’s dormant mutant powers. “His energies are building to critical mass!” shouts Reed. “If they continue to build, he’ll let loose a blast of psychic force—a blast strong enough to kill every living creature in the solar system!” Seeing no alternative, Reed blasts Franklin—his own son—with an experimental energy weapon, shutting down Franklin’s mind. It is the most traumatic event in the team’s history.

Sue leaves with Franklin, and in issue #147 (June 1974), Reed is served with divorce papers. “I wanted to shake things up,” explains Conway, “and, to put this into historical context, too, the early ’70s was a period of tremendous upheaval in male/female relationships. The divorce rate was skyrocketing, [and] women were really pushing to be taken seriously as equals in their relationships with men. It was the cultural flowering of Women’s Liberation. It was when Women’s Liberation was really gaining steam as the next step in Civil Rights, the next big cause on a domestic level in the country. So that was part of the zeitgeist, and part of what we were all thinking about.

“When you come right down to it,” Conway continues, “what that story was a metaphor for was, here is a man who basically put his own vision of what is right for the world over his own personal family’s good. Now, he may have felt like he had no choice, but ultimately, what he was doing was the classical male thing of taking a unilateral male step—without really consulting with the wife. Just deciding, ‘That’s what I had to do!’ Obviously, he felt horrible about it; felt that he had no choice, but not really expecting his wife to so fundamentally oppose him that it would break their marriage.

“I think if Stan had written that story, if he had had to the same things—which I doubt he ever would—but if he had, he would’ve had Sue become understanding; Sue would’ve capitulated.

Stan’s version of Sue would have been angry with Reed but probably more sorrowful and would’ve focused her nurturing attention on the damaged child, and maybe even reassured Reed that, ‘Oh, what you did, you did because you had to.’

“That’s not the Sue I wanted to write! She was basically a woman who was going to say, ‘That’s it, you son of a bitch! You have done the one thing that you cannot ever do to a mother and that’s screw with her kid!’ That’s what I wanted to address.”

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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In the Mighty Kirby Manner (right) This undated illo by Rich “Swash” Buckler was provided to us by the artist via Jerry Boyd. (below) Back-to-back FF cover spotlights on Marvel’s prozine, FOOM: (top) Dr. Doom, illo’ed by Kirby and Sinnott, on issue #4 (Winter 1973), and (bottom) the Thing, by Buckler and Sinnott, on issue #5 (Spring 1974).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

imitate his storytelling and stylisms in my own BEYOND KIRBY AND BUSCEMA Meanwhile, in issue #142 (Jan. 1974), Ben traces amateur comics. That’s when I started trying to get Alicia to a small Balkan country, where he the acting and emotion in the characters and make meets a doctor promising to restore her sight. them move and seem more lifelike and real.

“Artists like Jack Kirby and John Buscema were Of course, Alicia is just bait and, since this is the Balkans, it must mean Dr. Doom. The issue also men I looked up to and highly respected. John introduces Darkoth the Death-Demon, as well as Romita and Ross Andru, too. Those artists were new penciler Rich Buckler. The Bullpen Bulletins heroes to me! I was very fortunate to be following page for that very month proudly proclaims: in their footsteps at such an early age. It was Stan Lee who actually gave me my first “Rich Buckler tells us that his dream for assignment. And, by the way, that was well-nigh a decade as a comic-book only a week or so after Jack Kirby gave fan was to get a chance, one day, to me a personal recommendation! draw the fabulous Fantastic Four After seeing my pencil samples, title! And he’s made it at last!”

Jack told me over the telephone: Buckler laughs, “Those ‘Rich, if you’re ever in New York, Bullpen Bulletins were all hype. go see Stan Lee—and tell him I You know that, right? That said to give you a job!’ But it wasn’t my dream, to draw the was Roy Thomas who saw my Fantastic Four. My dream was to potential when I began to work be a professional comic-book full-time at Marvel, and it was artist. For me, that meant his decision to move me on to drawing all of my favorite the ‘big’ books. characters at both Marvel and rich buckler “You know, back then, none DC. Captain America is my of the other artists liked doing favorite character, and I didn’t get to draw him enough. But, boy, did I have team books,” Buckler tells BACK ISSUE. “Too Fantastic Four fever! For my money, at that time, many characters and too much to keep track of. you just couldn’t beat The Fantastic Four. For me I loved it. I wasn’t intimidated when I got the it was ‘The World’s Greatest Comics Mag[azine],’ Fantastic Four assignment. By that time I had already worked on Avengers, so another team just like the banner on the cover boasted.

“Fantastic Four was my first introduction to the book wasn’t all that challenging. And I knew the art of Jack Kirby,” Buckler reveals. “He became my characters inside-out. So did Roy. I think he and I favorite comic-book artist. His art made such a worked so well together because we were both tremendous impression on me, and that was when coming from a similar fan-based sensibility.

I began to dream of drawing comics professionally. Whenever we collaborated, things went smoothly, So once I discovered Kirby, that just changed the and drawing what he wrote was loads of fun. whole dynamic in the way I drew. I started trying to It was like that with Gerry Conway, too.”

8 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Richards vs. Richards (top left) Sue files for divorce against Reed in #147. (top right) The Invisible Girl and old flame Namor strike in FF #149 (Aug. 1974). Cover by Buckler and Sinnott. (right) Interior art page from that issue, showing the Sub-Mariner—in his funky ’70s threads—taking on Thundra. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

After the three-part Darkoth/Doom story, Medusa receives a request to return to Attilan in FF #145 (Apr. 1974).

She and Johnny crash in the Himalayas after their craft is attacked by Ternak and his tribe of abominable snowmen.

The two-part story is illustrated by Ross Andru. “Yeah, I think what ended up happening there was that Roy was using John Buscema on Conan,” recalls Conway. “There was a feeling that John was going to stay on the FF, but there was a period where he had just gotten down to doing layouts, and Rich came in and did a couple of issues. I think using Ross for two issues was a tactical thing to let Rich get ahead. And it was always easy to work with Ross—he’s very predictable.”

Returning to New York, the team finds that not only has Sue filed for divorce, but she also insists: “I love the Sub-Mariner and I’m going to stay with him forever!” In a roundtable discussion in BACK ISSUE #7 (Dec. 2004), Gerry Conway revealed that his first issue of Fantastic Four as a reader was #4 (May 1962), featuring the return of the Sub-Mariner. Did Conway have a soft spot for Namor and his interactions with the FF? “Oh, sure. That was always fascinating, wasn’t it? Before Sue and Reed got married, Namor was a real challenge to Reed’s relationship with Sue. I always liked that. I always liked those first 12 issues of Fantastic Four, which really explored that whole group in a really interesting way. You had the Sub-Mariner in there three times in the first 12 issues, and he was a really strong, fascinating, kind of tortured character in his own right, who I always felt was somebody that Marvel could’ve done more with. I loved the Gene Colan [Sub-Mariner] stories in Tales to Astonish, so he always appealed to me as a great, honorable, but flawed character.

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Wedding Crashers Really, has any Marvel hero ever had a quiet wedding?? Covers for the two-parter featuring the marriage of Crystal and Quicksilver: Avengers #127 and Fantastic Four #150 (both Sept. 1974).

Both covers penciled

by Gil Kane; Mike Esposito inked the one at left, with alterations by art director John Romita, Sr., and Frank Giacoia inked the cover at right.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

A guy who’s arrogant and he assumes he’s honorable—because he believes he’s honorable—even though he’s acting dishonorably. So having Reed and Sue break up, gave me the opportunity to play around with that, which was a lot of fun.”

The Fantastic Four (with the assistance of Thundra) defeat the Frightful Four in issue #148 (July 1974). Just as all seems calm, the Sub-Mariner declares war on the surface world—with Sue by his side!

FF #149 is an all-action issue against the hordes of Atlantis. As Thundra battles Namor, Ben reasons with Sue. Sue realizes that Reed is the one she loves … which is what Namor planned all along (with the assistance of a surprise guest-star). Sue and Reed are reunited … which is what Conway planned all along.

“It’s the illusion of change,” states Conway. “You basically begin at Point A, and you start moving in this great circle that brings you back to Point A. Ideally, you want to feel that the characters have gone on a journey and that, at the end of that journey, they’ve arrived somewhere new—but ultimately, it’s the same place that they started out; hopefully refreshed, hopefully more interesting, with a little more depth to their characters, but ultimately the circle closes.”

LOVE AND MARRIAGE But before the circle closed completely, we first had to visit Steve Englehart’s Avengers #127 (Sept. 1974), as the Avengers and the FF travel to Attilan for the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver.

The pre-wedding celebrations are interrupted by the return of Omega, who—in a surprise last-page twist—is revealed to be Ultron in disguise. The story continues directly into Fantastic Four #150 (Sept. 1974).

Conway was asked about the 150th anniversary crossover: “Steve Englehart and I were buddies at that point, and these were the two main group books at Marvel at that time. And Ultron was one of those characters who I felt—and I think Steve felt, too—was a perfect foil for someone like Reed Richards. He’s a super-robot that was created by another brilliant scientist, so there was some good potential there. I don’t really remember how the story was generated, whether it was mine, or Steve’s, or Roy’s idea, but once we had that notion it was fairly simple to bring it together.”

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Ultron is on the verge of destroying the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the Inhumans with a phenomenal psychic assault. However, said psychic assault triggers something in Franklin’s comatose mind. The world’s most powerful mutant brain subconsciously lashes out and destroys Ultron, and Franklin finally awakens from his coma. The wedding goes ahead, and is lovely, but the real joy—the real 150th anniversary celebrations—come from the recovery of Reed and Sue’s child and the reuniting of the family. Now the circle was closed.

Even though Sue was back, Medusa elected to stay with the Fantastic Four. In fact, Medusa had been part of the team during the entirety of Conway’s run. Conway was asked if this made things more interesting, or if he would’ve preferred the classic foursome: “I have a thing for redheads, so having Medusa was certainly fulfilling that fantasy! But I think I did regret not having Sue as a main part of the team—although she was very much part of the storyline—but I guess my feeling was, and this goes back to something I feel about comics in general, is that there is a tendency to complete character arcs that should probably never be completed.

“For example, Peter Parker and Spider-Man—as iconic archetypes— are, in my mind, best served when they’re frozen in time, in high school, with Peter living with his Aunt May, struggling with acceptance and dealing with his adolescent issues, not tied down to a single girlfriend—maybe floundering around trying to find a girl—and so on.

Because that’s the character we fell in love with—that’s the archetype.

I mean, do we really want to see Romeo and Juliet married with children?

Not really! We want to see that doomed love affair.”

Conway continues, “In the same way, I think Fantastic Four took a tremendous wrong step when Stan married Reed and Sue. Because what he ended up doing was he threw off the balance of the group.

You no longer had a quadrangle of relationships where everyone was sort of intentioned with everyone else. You had Reed and Sue who were the lovers who were not quite there yet—they were in love, but his preoccupations always kept him away from being able to commit to the relationship, and she was always angry and struggling with that.

Then you had Sue and Johnny and their sibling rivalry—there’s a feeling of protectiveness that each of them has for the other, they’re orphans, they don’t have a parental figure. Then you have Johnny and Ben—the

bickering brothers. And you have Reed and Ben who are good friends, and have a long history—but then experience this traumatic event and the associated guilt and anger that are a part of that.

“And all of that is neatly balanced. It’s very nicely balanced in a very imperceptible sort of way. And it’s all thrown off-balance when Reed marries Sue, because, suddenly, you now have an alliance that is as important, is as weighty, as the alliance between Johnny and Sue. And the Johnny/Sue alliance is now distorted—because Sue now has divided loyalties with her husband. To my mind, the book just went off the rails on an emotional level with that big marriage issue, Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965).

“When I took over the book, and I was writing it, I honestly couldn’t think of anything to do with that quadrangle relationship.

Roy had wanted to put Medusa into it, so it felt like, ‘Okay, let’s give that a shot and see if we can create something.’ I don’t think it ever really worked because I think the book was fundamentally damaged.

And I think that’s why Fantastic Four has always had a problem regaining its stature in the Marvel Universe—because it just doesn’t work anymore, no matter what they do with it.

“That, in a nutshell, is kind of why I did a lot of the things that I did in the book, like creating that huge rift between Reed and Sue, bringing Medusa into the book, it was all in my failed effort—because I do consider it a failed effort, I don’t think it was a successful run—but it was my failed effort to try to regain some of what I felt had been lost because of the marriage.

“I’m not arguing from an aesthetic point of view that marriage is good or bad, or whether Sue was a stronger character when she was single, or any of that,” Conway concludes. “Honestly, these days, 40 years later, I couldn’t tell you. But I do have a very strong opinion about what works when you’re doing superhero comic books, and that strong opinion is that what works is what worked when you began it. If the book worked in the beginning, what you have to try to figure out is how to make that fresh without changing the fundamental dynamic that was working.”

During his time on the title, Conway also wrote three Giant-Size FF books. The first of these was Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 (May 1974), featuring a Hulk/Thing blockbuster. Within, editor Roy Thomas spruiked the new title as a single monthly 35¢, 52-page book, with a rotating cast. However, many titles soon released their own quarterly Giant-Size versions.

Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 was essentially Giant-Size Fantastic Four #1. Conway was asked if there was also an imperative to increase Marvel’s shelf exposure: “Yes, I think we were competing with DC’s 25¢ books and, from a fanboy’s point of view, we loved those kinds of comics. You had the opportunity to spread out and do a bigger story, do something that was special. Even though you were trying to tie it into the continuity, it didn’t have to be part of the continuity. It was a lot of fun and, I remember as a kid, I always loved the big Annuals. The Fantastic Four Annuals, in particular, were favorites of mine. They were larger books,

often 30-page stories, so you had a sense of real consequence, and you got two-page spreads, and they were a lot of fun. And I wanted to do that with the Thing/Hulk fight, which is the perennial favorite ever since Fantastic Four #25–26 (Apr.–May 1964).”

Conway also wrote Giant Size Fantastic Four #2 (Aug. 1974), introducing Tempus, guardian of Limbo, in a time-travel story where Willie Lumpkin, the FF’s mailman, accidentally erases Earth’s history.

Giant Size Fantastic Four #3 (Nov. 1974) was co-plotted by Conway but scripted by Marv Wolfman. The team fought the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with Medusa, for once, administering the coup de grâce.

THUNDRA AND LIGHTNING Conway’s final issues of Fantastic Four were #151–152 (Oct.–Nov. 1974), introducing Mahkizmo. Was that a little bit tongue-in-cheek? “Yes, yes, it was,” laughs Conway. The story explained that Thundra came from a parallel Earth of the future. Introduced in Savage Tales #1 (May 1971), this Earth is ruled by women known as Femizons.

Mahkizmo came from an alternate future Earth, ruled by men.

Roy Thomas had introduced Thundra—had he always intended for her to be revealed as a Femizon? “Yes,” confirms Thomas. “Thundra was my name and concept, including the bandolier-style ornamentation and, of course, the lightning-bolt insignia and her height. I simply told John Buscema those things, and he did the rest.”

Rich Buckler also liked strong female characters: “Medusa was okay. She had a great look, with all that hair, and she moved a lot.

But she wasn’t a particular favorite of mine. Thundra was more fun to draw. And overall, I prefer drawing female characters in aggressive roles. Feminine, but strong—and not helpless. The ‘helpless female’ is such a boring cliché.”

During the Thundra/Mahkizmo story, Reed is thrown from the Baxter Building. The splash page of FF #152 depicts Reed with three hands [see next page].

“Yes, that was an issue inked by Jim Mooney,” recalls Buckler. “I remember the day that press proof came in. Marie Severin was looking it over and she pointed out that splash page to me.

Awkward moment. I remember saying, ‘I guess it’s No-Prize time, right?’ Jim Mooney could have corrected that during the inking stage, but I think he thought it was funny. Anyway, nobody noticed it until it was too late and it was already printed. And I thought it was funny, too.”

The story concluded in Fantastic Four #153, scripted by Tony Isabella. Conway was asked why he left the book when he

Not Your Average Thing vs. Hulk Brawl From the Conway/Buckler/Sinnott combo, Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 (May 1974), featuring a twist on the Thing/ Hulk rivalry. Note Johnny Storm’s red suit on the cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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BACK ISSUE • 11

You’ve Gotta Hand it to Reed (right) There’s trouble afoot on this infamous splash to FF #152 (Nov. 1974).

Art by Buckler and Mooney. (left) That issue’s cover, by Buckler and Romita.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

did. “As I say, I didn’t feel like I was being very successful At this time, Wein was also able to write Giant-Size on the book. The sales were fine, the book was doing Fantastic Four #4 (Feb. 1975). Chris Claremont was as well as it had always been doing, I just never felt credited as co-writer on this tale that introduced Jamie like I was writing the book the way that I wanted to Madrox. “Just to clarify, John Buscema and I created read it. It’s not to say whether it was good or bad or Madrox the Multiple Man,” states Wein. “Chris anything else, I just felt more successful with Claremont’s sole contribution to the story Spider-Man and with Thor, and I wanted to was to dialogue the back half off of John’s do some other books, too.” Regardless, pencils when I was forced to leave the issue Conway confronted the family with the due to whatever other commitments worst crises they had ever experienced, I had at the time.” Madrox, of course, and emphasized their fortitude as later achieved prominence and they survived and rebonded, popularity in X-Factor. When asked stronger than ever. if he was pleased that Madrox had As a result of the Dreaded become a fan-favorite, Wein replies, Deadline Doom (according to the “I’m always gratified when one of letters page), Fantastic Four #154 my characters takes on a life of his/ (Jan. 1975) contained a reprint of her own.” the Thing/Torch story from Strange In one of the best-remembered Tales #127 (Dec. 1964). New writer stories of the ‘60s, Dr. Doom stole len wein Len Wein, in conjunction with Bob the Silver Surfer’s Power Cosmic in Brown, Frank Giacoia, and Mike Fantastic Four #57 (Dec. 1966)—a Esposito, provided a framing sequence. plot that was homaged in the 2007 movie, Fantastic Wein wrote FF #155, featuring the return of both Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. One hundred issues later, Dr. Doom and the Silver Surfer, and co-wrote (with Doom tries again—attempting to transfer the Surfer’s Thomas) the following issue—then left the book. “If power into his Doomsman robot. Thomas again that’s when I also gave up all my other writing became the regular scripter of the book with this issue, assignments besides Incredible Hulk, then, yes, it was but admits, “I don’t recall much about the actual my editorial duties,” states Wein. Indeed, this was the plotting of those stories, which was done in a hurry, period when Wein became Marvel’s editor-in-chief. inheriting some elements from Len.”

12 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Shape of Things to Come (left) Two Things vs.

Gen. Thunderbolt Ross and the US Army on the Buckler/Sinnott cover to FF #162 (Sept. 1975). (right) The Crusader (or is that Marvel Boy?) vs. the Thing on the Ron Wilson/Sinnott cover to issue #165.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Did the previous scripter have any long-term plans regarding the CRISIS ON SEVERAL EARTHS Back in Strange Tales #103 (Dec. 1962), the Human Torch discovered loss of Reed’s powers? “I think it was actually forgotten!” admits a portal to the 5th Dimension and assisted in overthrowing the tyrant Conway. “I don’t think I was thinking it through. My technique back Zemu. In Fantastic Four #158–159 (May–June 1975), Zemu (renamed then was to start little fires—some of them would burn themselves out while others would go on to become conflagrations. It was Xemu) attempts to conquer our dimension by first invading all an effort to set things up for myself in the future if I Attilan. This two-part story was originally intended for had the opportunity, and I think I just got too taken Giant-Size Fantastic Four #5, but deadline problems with the Reed/Sue storyline, and the crisis with forced it to be split into two monthly issues of FF. Franklin. The idea of Reed’s powers being affected The two-parter heralded some significant was less interesting and got lost. I think it just didn’t developments for the team. Within, Sue returned to speak to me at the time.” active status, as Medusa elected to stay in Attilan Another example of Thomas tying together (in preparation for the upcoming Inhumans series). threads of the Marvel Universe appeared in issues Also, with the red-clad original Human Torch #164–165, in a story originally planned for Giant appearing in Invaders, it was decided to return Size Fantastic Four #6. The FF battled the Crusader, Johnny to his blue uniform. Johnny also shared a who claimed to be the 1950s comic character romantic moment with the beautiful Valeria—whom Marvel Boy. This two-parter featured the debut of he had first met in Strange Tales #103. Thomas was artist George Pérez on Fantastic Four. In his book, asked if he remembered any plans to pursue this. george pérez The Art of George Pérez (IDW Publishing, 2012), “No, I don’t recall … but I might have.”

Pérez wrote that he began working as Rich Johnny was soon to find another flame (sorry…), but first, the Fantastic Four—and three entire worlds—had to survive Buckler’s assistant in 1973: “I appreciate the fact that Rich got me in “All the World Wars at Once!” as Avengers villain Arkon pitted our Earth, the door, and that opened the way for my regular work. Later, when Alternate Earth (from FF #118), and the 5th Dimension against each Rich fell behind on a Fantastic Four Annual, they remembered I had other in FF #160–163. Arkon’s power nexus was protected by the cosmic been his assistant and they called me up. I worked with Joe Sinnott hockey goalie, Gaard. Buckler remembers, “When Roy first suggested on that and he cleaned me up and made me look great. Rather than this character, I thought he was just joking. (I’m not even a hockey fan.) appearing in an annual, they became two issues of the regular run.”

But I ran with it. Gaard was a bit ‘tongue-in-cheek,’ or that’s how (Both GSFF #5 and 6 presented reprints.)

Issue #164 also featured the debut of Frankie Raye. A beautiful redI saw him anyway. So I did some research and I tried to give him a formidable appearance that evoked the sport but wasn’t too hokey.” head, Frankie liked Johnny but was horrified when she discovered he After experiencing some stiffness in issue #157, it was in issue #161 was a flaming (literally) superhero. These opposing emotions prevented (Aug. 1975) that Reed acknowledges that he is losing his stretching the characters from getting close. Thomas was asked if he recalled any powers. He attributes this to age, but there was a more sinister culprit. thoughts behind her emotions or origin: “Nope, only that ‘Frankie Raye’ In the midst of battle in issue #141, Reed was blasted by Annihilus, was taken from the pseudonym Frank(ie) Ray that [artist] Frank Giacoia who declares: “For a time he will find it impossible to use his unique had formerly given himself.” Nevertheless, many years down the line, powers, and in a short while, that loss will last forever!” This incident Frankie was to go on to enormously bigger things, becoming a longwas never referenced and when Thomas was asked if he was following term character in the Marvel Universe. “I hope she appears in a future FF movie and Marvel pays me money for her!” proclaims Thomas. up on this specific point, he replies, “Don’t recall … sorry.”

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WHERE HAVE ALL THE POWERS GONE?

Ol’ Greenskin’s Back! (right) Hulk smashed his way into Fantastic Four #166 (Jan. 1976). Cover by Buckler and Dan Adkins. (left) Arthur Adams’ recreation of that cover, in pencil form.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Exposure to gamma radiation while battling the Hulk in issues #166–167 transforms the Thing back into Ben Grimm. Needing a replacement, Reed hires Luke Cage, Power Man. In DeFalco’s FF book, Thomas was asked why he had Cage join the team: “Partly because he was a black character and I thought it would be interesting to have a black guy in the FF. Partly because I helped create Luke Cage, but had never really written him. And partly because Luke had super-strength like the Thing and filled the same niche. Luke was also a powerful outsider, but in a different way from Ben Grimm. I never intended this change to be permanent but I had a lot of fun doing it.”

Discussing substitute team members, Buckler states, “Medusa, I never had a problem with. She just seemed to fit right in. I don’t know if Luke Cage was a good fit, though, since he wasn’t really a team player. He shook things up a lot and he did keep things lively and interesting. But a replacement for the Thing? As Ben Grimm would put it: ‘Ya gotta be kiddin’ me!’”

14 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Luke certainly acquits himself immediately, defeating the Wrecker in issue #168 (Mar. 1976). Surprisingly, after years of moaning about being the Thing, Ben Grimm immediately starts whining about no longer having any powers! He even takes a swing at the upstart taking his place, and quickly discovers why you don’t punch a man with steel-hard skin. Explaining that Luke was only a temporary replacement, Reed presents Ben with a Thing-exoskeleton in FF #170.

Finally having the best of both worlds—the ability to be both Ben Grimm and the Thing—does Ben thank his oldest friend? No, he complains that he just doesn’t feel like a superhero any more. Was Ben being too much of a jerk? “Try living in his shoes (or overgrown feet) for a few years and see what it does to you,” responds Thomas.

Buckler recalls the story: “There were no writers’ conferences back then, and no talking the story over with the writer. I did have story input, though. I didn’t come up with plot lines or anything, but with Gerry and Roy, ideas were always welcome. And I loved working with those two writers especially. I remember one time I suggested that Ben Grimm lose his powers and revert to human form for a spell. My idea was to have him go through an identity crisis and have Reed invent some kind of exoskeleton gizmo that would enable him to be the Thing again.

“The way things were done at Marvel, the artist was actually a co-storyteller,” Buckler says. “Nothing was done full-script. So with story plots to work from, that gave the artist a lot of freedom to interpret. Actual story pacing, and what was shown on what page and how—that was left up to the artist. My main concern was getting the characters right and keeping the story moving, and to make that as exciting and dramatic as possible. I remember, many times when a fight scene was called for, the written version would read

something like: ‘Okay, the next three pages are a slugfest, so Rich, do your stuff!’ Or the plot would read: ‘The Hulk and Thing clash and all hell breaks loose.’ How that happened was not specified. So I would choreograph the whole fight scene.

“That’s where knowing the characters came in. The idea was to keep the story going visually, but still keep track of all the details so the reader didn’t lose the plot. Often I would take the initiative and condense some scenes to make more room for an action sequence or a spectacular splash page or doublepage spread. Ever wonder about those splash pages in the middle of Marvel books? Sometimes the writer would suggest it, but more often than not it was the artist just pulling out all the stops!

There were no notes about the characters, like what their powers were, or how they should be characterized. I was expected to already know this, which, of course, I did.

“I had a real advantage, though. My schooling in storytelling was Jack Kirby.

With Kirby, you never saw any of the characters just standing around or looking like they might be wondering what they’re doing in the story. So there were never any pages of just ‘talking heads.’ The characters were always involved, always doing something. I spoke with Jim Steranko about this one time. His view and his approach to storytelling was the same as mine. The characters weren’t two-dimensional drawings— they were actors who always knew their parts. When I drew a story, the comic-book pages were ‘movies on paper.’”

Asked if he had any particular favorites, Buckler answers, “I had a lot of fun with the Silver Surfer. He is

definitely one of my favorites to draw. He had no costume, just that slick metallic look. And he surfed the galaxy. How cool is that? I also particularly enjoyed drawing characters who can fly. So plenty of opportunities for splashy scenes and spectacular action—like with Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. The Thing was cool. But difficult, too. His figure had no discernible skeletal structure. He wasn’t muscle-bound— so his behavior would have to project big, strong, and bulky, even though we can’t see his muscles flex. So I would draw him moving in a certain way with lots of attitude and swagger. The real tricky part with drawing the Thing is to get all those ‘bricks’ right. Sometimes it would be like working out a puzzle—you had to get all of the pieces to fit just right. Which you can’t, really, because if you think about it, those ‘bricks’ would just keep changing from panel to panel!”

Issue #169 was Buckler’s last (during the ’70s). “I’m restless, so I never did more than a dozen issues of anything,” he admits. “If I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself and like I’m just covering the same old ground, month after month—well, yes, time to move on. I’m a freelancer— not a company guy. I draw what I enjoy. That’s why I did so many covers, at both Marvel and DC. There are so many characters to choose from at both of those companies.” As for Rich’s favorite storylines: “I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Giant-Size Avengers #1, and also Giant-Size Super-Stars #1—the Thing versus the Hulk. Probably the character that was the most enjoyable for me was the Hulk!”

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Battle Atop Castle Doom (top) From Marvel UK’s Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes #174 (June 9, 1976), a centerspread illo by an unidentified artist.

Special thanks to Andrew Standish for his art restoration, and to Robert Menzies for sending it our way. (BTW, Robert asked several of the “usual suspects” from this era of Marvel UK—including Ron Wilson, Howard Bender, and Dave Hunt—and apparently they did not illustrate this piece. Does anyone know who our mystery artist is?) (left) Luke Cage takes over for the powerless Ben Grimm, as seen on the Buckler/ Sinnott cover to Fantastic Four #168 (Mar. 1976).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Get Your Stinkin’ Paws Offa Me… (left) Golden gorilla Gorr—and the fantabulous Kirby/Sinnott team!— on the cover of FF #171 (June 1976). (right) The secret origin of the Brute is revealed in #178 (Jan. 1977), an issue featuring cameos of Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.

Cover by Romita, Sr. and Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Continuity-wise, Fantastic Four Annual #11 (1976) fits here—the first Annual containing new material since #6 (1968). This is a hugely entertaining timetravel story as the FF journey back to 1942 and team up with the Invaders to prevent history being rewritten and the Nazis winning WWII. Therein, Reed asks his friend, “Ben, do you realize that, while we’re here in France, our younger selves are back in the States, just now joining the service?” Reed and Ben have been established as fighting in WWII, and acknowledging such is perfectly logical, but it does reinforce the rather strange nature of time in the Marvel Universe. “Yeah, I should probably not have referred to that WWII Reed/Ben connection as late as 1976,” admits Roy Thomas, who wrote the tale. “Not a good idea … and not necessary to that Annual, which was a favorite story of mine.”

NOT JUST ANOTHER GIANT GORILLA STORY… …proclaimed the cover of Fantastic Four #171 (June 1976), as a crashing spaceship disgorges Gorr the Golden Gorilla. Over the next few issues, we learn that Gorr is acting on behalf of the High Evolutionary, who is seeking assistance because his creation—Counter-Earth— is under threat from Galactus.

The climax, in issue #175, reverts Ben back into the Thing and reintroduces the Impossible Man. “Stan would never let me or anyone else use the Impossible

16 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Man,” Thomas described in DeFalco’s book. “The character hadn’t returned in nearly 12 years, not since his first appearance in FF #11 (Feb. 1963). I gather Stan got a bad reaction to that story.” Thomas persevered and “Impy” famously returns to Earth in Fantastic Four #176 (Nov. 1976), where he storms the offices of Marvel Comics, demanding his own comic book. Perhaps one of the funniest—and most fun— comics of the ’70s, it deserves a spot in any “Fantastic Four Must-Read” list. Thomas told DeFalco, “Let that be my epitaph. I’m the guy who talked Stan Lee into the Impossible Man’s return to the Marvel Universe!”

[Editor’s note: There’s more Impossible Man coverage in this issue!]

The FF return to the Baxter Building to be ambushed by the Frightful Four—minus one. In fact, a recruitment campaign features prominently on the villains’ agenda. After capturing our heroes, the Frightful Three hold auditions for a new team member—precipitating the first appearances of the Texas Twister and Captain Ultra. The position is filled by the Brute—who turns out to be the Reed Richards from Counter-Earth!

With help from Tigra, Thundra, and (inadvertently) the Impossible Man, the Fantastic Four escape in FF #178. This is the issue where Reed completely loses his stretching powers, making it easy for the Brute to throw our Reed into the Negative Zone and assume his identity. The imposter plotline percolated for several issues until the final showdown in FF #183.

Issue #180 (Mar. 1977) was shanghaied by the Dreaded Deadline Doom and presented a reprint of FF #101 (Aug. 1970). Issue #181 was the final issue written

by Thomas, with Bill Mantlo scripting the following two issues. In a letters page editorial, Thomas explained that he was going to concentrate on Conan, some special issues of What If?, and the comic adaptation of some new movie called Star Wars.

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES Len Wein returned as regular scripter with issue #184 (July 1977) and immediately initiated a three-part mystery concerning the disappearance of Franklin and his nanny, Agatha Harkness. The FF encounter the Eliminator, discover an entire town of witches (New Salem), and battle the superpowered Salem’s Seven.

Wein remembers, “I always liked Agatha Harkness and thought she’d be fun to play with. Near as I can recall, I created and named Salem’s Seven, and the alwaysincredible George Pérez designed the visuals.”

Since her return to active duty, Sue had become more confident and more proactive. She was the ace-in-the-hole in thwarting Xemu and subsequently found that exposure to his Thunder-Horn weapon had amplified her powers significantly. Her force-fields helped subdue the Hulk, and she began using them to form more definite constructs—including a footbridge to cross the Mississippi River, a parachute, and battering rams. It was her initiative that saved both Earth and Counter-Earth from Galactus, and she (understandably) first recognized the Brute as an imposter. In issue #186, Sue’s force-field reaches through the bars of a jailer’s door, turns back on itself, and invisibly clobbers the sentry guard. In that same issue, a letter by one Kurt Busiek hypothesizes that Sue may be the most powerful member of the team! Sue certainly became a force to be reckoned with in the ’80s, but the seeds of her evolution lie here.

Unfortunately, in all the excitement, some supporting cast members fell by the wayside. After several issues of both characters flirting with Ben, Tigra tells

The Deacon of Detail

Thundra, “All’s fair in love and war … and this is definitely war!” However, neither is seen again. (The Impossible Man did stay for a few more issues.)

“Thundra and Impy were characters I wanted around … I have no particular remembrance about Tigra, though I think she had partly been my idea,” says Thomas. When asked why Thundra and Tigra left the book, Wein admits, “Wow. I don’t even remember them being in the series when I took it over.”

Klaw and the Molecule Man team up to bedevil our foursome in FF #187 (Oct. 1977). At this time, the Molecule Man is a disembodied consciousness residing in his wand—possessing whomsoever picked it up.

Which, in a momentary lapse, is exactly what Reed does. “The Rampage of Reed Richards” sees the team battle their leader—who wields the Molecule Man’s nigh-unlimited power—in the following issue. The trauma is too much. Having already lost his powers, then destroying half the city and nearly killing his wife and friends, Reed quits. Sue proclaims, “I’ve already deserted my husband once, I’ll be damned if I’ll do it again!” as she follows her husband.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

A gloriously gorgeous original art page from FF #184 (July 1977),

by George Pérez and Joe Sinnott. Courtesy of Heritage. (left) And to top it off, George’s 2013 sketch of Doc Doom, drawn for and contributed by this article’s writer, Jarrod Buttery.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

•

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FOUR NO MORE Issue #189 (Dec. 1977) presented a reprint from Fantastic Four Annual #4 (Nov. 1966). Issue #190 is a flashback tale, written by Marv Wolfman, as Ben relates the team’s origin and past adventures to Alicia Masters. On a personal note, these kinds of issues (like the aforementioned #126) were always goldmines of information for new readers. The FF officially go their separate ways in issue #191, Wein’s final issue as scripter.

The following issues present solo stories of the fabulous foursome.

Johnny returns to auto racing and battles the Texas Twister in issue #192, written by Roger Slifer, while Ben agrees to test-pilot NASA’s Solar Shuttle despite threats—and a surprising revelation—from Darkoth in the Mantloscripted two-parter in FF #193–194. Wein was credited as co-plotter for these issues, but admits, “Sadly, I remember absolutely nothing about this.”

Also credited as co-plotter on these issues was Keith Pollard, who started as FF artist with #193. According to DeFalco’s book, managing editor Archie Goodwin offered Pollard the title.

Wein and Wolfman were interviewed in Fantastic Four Chronicles (Feb. 1982).

Therein, Wein mentioned that he had planned almost a year’s worth of FF continuity, rotating the focus on the individual characters. Thirty years on, Wein tells BI: “Tragically, I remember none of my plans beyond what I wrote. I certainly intended to reunite the FF in time for issue #200, but beyond that, nothing.”

Marv Wolfman took over the title with Fantastic Four #195 (June 1978). Sue returns to acting, and is working on a Hollywood movie when she discovers that this is the movie studio bought by Namor (and never relinquished) waaaay back in FF #9 (Dec. 1962). Sue and Namor share a lovely scene— no fights, just two friends with an immense respect for each other—before Sue needs to help Namor against the Rampaging Retrievers.

In the meantime, Reed has returned to pure research. He is told that he’s working for the US Government, on a project of national security, but he begins to suspect something sinister. All the while, we are privy to a shadowy figure monitoring Reed’s work. When revealed, Reed finds him vaguely familiar but we do not know his true identity. However, we soon find out who he’s working for….

With a few issues to go before the 200th anniversary issue, did Wolfman arrive with a checklist? “Actually, yes. The FF was to me that group and I thought they broke up far too much over the years, so I wanted to restore them. And I wanted to make Reed the real leader and show how good he was, so that also meant a final confrontation between him and Doom.”

The mystery man captures Sue, Johnny, and Ben, thus blackmailing Reed into a spaceflight specifically designed to restore Reed’s powers in FF #197— which also, coincidentally, restores the previously dis-incorporated Red Ghost.

Determining that only one man could be behind all this, the newly invigorated Mr. Fantastic heads into Latveria—and is promptly captured. Doom uses a device to extract all of the FF’s powers and transfer them into the mystery man, whom Doom reveals as his own son!

No, there is no mother. Long before “clone” became a dirty word among Marvel fans, Doom created a clone of himself. However, Reed escapes the energy-extraction device, the power transference goes wrong, and Doom’s “son” turns into a freakish amalgam of the Fantastic Four and turns on his “father.”

This leads into the 200th issue spectacular (Nov. 1978). As Sue, Johnny, and Ben race to the United Nations to intercept one of Doom’s devices, Reed battles his nemesis alone in the first double-sized issue of a regular Marvel comic. “I had to fight like hell to get FF #200 to be a double-sized book,” reveals Wolfman. “Nobody had done double-sized anniversary books before at Marvel (only Annuals), and the publisher at the time was positive that charging twice the price (even for a double-sized book) would

Bewitched (top) Agatha Harkness as Franklin’s nanny. (bottom) In the late ’70s, Sue’s force-field became an offensive weapon, in addition to its traditional defensive use. Covers to Fantastic Four #185 (Aug. 1977) and 188 by Pérez and Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

18 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Breaking Up is Easy to Do Another FF split, in issue #191 (Feb. 1978).

Cover by Pérez and Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

kill sales. I kept at it for months until they finally agreed. We sold better than a regular issue did and I can honestly say they didn’t say boo when I asked a year later to do a double-sized Spidey [Amazing Spider-Man] #200.” Although Marvel couldn’t give him any extra time to finish the double-sized issue, Pollard told DeFalco, “I loved everything about that issue and killed myself trying to make it the best it could be, art-wise.”

Anniversary issues can sometimes be a let-down, but not this time. Not only does FF #200 feature the ultimate battle between two lifelong antagonists, it also presents one of the most telling depictions of Doom’s psyche. Doom’s flaw—his primary weakness— is that he absolutely cannot conceive the possibility of being wrong. The explosion that caused his disfigurement at the university must have been somebody else’s—Reed’s—fault.

So many times in past adventures it was very often the case that the FF triumphed through Reed’s ingenuity and some last-minute gadget. Previous battles with Doom—in particular—had often concluded in stalemates, but here, finally, was perhaps Doom’s most comprehensive defeat. FF #200 showcased Reed’s powers and fighting abilities in a way that had rarely been emphasized. Of his favorite issue of his run, Wolfman comments, “I felt this had to be an ultimate type of issue between these two long-

time combatants. Usually the stories ended on a tie, or Doom merely escapes. I wanted a real ending … for the time being, of course.” [Editor’s note: For more info about the FF and Amazing Spider-Man bicentennial issues, see the Marv Wolfman interview in BI #69.]

With Doom finally defeated, the FF return home in issue #201 and find a computer problem turning their own defense systems against them. Fantastic Four Annual #12 (1977) must chronologically fit here. Reed’spowers have returned, the team is back together, and their battle (alongside the Inhumans) against the Sphinx must occur before the upcoming storyline. Interestingly, Fantastic Four Annual #13 (1978) must occur immediately after because Johnny is still celebrating the fact that the FF are a team once again. Their encounter with the Mole Man also takes place before the imminent saga.

Next,guest-star Iron Man assists against Quasimodo in FF #202, and the team encounters a young boy whose mutant ability creates monstrous FF doppelgangers in issue #203.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Stan and Jack, Together Again… …sort of. Jack Kirby wrote and penciled What If? #11 (Oct. 1978), featuring Stan Lee as Mr. Fantastic, Sol Brodsky as the Human Torch, Flo Steinberg as the Invisible Girl, and the King himself as the Thing. Cover inks

by Mike Royer.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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TO THE DEATH… Wolfman’s time on the title was dominated by two massive arcs featuring the FF’s two greatest adversaries. His cosmic saga starts proper in Fantastic Four #204 (Mar. 1979) as Queen Adora, from the world of Xandar, teleports into the Baxter Building—pursued by a Skrull assassin. Reed, Sue, and Ben agree to return with Adora to protect Xandar and its Living Computers, but Johnny—once again crashing out with Frankie Raye—decides he needs to do some maturing and thus re-enrolls in college.

Commenting on the cosmic nature of the arc, Wolfman observes, “Space stories worked in FF because of the SF nature of the title. It’s also why I made certain [The New] Teen Titans had a space component as well, so I could do any kind of stories I wanted—Starfire: SF. Raven: Horror. Cyborg: Tech/ street. Robin: Detective. Wonder Girl: Mythology.”

After teaming up with Spider-Man to thwart the Monocle in FF #207, Johnny uses the teleport beam to join his teammates.

Meanwhile, in the Andromeda Galaxy, Reed, Sue, and Ben are blasted by a Skrull aging ray. Continuing from the pages of Nova, the Sphinx arrives on Xandar and absorbs the power of the Living Computers. Now godlike, the unstoppable Sphinx vows to destroy Earth. Reed announces that the only being who may be able to stop the Sphinx is Galactus.

To assist in their search, Reed builds the robot Herbie (H.E.R.B.I.E.). Locating Galactus, the World-Devourer insists that the FF find him a new herald. Noting that the Silver Surfer was inspired by the seas, Air-Walker by air, and Firelord by flame, Galactus then bestows mastery of the ground upon Terrax the Tamer, in FF #211.

John Byrne commenced as regular penciler with FF #209 (Aug. 1979). A longtime fan, Byrne wrote, in Fantastic Four Chronicles: “I was jubilant. I whipped through my first issue at the phenomenal rate (for me) of six pages a day.” In Comics Interview #25 (1985), Byrne recounted, “Marv told me who Terrax was and I came up with what he looked like. He said, ‘I want this big guy who controls rock, and has a big axe.’

I think it was after he saw him that he said, ‘We’re going to call him Terrax.’”

Running out of time, Galactus, Terrax, and the rapidly aging FF return to Earth to confront the Sphinx. Behind the ominous cover of Fantastic Four #213 (Dec. 1979) lies a cosmic battle for the fate of our planet. The Sphinx is utterly, devastatingly defeated, and Galactus is prevented from devouring our world by the brilliant mind of the smartest man on Earth.

But the story wasn’t quite over. Sue, then Ben, then Reed had collapsed from old age—only surviving by being placed in suspended animation. Of course, they don’t die of old age.

It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Johnny finds a way to reverse the Skrull aging ray. The FF re-emerge younger and more vital than ever—which was Wolfman’s intention all along: “The age problem with the FF was apparent in the ’70s, so yes, the idea was to de-age them. I knew this ending before I started the aging storyline so we could make them young and didn’t have to deny previous stories.” Wolfman brought back Blastarr in issues #215–216, and wrote FF Annual #14 (1979), featuring the return of Salem’s Seven, before leaving Marvel for DC Comics.

Marvelous Marv (top) Marv Wolfman and BI’s own Jarrod Buttery, at Australia’s SupaNova Pop Culture Expo in 2010. (bottom) A Wolfman-signed copy of FF #200 (Nov. 1978), the Kirby/Sinnott-drawn inspiration for this issue’s BI cover. Both courtesy of Mr. Buttery.

FF TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

20 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Peerless Pollard (top left and right) A double-shot of galaxyspanning FF greatness from issue #206 (May 1979) by our cover artist, Keith Pollard (pictured below); both courtesy of Heritage. (left) Keith’s rendition of Reed Richards’ arch-nemesis, Victor von Doom; from the collection of Tim Brown.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

keith pollard

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Just Sketchin’ Things (left) From a mid1970s sketchbook, John Byrne’s roughs for Bashful Benjy Grimm, a character he’d soon draw many, many times. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder. (right) A 1974 FF pinup by Byrne from a series of tryout pages.

In just a few years, Byrne would take over FF, first as its penciler, then as its writer/artist.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE LEGEND As creative teams changed across the decade there was one constant. Of the 119 original issues discussed above, 100 were inked by Joe Sinnott. An undisputed legend of the industry, and one of the nicest guys in comics, Mr. Sinnott very kindly answered a few questions for BACK ISSUE. Asked about his role across the years, he explains, “I didn’t consider my finished art or inking role as providing consistency from one penciler to another after Jack left the FF. I just continued to ink in my own style no matter who I was working with. This is what Stan wanted.”

Sinnott also inked 57 issues during the Kirby era.

“Joltin’ Joe” asks, “Who could top stories with the likes of Dr. Doom, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Inhumans, and on and on? I’ve always felt that this was the greatest period in comic history, because of the incomparable characters. Plus the outstanding art. I may be thinking of the late ’60s, but some of my favorite stories that I worked on involved Johnny Storm when he was in college, and Wyatt Wingfoot and his people. It was just a nice change of pace and offered the opportunity to do some interesting and reader-enjoyable art. A lot of the writers of the ’70s like Roy, Gerry, Len, Marv, etc., turned out some interesting things, with diverse subject matter that was more relevant to the stresses and changes of the modern world.”

When asked about replacements in the team, Sinnott offers, “I was never one for accepting change—in other words, ‘Don’t rock the boat,’ ‘Leave well enough alone,’ etc. A good example was when Herbie joined the FF and took over for Johnny—I never liked the character! Also, I never liked it when uniforms

22 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

were changed, hairstyles, etc. I guess I’m from the old school. Of course, Franklin did have to grow. Although, I must admit, the Thing did evolve over time into the character we are now familiar with.”

On a personal note, Sinnott was asked if he had any favorite characters and, speaking of the Thing, whether he’s difficult to draw. “The Thing is easy to draw,” he says. “It’s just that he takes time. The shading-in of his rocks is time-consuming. By the way, I’ll always believe that he was meant to be made out of orange rock and not alligator skin, plastic, or whatever. The Silver Surfer really pleased me when he appeared—he was fun to draw. My favorite to draw, however, was the Mole Man. I just love his face and baggy clothes and cape!”

The importance of the Fantastic Four in the 1960s can never be overstated. The 1980s are also revered as John Byrne crafted some truly entertaining stories. “The ’70s probably don’t deserve as much celebration as the ’60s and perhaps some of the later eras, but I think we carried the torch fairly well,” summarizes Roy Thomas.

Quite correct. The Fantastic Four in the 1970s explored both cosmic drama and the human condition in stories worthy of the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!

The author would like to express his sincere gratitude to Rich Buckler, Gerry Conway, Joe Sinnott, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman.

JARROD BUTTERY lives in Western Australia and has written several articles for BACK ISSUE. His first ever superhero comic was a black-and-white Australian reprint of Fantastic Four #5.

From that point on, he was Doomed.

A Johnny Storm/Human Torch solo series has never sparked into a blaze. While there have been attempts to stoke the fire, this member of the Fantastic Four has never been able to ignite a solo book of his own.

(Okay, enough with the fire puns…)

JOHNNY STORM’S STRANGE TALES TM

by

Jonathan Rikard Brown with assistance from Robert Brown

The first attempt to spin off Johnny into a solo series was from Marvel megastars and Fantastic Four co-creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, at the behest of publisher Martin Goodman, who purportedly wished to emulate the success of former Marvel headliner the Golden Age Human Torch.

In 1962, the Lee/Kirby duo—originally with Larry Lieber scripting over Lee’s plots and Dick Ayers inking Kirby’s pencils—launched a series of Human Torch short stories (originally 13 pages, but over time varying in length from 12 to 14 pages) in the anthology comic book Strange Tales, starting with issue #101 (Oct. 1962).

These stories attempted to create a connection between the (young) reader and the star of the comic, with Johnny Storm experiencing the negative side of his powers and the isolation felt when one has abilities that creates a secret life.

On page one of the Torch’s first solo tale, titled “The Human Torch,” we see that Johnny lives in a quiet suburban town, and while the locals know that his sister has taken on the persona of Invisible Girl, Johnny’s ability to burst into flame is shielded from other citizens.

(There is an editor’s note about some graduates from Johnny’s school knowing his status, but they have moved on with their lives.) The story shows how our hero’s everyday life has been altered as we are given the layout of his room, which Mr. Fantastic has outfitted with asbestos (!) to keep Johnny from burning down the house when he has a bad dream.

The story continues to show an isolated Johnny’s entanglement with a new villain known simply as the Destroyer. As the Human Torch engages this new foe in an amusement park, we see him struggle to keep his FF identity a secret while building meaningful relationships as Johnny. At one point, Johnny ducks into a cabin to flame off and is confronted by his friends. In a very Clark Kent-ish moment, Johnny simply replies, “I spotted [the Torch] in the woods and followed him to the cabin!

I wanted to discover his real identity! He got away!!”

Strange Tales would develop a supporting cast for the Torch that included his sister, Sue Storm, and love interest Doris (Dorrie) Evans. The series attempted to develop a rogues’ gallery for the young protagonist, though none of these villains achieved the iconic status like Dr. Doom or Namor. As the series progressed it became clear that readers and Johnny were have a hard time connecting. By issue #123 (July 1964), the

Great Balls of Fire!

Bronze Age-era fans remember this short-lived reprint series starring the FF’s hotheaded member.

Cover to The Human Torch #1 (Sept. 1974) by Sal Buscema and John Romita, Sr. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Crimson Avenger (top) Johnny’s red suit is on view on this Buckler/Giacoia cover to FF #140 (Nov. 1973). (bottom left) Torch and Spider-Man co-starred in the first three issues of Marvel Team-Up, including #2 (May 1972). Cover by Kane/Romita. (bottom right) Johnny bumped Spidey for several MTUs, including #23 (July 1974). Cover by Kane/Esposito.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

24 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Thing, a more popular character at that time, was brought into the feature as the Torch’s co-star. Then, with Strange Tales #134 (July 1965), the Human Torch/ Thing stories were removed altogether.

FF READERS SEE RED Early in the 1970s, when Stan Lee began to segue out of the Marvel Bullpen, Roy Thomas found himself not only working as the editor of Fantastic Four, but as its writer as well [see previous article], working with the series’ penciler, John Buscema. It was in Fantastic Four #132 (Mar. 1972) that this duo crafted a new look for the Human Torch.

While the character would still remain engulfed in flames for action sequences and flying, Johnny Storm put a unique spin on his FF uniform. He moved away from the traditional blue togs and donned an outfit that was red and gold.

When asked about the motivation for the change, Roy Thomas tells BACK ISSUE, “I felt the FF looked a bit dull. Rather than bring the original [red-costumed] Torch into the present, I preferred to make Johnny Storm look more like him, since Johnny had been a comics fan.” This “new” Johnny Storm makes an even deeper connection to comics fandom when Johnny says in issue #132, “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be the original Human Torch—the one I read about in those second-hand comic books.” Johnny then wonders if his love of that hero is the reason why he gained the abilities that he had.

This new look for the Torch was retired in issue #159.

While it never led to a solo series for the character, it did make the Torch stand out among his teammates.

TWIN TORCH TRYOUTS IN 1974 In 1972, the series Marvel Team-Up debuted, its format usually teaming Spider-Man with other Marvel Universe characters in one-and-done stories. The FF’s Human Torch was the first character to appear alongside the Web-Slinger, co-starring with Spidey in MTU #1 (Mar. 1972) through #3 (July 1972).

After appearing in the first three issues, it became clear that the Torch was not the regular co-star, as MTU would continue to focus on Spider-Man with issue #4 on, leaving the Human Torch out in the cold … until issue #18 (Feb. 1974), that is, when the Human Torch teamed up with the Incredible Hulk to take on Blastaar.

When asked about the motivation for giving Human Torch the go-ahead as the lead in Marvel Team-Up, Roy Thomas says, “Not sure, but I have the feeling Stan worried about over-exposing Spider-Man, and he wanted to see if he could make more of a star out of the Torch.” This was Stan Lee’s next attempt to see if the Human Torch could run with the torch of his own series, allowing Spidey a much-needed rest. This experiment in Marvel Team-Up would continue off and on for a couple of years. The Human Torch would go on to team with Iceman (#23), Thor (#26), Iron Man (#29), the Son of Satan (#32), and Dr. Strange (#35).

Also in 1974, Marvel reprinted the first eight of Johnny Storm’s Strange Tales solo stories in a series titled The Human Torch, starting with a first issue cover-dated Sept. 1974. These reprint books, along with the Torch’s

occasional appearances in Marvel Team-Up, served to test the waters for a new solo series as well as introduce a new generation of readers to the earlier work of Lee and Kirby. Since the Strange Tales Torch stories were not full-length comics, supplemental material was needed to meet the page count. Since it had been established that Johnny Storm was a fan of comic books and of the Golden Age Human Torch, Roy Thomas, editor of the reprint series, tells BACK ISSUE that he came up with the idea to fill out each Human Torch issue with Golden Age Human Torch reprints.

This may have just been an attempt to fill pages, but it did provide an interesting way for the reader to build a connection to young Mr. Storm. One could read his adventures, then read the stories that inspired him.

This bimonthly Human Torch reprint book failed to ignite fan interest and was canceled with issue #8 (Nov. 1975). In looking at the reasons why Human Torch failed, Roy Thomas offers, “I think there are a couple of reasons. Perhaps the most important is that, in the Marvel Age, it was characters with great physical power who succeeded the most strongly … the Fantastic Four (with the Thing as the powerhouse), the Hulk (after a slow start), Iron Man, Thor. The Human Torch’s power over fire worked well in a group, but didn’t excite ’60s kids as it had those in the ’40s.

And I don’t think, somehow, that he ever established enough of an identity beyond the FF book. The Torch series [in Strange Tales] just always seemed like sideadventures to the main event. Perhaps an approach FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Combustible Co-Star (left) Splash page to Marvel Team-Up #24 (Sept. 1974), teaming the Human Torch and Dr. Strange. Signed by penciler Sal Buscema. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonyscomicbookart.com). (right) Ron Wilson/Frank Giacoia original cover art to Human Torch #3 (Jan. 1975), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Snuffed Out (left) Splash page to the final issue of The Human Torch, #8 (Nov. 1975). (right) The cover to The Human Torch #6.

Art by Gil Kane and Vince Colletta.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

could have been found to make the Torch work as a solo act in the ’60s, but it didn’t.”

The Human Torch reprint series was the only Bronze Age attempt to entitle a series with the character’s name.

THE TORCH, TV STAR? In 1978, NBC premiered the animated show entitled The New Fantastic Four [see article following]. From the show’s opening it was clear to every comic-book reader that something was missing. This version of the Fantastic Four existed without the Human Torch! In his place was a new robot character named Herbie (H.E.R.B.I.E.). Many questioned what had befallen Johnny, and this led to an urban legend. The rumor began to pop up that NBC executives had asked Marvel to remove the character from the show for safety concerns; it was said that NBC was afraid that children would light themselves on fire to emulate the character. This led to removal of the Human Torch and the addition of a robot, en vogue thanks to Star Wars, so that the number of the team would remain four.

This story is completely false. The real reason for Johnny Storm’s absence from the cartoon disproves this urban

26 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

legend—instead, it is due to one more failed attempt at lighting the fuse for a Human Torch solo gig.

A year earlier, in 1977, Universal Studios had purchased the film/TV rights to the Human Torch, but not the entire Fantastic Four. Several sources say that the company had hoped to develop a show around the Torch in a format akin to The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby. There are reports of a screenplay being written, but no show was ever produced. Most cite specialeffects budgeting as the major drawback. The show went nowhere, and the Human Torch rights reverted back to Marvel, where the character would eventually be packaged alongside his Fantastic Four teammates.

When asked why attempts to make the Human Torch a solo star were all snuffed out (last fire pun, I promise), Roy Thomas reflects, “Such a title was always in the back of our minds, but he just never seemed to quite have the firepower for it … so to speak.”

One has to wonder why. In my opinion, the fact that the Human Torch’s origin is the same as the Thing’s is off-putting. This hothead, Johnny Storm, got superpowers that came with no price. This point is exacerbated by the fact that Johnny also wondered if simply his love for a superhero is what made his power manifest in a certain way.

When you look at Ben Grimm, you see a hardworking average Joe who is presented with opportunity of a lifetime, to go into space. Yet in the same accident he is permanently transformed into a monster. For me, a character that is cursed by his powers is far more intriguing than one who simply gets to turn his on and off. I think this lack of sympathy is why Johnny Storm has failed to attain full headliner status.

JONATHAN BROWN attended Young Harris College and Brevard College for his undergrad. He completed his B.A. in 2007. He finished his Master of Arts in Religion with an emphasis on New Testament and a minor in Religion in Literature at the University of Georgia. He has published work in The Jack Kirby Collector and International Journal of Comic Art.

It’s Your Thing

by

Stuart Fischer

(left) A publicity cel for the 1979 Fred and Barney Meet the Thing cartoon.

According to Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), this cel originally came from the collection of an unnamed former Hanna-Barbera executive. (below) Title card from 1967’s Fantastic Four cartoon.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Fantastic Four is Marvel’s oldest continuing comic book (despite its reboots during recent years).

In 1961, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby brought this terrific team into the American popular culture, little did anybody ever guess how significant this comic book would become, not only in the comics medium, but beyond.

Just six years after The Fantastic Four was introduced to the world as a comic book, it became the basis for a Saturday morning television weekly cartoon series, airing on ABC-TV and produced by HannaBarbera Productions.

The story of how this comic book became a television show is nothing short of … fantastic.

ANIMATED FF 1967 In the fall of 1966, Sy Fischer, a television agent who at the time worked at the powerful Ashley Famous Agency (which would later merge with another large agency to form what is known today as International Creative Management—ICM, for short), noticed his son, Stuart (the author of this article), reading a Fantastic Four comic book.

Hanna-Barbera, who was Sy Fischer’s client, was in the business of selling and making shows for the youth audience and became a goliath in that field by giving the world The Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Adventures of Jonny Quest, and many others,

and who would also look at other properties created by anybody who had a good idea for future television use.

Sy Fischer, whose job it was to sell shows on behalf of his clients, Hanna-Barbera being one of them, saw potential in the Fantastic Four when he asked his son if he thought that this comic book could be a good cartoon.

Naturally, his son said, “Yes!” very enthusiastically, and the wheels at that point began to turn.

The very next day, the senior Fischer got on the phone with Joseph Barbera, the co-founder and head of Hanna-Barbera and told him of this wonderful comic book published by Marvel Comics and recommended that Hanna-Barbera get the rights to develop it for Saturday morning.

Barbera then took a look at the FF and agreed with both his agent and his agent’s son that this super-team could be a good show, and that it ought to be pitched to the networks as a weekly animated program.

Both Joe Barbera and Sy Fischer then contacted Stan Lee and asked if the rights were available, and luckily enough, they were.

A deal was quickly made between the two companies and HannaBarbera put the show into development and then pitched to ABC, and quickly, it was on the ABC Saturday morning schedule for the Fall of 1967.

Marvel at this time was emerging as a solid force to observe. They already were selling a lot of comics, and the year before had a show

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Mr. Fantastic (top) Television agent Sy Fischer, in his New York City office at 1 East 57 Street, helped bring Fantastic Four to Hanna-Barbera in 1967. Photo courtesy of Stuart Fischer. (middle) Screen capture from the 1967 cartoon. (bottom left) Animation cels of three of the four FF members. (bottom right) Sound-effect cels from the show. All courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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that was done by Krantz Films called The Marvel Super Heroes, made for the first-run syndication market (off-network, for local TV stations). It consisted of five different shows under one umbrella, each shown on a certain day during the week: Captain America (on Monday); The Incredible Hulk (on Tuesday); Iron Man (on Wednesday); The Mighty Thor (on Thursday); and The Sub-Mariner (on Friday). [Editor’s note: Their theme songs are perhaps more legendary than the shows themselves.] Marvel was also beginning to merchandise their characters at this time, and was being taken seriously as a source of entertainment beyond the comic-book page.

Marvel had a very good year in 1967: the syndicated cartoon was still going, and it introduced two shows on network Saturday morning television: The Fantastic Four, done by Hanna-Barbera, and Spider-Man, done by Krantz Films. Fantastic Four began one half-hour before Spider-Man, debuting on September 9, 1967 at 9:30 in the morning, with Spider-Man following at 10:00 A.M. Fantastic Four was expertly done and very loyal to the comic book at the time. Hanna-Barbera and ABC retained Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as consultants.

Designing the show was Alex Toth, an artist involved in both animation and comics. His work was well received by both professionals and fans, doing the Fabulous Foursome justice on the small screen.

Characters and stories from the comics were used in the show, including the Super-Skrull, Klaw, and the Mole Man, as well as a few original characters and stories created by Hanna-Barbera.

FF’s voice actors were Gerald Mohr as Reed Richards/ Mr. Fantastic; JoAnn Pflug as Sue Storm/the Invisible Girl (Pflug was a successful actress who has done primetime television and made-for-television movies); Jack Flounders as Johnny Storm/the Human Torch; and Paul Frees as Ben Grimm/the Thing (Frees was of the animation industry’s finest voice actors, having worked mostly for Jay Ward Productions on Bullwinkle as well as shows done by Filmation, Walter Lantz Studios, and Disney).

Fantastic Four ran on ABC until March 15, 1970.

ANIMATED FF 1978 Fantastic Four returned to network Saturday morning TV 11 years to the day after the launch of the first FF show, premiering on September 9, 1978. This time the show was on NBC’s Saturday morning schedule at 10:30 A.M. and was produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

Though they never were as big as Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng became known for their fine work on The Pink Panther, originally produced as a series of animated theatrical shorts and later for the Pink Panther TV show, which went on NBC in the fall of 1969 and became a big hit. David DePatie and Friz Freleng went out and formed their own animation studio when they left Warner Bros.’ animation department, co-founding DePatie-Freleng. They had already established a working relationship with Marvel when producing the 1976 Spider-Man animated show for syndication. Both saw potential in comics’ Fantastic Four and wanted to take it to NBC to appeal to a new audience.

The networks had changed since the late 1960s, in terms of talent and network programming personnel, as well as Standard and Practices, which became stricter where the youth audience was concerned. And a lot was different about this new FF show, including the voices.

Mr. Fantastic was voiced by Mike Road, a respected cartoon voice artist; the Invisible Girl was voiced by Ginny Tyler, an active television actress; and the Thing

Read Along with Sue (above) Courtesy of Heritage, a 1967 FF shooting script used by the series’ Invisible Girl, JoAnn Pflug, seen in the inset. (left) The FF versus the Frightful Four. Jack Kirby storyboards from the 1978 DePatieFreleng series.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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was voiced by none other than Ted Cassidy, known to millions as Lurch, the scary butler from TV’s The Addams Family.

In addition to having become a star from The Addams Family, Cassidy was a successful actor in various other movies and television shows, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and The Six Million Dollar Man. He had also done voice work for other Saturday morning cartoons like Super Friends, Frankenstein, Jr., and Godzilla. What few people know is that Cassidy also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1973 motion picture The Harrad Experiment, based on the book of the same name; he made a brief appearance in the film. At sixfoot-nine, he was a presence to behold and also had a very ted cassidy commanding voice.

But what was so different about this new version of FF was the fact that the Human Torch was missing.

Instead of the Torch being a regular in the show, DePatieFreleng and NBC created a robot character called Herbie (or H.E.R.B.I.E.) the Robot, who was the creation of Mr. Fantastic and was used to aid the team’s efforts, but was not a physical force like the other members because he used an acute “mind” to help solve problems. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #25 for a Herbie the Robot history.]

Herbie was voiced by Frank Welker, a seasoned veteran of the animation industry who helped make Herbie a quirky and comical figure.

Stan Lee was a consultant to this series, and Jack Kirby played a very important part in this show as an animator and helped design the show. Kirby continued his work in Saturday morning cartoons by going to Ruby-Spears Enterprises, helping to create Thundarr the Barbarian, a 1980s cult hit.

[Editor’s note: We covered Thundarr back in BI #31, our Steve Gerber tribute issue.]

This second FF show did not have the success of the first— many comics fans rejected the show because of its exclusion of the Human Torch—and left the network schedule on September 1, 1979.

Johnny Come Lately This comic-book house ad touted NBC’s Fall 1978 Saturday morning lineup. Most fans agree that Herbie the Robot was a poor stand-in for the Human Torch.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Yogi’s Space Race and Jana of the Jungle © Hanna-Barbera. Godzilla © Toho Co., Ltd.

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FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE THING However, Fantastic Four was not doomed as a Saturday morning concept, because three weeks after the DePatie-Freleng series ended, on September 22, 1979, the Thing began a solo TV career as the star of his very own series.

Combined in the umbrella title Fred and Barney Meet the Thing, this show was actually a continuation of The Fred and Barney Show, which began the year before, and featured the two Stone Age friends, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, in updated comical adventures.

This show marked the second collaboration between Marvel and Hanna-Barbera. Interestingly, the Thing joined the Bedrock buddies from The Flintstones because of the television success of another of Marvel’s powerhouse characters. At this time, Marvel had a big TV success with the live-action series The Incredible Hulk, which was getting great ratings on the CBS primetime schedule. [Editor’s note: See BI #70 for a TV Hulk article.] Since the Thing somewhat resembles the Hulk, producer Joe Barbera thought that those similar characteristics and the Hulk’s proven television success could help the Thing could work as a Saturday morning cartoon. From their experience with the Thing when Hanna-Barbera produced Fantastic Four 12 years earlier, Barbera and Sy Fischer were convinced that lightning could strike twice. They went to New York to meet with Stan Lee and the rest of the Marvel executive staff, and Hanna-Barbera licensed the rights from Marvel to do a solo Thing TV show.

NBC’s programming executives liked both the Thing show and the fact that it would be a component of Fred and Barney, a proven hit.

The Thing series was much different from the two previous Fantastic Four shows—and certainly different from the Fantastic Four comic. This incarnation made the cantankerous adult Ben Grimm into a kid named Benjy Grimm, a wide-eyed, innocent, bright teen. Benjy possessed two ring halves that when combined together would transform him into the orange-scaled, mighty Thing recognized from comic books. As part of this transformation, Benjy would utter, “Thing ring, do your thing,” similar in the process to Billy Batson turning into Captain Marvel whenever he would yell “Shazam!”

This kid-friendly hero combatted villains like ghosts and crazy professors bent on taking over the world, making the show more a comedy than an adventure. Villains were the creations of the H-B writing staff, who produced The Thing.

The supporting characters were not the Thing’s FF teammates, but instead neighborhood kids, friends of Benjy’s, whom the Thing would teach good ethical values. He’d explain that the only reason he would use physical force was in times of danger.

Joe Baker voiced the Thing, and did so in the expected gruff manner, but with warmth behind it all. Benjy Grimm, the Thing’s youthful alter ego, was voiced by Wayne Morton. The supporting cast included Benjy’s friend Kelly, voiced by Noelle North; Betty, also a friend, voiced

by Marilyn Schreffler; Spike, the bully, who would have to be pulled aside by the Thing whenever he would act up, voiced by Art Metrano;

Ronald, a rich kid, voiced by John Erwin; and Miss Twilly, the teacher, also voiced by Marilyn Schreffler.

The Thing was actually an entertaining show. The scripts were good for what they were intended to be, and the design of the series was very good. The basic character design of the Thing was also very accurate and loyal to the original comic-book incarnation.

Unfortunately, the audience did not accept the show and it ended on December 1, 1979, having lasted for only a few months.

ANIMATED FF 1994 The Fantastic Four did not appear on television again until September 25, 1994, when a new animated show began in first-run syndication, this time produced

by Marvel itself via Marvel Productions, Ltd. This show used the great assets of Marvel Comics: the Sub-Mariner, the Inhumans, and the Silver Surfer at times assisted the team; one episode guest-starred the Hulk, who had a battle with the Thing, keeping in line with the Marvel tradition; and great villains like SuperSkrull, Dr. Doom, Galactus, and Firelord challenged the FF—it was like watching a comic book come to life.

Also, the Torch and the Thing would always tease each other, as they have done for years in the comic, only in this show, their routine was more like Beavis and Butthead, which was also an MTV hit at the time.

Stan Lee hosted this show, introducing and closing each episode with a synopsis of what went before and after each story—and did so with his usual shining enthusiasm!

Fantastic Four was part of The Marvel Action Hour, which also consisted of a segment with Iron Man, done in the same animation style as FF, but both were

“Thing ring, do your thing!”

Courtesy of Andy Mangels, (above) publicity stills and (right) a promo one-sheet from Fred and Barney Meet the Thing. Note the backstory that links the cartoon Thing to his FF roots.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Quite a Stretch (top left) Image from the 1994 FF toon, and (bottom left) a cel from its “Return of the Silver Surfer” episode (courtesy of Heritage). (right) Promo for 2006’s Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

separate shows under the Action Hour umbrella title.

The voice cast in this new FF was quite good, with Beau Weaver playing Mr. Fantastic, Lori Alan playing Invisible Woman, and Quinton Flynn portraying the Torch. Chuck McCann, a seasoned voice artist and actor, played the Thing.

Earlier in his career, McCann hosted a few local New York kids shows and was also the voice behind Cool McCool, a Saturday morning cartoon from the late 1960s that was created by Bob Kane and produced

by King Features Syndicate. McCann also voiced Sonny the Cuckoo Bird from the Cocoa Puffs TV commercials for General Mills.

An admirable piece of work all around, but it did not last as long as fans would have liked, running 26 episodes spanning two seasons.

ANIMATED FF 2K AND BEYOND It was a little over a decade before the next Fantastic Four TV show would begin, and this most recent show was very different from previous efforts.

At this time this show was in production, Marvel was under new ownership and the Marvel Productions, Ltd. outfit was no more.

Instead, Marvel formed a new division devoted to animation, now being more of a supervisor than an actual animation studio as Marvel Productions had been when Cadence Industries owned Marvel. The company acted as a co-producer with other animation studios to bring the Marvel characters to life in animated form.

Moonscope, a French animation studio, co-produced this series with Marvel Animation. Moonscope used different animation techniques for this series that had not been used in previous FF shows. They mixed two-dimensional computer animation with three-dimensional computer animation, giving the show a different look from previous FF shows and from previous Marvel-based animated shows as well.

On September 2, 2006, Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes began on the Cartoon Network. This was a year after the live-action Fantastic Four motion picture from 20th Century Fox, and the show reflected aspects of the movie as well as some basic characteristics from the comic book.

Alicia Masters was featured as a regular in this new cartoon and was portrayed as an African American, rather than the Caucasian as she is seen in the comics, mirroring the casting of actress Kerry Washington in the motion picture. The producers wanted to be loyal

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to the motion picture because they thought that the movie would remain in the audience’s mind.

The FF stories were dramatic, with little or no humor involved.

In the past, the Thing and often the Torch would show comedic characteristics, but in this new cartoon they were rather dull, as were Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman.

The team confronted characters straight from the comics, such as the Mole Man, Puppet Master, Impossible Man, Ronan the Accuser, the Skrulls, Dragon Man, Klaw, and the Frightful Four, but the action seemed subdued.

Other Marvel heroes guest-starred in this show, such as SubMariner, She-Hulk, Hulk, Iron Man, and Ant-Man, adding colorful diversity to the show and giving some other Marvel characters some television exposure.

Regular voices included Hiro Kanagawa as Mr. Fantastic, Laura Gilchrist as Invisible Woman, Christopher Jacot as the Human Torch, Brian Dobson as the Thing, Sunita Prasad as Alicia Masters, Samuel Vincent as Herbie, and Paul Dobson as Dr. Doom.

The characters here resembled their movie versions more so than their comic-book incarnations or the previous animated TV incarnations; this took away a lot of the charm that made this team so popular.

The only FF character that resembled his comic-book counterpart was the Thing, and even he looked different because he had a “4” symbol that appears on the FF members’ costumes on his chest in the form of a tattoo, rather than as part of a costume or even a shirt. This removed some of the innocence of the Thing as well as some of his warmth.

Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes began on Cartoon Network, but fumbled to the Boomerang Network, a sister cable network of Cartoon Network (both which are owned by Time Warner), and then wound up on Nicktoons, which is part of the Nickelodeon Network. The show ended on February 25, 2010, after being juggled between different cable networks. Frankly, in this writer’s opinion, it was the least inspiring of all Fantastic Four TV endeavors.

In the immortal words of Fantastic Four co-creator, Stan Lee, “’Nuff Said!”

STUART FISCHER is the author of The Hanna-Barbera Story: The Life and Times of TV’s Greatest Animation Studio (PublishAmerica, 2011).

by

Dewey Cassell

Dial FF for Fantastic Four Album cover for an LP (that’s “Long-Playing record” for those born in the post-vinyl era) containing episodes of The Adventures of the Fantastic Four— a.k.a. The Fantastic Four Radio Show.

Scan courtesy of Peter B. Lewis.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The mid-1970s was a time of expanding horizons for Marvel Comics.

In 1973, Marvel launched an in-house fan club called FOOM (Friends of Ol’ Marvel). In 1974, Marvel introduced a series of trade paperbacks published by Fireside, beginning with Origins of Marvel Comics. In 1975, Marvel hosted its own comic-book convention at the Hotel Commodore in New York City. And that same year, seeking to reach a new audience, Marvel took advantage of the latest in “modern” technology—radio.

The notion of cartoon characters on radio was not new. One of the best examples would be Dick Tracy, which began as a comic strip in 1931 and was adapted for radio beginning in 1934. The Dick Tracy episodes were 15 minutes in length (or 30 in later years) and ran until 1948.

Terry and the Pirates enjoyed a similar successful run. Numerous pulp characters were also adapted to radio, including The Shadow. And the Adventures of Superman radio series began in 1940 and ran 11 years.

Common to them all was strong sponsorship.

Audio dramatization of comic books was also not new. In fact, in 1974, Power Records had begun producing “Book and Record Sets” that featured popular Marvel comics, including the Fantastic Four, accompanied by seven-inch vinyl records.

The Fantastic Four Radio Show debuted in the fall of 1975. Not many people remember the show, much less that it was originally envisioned as the first part of a Marvel Comics Radio Series, but there were several noteworthy aspects of the program, particularly the cast, which included a 25-year-old future star of the television show, Saturday Night Live, as well as Marvel’s own Stan Lee. As was the case with many radio shows, the main cast voiced leads and supporting characters, which included Ant-Man, the Sub-Mariner, and the Hulk. The storylines for the shows, originally each five minutes in length, were adapted from early Fantastic Four comic books.

The Marvel Comics Radio Series was the brainchild of Richard Clorfene and Peter B. Lewis. Lewis had worked at several West Coast radio stations prior to moving to New York in 1964. Clorfene moved to New York after serving as head creative writer and producer at Mel Blanc and Associates in Los Angeles. Clorfene and Lewis met while working on a pilot for a radio drama series called Tales of the Energy.

What follows are excerpts from an interview with Peter B. Lewis by Sean Kleefeld on December 16, 1999.

– Dewey Cassell FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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SEAN KLEEFELD: As I understand it, the original idea came from their studio at 21st Century, I used their offices to do the editing of Richard Clorfene and the two of you were able to take the idea to Stan the dialogue, I dubbed dozens of sounds from their effects library.

Lee. How did you pitch the idea?

I thought Bill Murray would do great as Johnny Storm. Bob Michaelson PETER B. LEWIS: Richard was really into Silver Surfer and wanted to is the one who actually made the contact and signed him up. He was do it as a radio series. Experienced the Silver Surfer cult in Southern the most versatile of the Lampoon cast. He agreed to work for scale.

California and knew it would be popular with them. We talked about it We needed a cast for the demo and Maxwell was the guy who (and millions of other possibilities) through the production of the pilot. knew who could do what. He knew Cynthia Adler, Terheyden, and In my day gig, I was a jingle engineer/mixer at a popular New Jim Pappas. Pappas had some experience, you saw him kinda York City studio, National Recording. Suddenly, through some light doing himself in commercials. I was unsure until I heard him do the conversation and what you’d only call a Coincidence of God, transformation from Ben Grimm to the Thing. He really underI found myself talking with the wife of a songwriter stood how to make that change. A very tough thing to do live. who was working as a jingle singer on a gig I was KLEEFELD: Why did you start with the FF? doing. The wife, Ann Robinson, was in charge of LEWIS: Really, I guess it was my decision. I agreed licenses at Marvel Comics Group. She (and her with Richard [Clorfene] that Silver Surfer would be hubby, singer/songwriter Tommy West) had heard great. In retrospect, we maybe should have done and loved the Tales of the Energy pilot, she really that… For me, I truly believed this would be successful loved the idea of the Marvel Comics Radio Series, from the get-go. and she could grant me necessary license. She We would lay the same foundation Stan laid could also deliver Stan Lee. when he started out: characters with “feet of clay” Another part of my day gig was working at 21st and amazing powers. The foundation, our test-ground Century Communications, producers of the National if you will, would be the FF. After 13 weeks we’d get Lampoon Radio Hour. It’s really the precursor to on to the Silver Surfer. It gave Richard time to Saturday Night Live. I got to hang out with the cast recoup, get energized by the success of the project, bill murray and crew of the Lampoon, and got to know the guy and get to writing on the Silver Surfer. We’d also who put together the group of stations on which have the much-needed funding—we always thought National Lampoon Radio Hour was distributed, Bob Michaelson. Since we’d have a national advertiser. What a mistake. the Lampoon show was kinda winding down, Bob thought the Marvel Well, anyway, I was basically on my own with the thing, Marvel was show would be a good product to cycle into his network of stations. ready to grant a license, I had a cast, a studio, access to the Marvel We both thought getting an advertiser would be easy with a demo, library and Xerox copies of anything I wanted. For the demo, I picked [so] I wrote a demo. A dear friend of my family, a great and famous the section in issue one where they take the space ship and get hit by voice talent and [then] the boss of my girlfriend (now wife of 30 years), the cosmic rays, crash, and learn of their powers. It’s good exposition was Bob Maxwell. I called Bob up, told him the idea and what I needed, and demonstrates the idea pretty well. It also ran about five minutes. that I wanted to do this ensemble style, where we have the FF and a villain, I never met Stan until we did the first session. I never really pitched five principles, able to do a couple voices each, at least. I considered anyone. Ann Robinson liked me, liked the idea, talked to Stan, and he having the villains played by “guest stars.” He suggested Jerry must have liked the idea—she got him to agree to be the narrator!

Terheyden because he is so versatile. Jerry is a great team player, too. I didn’t know anything about Marvel, or Stan Lee, or the comic-book I thought we only needed him for about half of the time but he was biz, or any of that stuff. I don’t think it is the kind of thing Marvel would at every minute of every session, because it was such fun for him! do on their own. If we hadn’t brought this to them, it never would I wanted to have a National Lampoon flavor to the sound, but I have been considered. We got rights to about a dozen characters didn’t want it to sound too much like the Lampoon. We recorded in (including Silver Surfer, of course), just to be on the safe side.

Fantastic 45 RPM (left) The precursor to The Fantastic Four Radio Show, the 1974 FF Book and Record Set from Power Records. (right) Peter B. Lewis, one of the creators of The Fantastic Four Radio Show, in 1978. Courtesy of Mr. Lewis.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

34 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Tune In to the FF (left) Marvel’s Dec. 1975 Bullpen Bulletins Extra blurb announcing the FF Radio Show—and Stan Lee’s narration. (right) The Bulletins of the following month (that’s Jan. 1976 for the calendar-impaired) listed some of the radio stations airing Fantastic Four. Scans courtesy of Dutiful Dewey Cassell.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

KLEEFELD: Once the idea was given the go-ahead, how did you proceed to write scripts? I know they were adapted from the original Lee/Kirby comics, but how did you go about translating those into a completely non-visual medium?

LEWIS: After I recorded the demo, [my wife] Cyndy and I moved to Seattle in December of ’74 and starting in January of ’75, I did the “translations,” as I grew to call them. It took several weeks, I drank gallons of Starbucks coffee (really), and smoked a lot—probably drank heavily, too, but I can’t remember! Kind of a Jack Kerouac experience. I really knew about radio—the sound effects, word pictures, scene setting and changing, rhythm, alternating voices, continuity stuff like that. I had been working in New York City as a senior guy at the best recording studios’ commercial audio production. I had also just spent several months under the guidance of Clorfene and I kinda knew how it had to read.

I tried to follow the exact quotes from the books, then I added visual descriptions of the scene and the action. After I wrote it, I did heavy editing and my wife typed the final scripts. I think it was about 600 pages, many had to be done a few times. Listening back today, the images seem to work pretty well. The actors really brought a lot to the characters. Cynthia Adler as Ant-Man, Princess Perla, Alicia, and Susan Storm in the same episode! Just great, and Bill Murray as the black news reporter, WOW—it’s cool what the actors brought to it.

KLEEFELD: Another thing I found surprising was the cast you were able to put together. Did that talent pool make recording the show easier or did it become a case of “too many cooks”?

LEWIS: The talent was just a great cast. They worked hard, put themselves into the characters, made suggestions, volunteered for roles, understood the medium very well. I have very fond and painful memories of the sessions—it took a week to record all 65 episodes.

They were not done in sequence, they were done film style—in this case, at the convenience of the cast, rather than setups. We had champagne when I said, “Okay, this will be number 10K.” It was Thursday! The script was two inches thick and we did 12,106 takes!

KLEEFELD: Conversely, Stan Lee had virtually no broadcasting experience.

LEWIS: Stan was done completely separately. He and the cast never met. I did Stan in about three or four sessions. At the first session, he was concerned for his nasal quality. He brought some nasal sprays with him—two or three different brands. He would read a while and then hit the nasal spray, then read some more. He did quite a lot of the nasal

spray that first day … and we had to postpone the next session for several days. He really screwed up his sinus passages. It’s probably what he remembers most about it! He was very easy to work with, a real trooper, understood his role completely, and clearly spent time preparing himself for the sessions. Usually nailed the first or second take.

Well, I got the cast recorded and edited back into proper sequence, and I got Stan recorded. We did get seed money, $25,000, from Ann Robinson’s husband’s music production company, but we didn’t get a sponsor. We needed $65K and we had $25K. After I came home to Seattle from the cast recordings, I got to work on building shows. Bob had lined up about 30 stations and we were to start broadcasting in September. It was June.

KLEEFELD: Why five-minute shows daily rather than a 30-minute weekly?

LEWIS: In Bob’s view, after doing the Lampoon, half hours were getting harder to place at the stations. They wanted shorter. We decided that the books are kinda broken into segments (or some of the ones are) and they run about half an hour. Five five-minute shows made sense. They were also set so the stations could make them into a half-hour deal on the weekends. And many did. Would it have been more viable as a half hour?

Who knows? I don’t think the five-minute format was the problem.

KLEEFELD: I gather it’s something you’re very proud of to this day.

How did you find out the show was canceled?

LEWIS: The show was a financial disaster. The national advertisers never materialized and we ran out of money. Somehow, we got all 65 episodes done and mastered on disc and sent to the stations.

I sent “review copies” to Marvel and never heard from them. I canceled it myself. I hoped against hope that we could get funded somehow and start up again. It never happened, so I just had to stop working on it and move on.

STORYLINES FROM THE FANTASTIC FOUR RADIO SHOW (Adapted Marvel comics issue in parentheses) Week 1: “The Fantastic Four Meet the Mole Man” (FF #1) Week 2: “Menace of the Miracle Man” (FF #3) Week 3: “Coming of the Sub-Mariner” (FF #4) Week 4: “The Dreaded Doctor Doom” (FF #5) Week 5: “Prisoners of the Puppet Master” (FF #8) Week 6: “The Fantastic Four Meet the Incredible Hulk” (FF #12) Week 7: “Spell of the Hate Monger” (FF #21) Week 8: “The Return of Doctor Doom” (FF #16) Week 9: “In the Clutches of Doctor Doom” (FF #17) Week 10: “Super-Skrull Walks Among Us” (FF #18) Week 11: “At the Mercy of Rama Tut” (FF #19) Week 12: “Menace of the Red Ghost” (FF #13) Week 13: “Sub-Mariner Strikes” (FF #14) FF in the Bronze Age Issue

•

BACK ISSUE • 35

The FF Cast The back cover art (with meat and cheese!) of the FF Radio Show album, revealing its voice cast. Inset into the upper right is an LP’s label.

Scans courtesy of Peter B. Lewis.

Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

END NOTES, BY DEWEY CASSELL In early 2014, I had the opportunity to correspond with Peter B. Lewis and gained additional understanding and appreciation of The Fantastic Four Radio Show (a.k.a. The Adventures of the Fantastic Four). With such a great cast working on a momentous project, I wondered if pictures were taken at the rehearsals or recording sessions. Lewis explains, “We never took any pictures of the cast recordings—sadly, not even the wonderful sessions I had with Stan. And we actually never had ‘rehearsals.’ The actors all came in for their sessions and did their stuff as pros do. Everyone got scripts in advance of the sessions, so we mostly did sight-readings and second takes. We did a few pickups and then all went our separate ways.”

Lewis also sets the record straight, so to speak, on the approach to distributing the recordings to radio stations, noting “The series was released on LP because I insisted they be broadcast in stereo and, at the time, the only way to get on the air as a stereo program was on LP! There are 13 sides on seven LPs, packaged as double-disc sets for the 70 stations which aired them in 1975.” The album cover art included some inside jokes, as Lewis describes: “Bill Kuhns, the artist, visited the production studio one of the days we were experimenting with sounds. For a fistfight, I brought a hunk of cheap meat from the butcher shop. It was in the control room when Bill visited. He laughed when he saw it and it wound up on the cover art. The cheese is a symbol for the fella who worked the ARP 2600 synthesizer making so many of the sounds. His nickname was ‘Cheese Rat’ because he had a reputation for eating all the cheese at parties! Note the radio is set to 102.5—

36 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

that’s the station we aired on in Seattle. And look more closely at the wood grain of the radio!” (The grain on the radio includes the names of the Fantastic Four, as well as Peter, his wife Cyndy, and others.)”

Comic books are a visual medium, and translating the Fantastic Four to radio presented a challenge, but the results were very effective and entertaining. Lewis notes, “My intention from the outset was to bring the books to life in audio. I recently re-listened to some of my favorite episodes, prepared to cringe, as many artists will. Instead, I was quite pleased with the scripts, acting and (for the most part) the postproduction. We did remarkably well, under the circumstances. The script adaptations really are fun to listen to!”

Had The Marvel Comics Radio Series continued, Lewis planned to give the Silver Surfer a similar treatment, as he elaborates: “We would have done Silver Surfer just like the Fantastic Four, using the actual Silver Surfer issues with respect for the writer and illustrator (and fans). Probably starting with early issues and working our way through the series. Silver Surfer also lends itself to music and music spin-offs, which the Fantastic Four totally lacked (except Alicia’s piano!).”

It is a shame that The Fantastic Four Radio Show could not gain a foothold (or a sponsor). Perhaps it was an idea past its time, although Star Wars was later adapted for radio. The Fantastic Four Radio Show was advertised in the Bullpen Bulletin that appeared in Marvel’s comics. The show was extremely well written and produced, remaining largely true to the comics, although some plot points and dialogue were changed, often to make them less dated. Some of the sound effects were not ideal, such as Mr. Fantastic stretching, but Lewis had a finite effects library to work with. The actors were very credible and Stan did a great job of narrating the stories in his usual dynamic style, which is not surprising, since he wrote much of it originally. And each show began with Lewis announcing, in the spirit of The Lone Ranger: “Attention! All True Believers! Marvel Comics is on the air! Out of the pages of the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine come the adventures of the Fantastic Four.”

You can hear the Fantastic Four radio episodes, in weekly format, on several Internet websites such as http://archive.org/details/FantasticFour-10Episodes. The sidebar provides a list of the episodes and the issues of The Fantastic Four on which they were based. As Bill Murray would say, “Flame On!” Sincere thanks to Sean Kleefeld for permission to reprint the interview and Peter B. Lewis for sharing his tremendous insight (and the album covers).

DEWEY CASSELL is the author of over 30 articles and two books, including Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics, which was nominated for an Eisner Award. He is currently wrapping up a book about Herb Trimpe.

“At last the Fantastic Four meet a foe whose power is even greater than theirs! Here is: IMPOSSIBLE MAN.”

by

Andy Smith

He was never supposed to come back.

His first appearance, in the pages of Fantastic Four #11 (Feb. 1963, inset), would seemingly seal his fate as the comics medium pressed on.

Even from the start, the zaniness of this nameless alien from “the planet Poppup in the Tenth Galaxy” is qualified with editor notes and character commentary. In fact, the story’s fifth panel carries such a warning for readers: “Editor’s Note: By now, you’re probably thinking that Stan and Jack have flipped their lids! But wait— things may even get wackier!”

Yet, the story continues.

“The Impossible Man,” as dubbed by the Thing, proceeds to terrorize the Fantastic Four and citizens of Earth with lighthearted fare. A signature “POP” would denote a transformation into a giant buzzsaw, a movie monster, or a piece of cake. Even by Silver Age standards, it was a goofy—and admittedly humorous—tale of a bored alien with all of the power in the universe. He tries to make friends through transformations and pop-culture references, but his presence brought destruction. In the end, the team simply had to ignore him to make him go away.

And his debut was not met with overwhelming praise. In fact, the term “hate mail” is often used to describe his reception. His creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, moved on to a popular tale guest-starring the Hulk, and the little green man was barred from further use as the Silver Age continued.

Perhaps the pest-like nature of the character was realized too fully, as some fans had a similar reaction as the Fantastic Four did. They wanted him to go away. And he did.

But the Impossible Man, quite appropriately, did the impossible. He came back—13 years later.

You can blame that on Roy Thomas.

“IMPROBABLE AS IT MAY SEEM—THE IMPOSSIBLE MAN IS BACK IN TOWN!” “I really liked the first story when it came out in Fantastic Four #11,” Thomas tells BACK ISSUE. “The younger readers in particular disliked it, so much so that when I came to work there, somewhere along the line, when I talked to Stan about it, he

Improbable Return Writer Roy Thomas did the impossible, the unthinkable, in Fantastic Four #176 (Nov. 1976) by reviving the Impossible Man. Cover art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

•

BACK ISSUE • 37

Tour de Farce Panels from FF #176.

Among the issue’s cameos are (top, left to right) Jack Kirby, George Pérez, Roy Thomas, and Stan Lee. (bottom) Impy decides he wants to be a comic-book star!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

wouldn’t let me or anyone else, for a number of years, use the Impossible Man in another story.”

Thomas had arrived at Marvel in 1965, two years after Impossible Man’s sole issue, upon taking the company’s infamous and short-lived “script test.” His first gig, as staff writer, led to a growing résumé of works that show Marvel’s diversity in those days— including the genres of romance, fantasy, war, and, yes, superheroes. After further imprinting his name in the Marvel lexicon, tackling larger-scale books and characters, in 1972 he found himself in the position of the company’s second editor-in-chief.

Simultaneously, he took over writing duties for Fantastic Four, the so-called “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine.” His run was marked by dramatic bouts and the team’s continued evolution as a family. Over 50 issues into his run, he decided to try something different.

He wanted to bring back this silly alien that many had forgotten from the previous decade.

And with that, the Impossible Man made his Bronze Age debut well after Fantastic Four hit the three-digit mark in its run, in #176 (Nov. 1976). Though interiors were done by a then-young and new artist in George

38 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Pérez, who would go on to reach comics stardom, the cover had a different, yet familiar look to it. “[Impossible Man’s] second story was the one I did with George Pérez,” Thomas says. “Until then, Stan wouldn’t allow the character to be used by anybody, but eventually, I not only got to use the character in The Fantastic Four, the book where he was first introduced, I even managed to get Jack Kirby to draw the cover, which I was very proud of. In fact, he drew it while the story was [in production], so a couple of things he put on the cover, like Impossible Man having pieces of the Marvel heroes on him, was done in time that [Pérez] actually worked some of that into the story.

“I’m very proud be first to manage to bring Impossible Man back.”

The cover, now the iconic image used for collections featuring Impy (his affectionate nickname in later issues) and webpages devoted to him, features the alien wreaking havoc upon the foursome. And it shows Impossible Man’s knack for multitasking, as his makeshift Iron Man glove blasts Human Torch in the face while landing a whack on the Thing’s face with Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, taking the place of his left hand. Sure, it’s doubtful that the alien would be worthy to pick up the hammer of the God of Thunder, but this is Impossible Man, after all.

Before Impossible Man would return to his extraordinarily crude ways, Thomas would make him into a hero.

It was Impy, after all, who would lead the Devourer of Worlds to his home planet to save Earthlings. It worked, too, even giving Galactus a terrible “case o’ terminal indigestion,” as the Thing would describe it so eloquently.

Now, Impossible Man was the sole survivor, though the hive nature of his people implied the least consequential version of alien genocide.

Despite the bold move, he quickly returned to his annoying ways as he set up shop on Earth.

It was this issue, Impy’s first of several Bronze Age appearances, that Thomas and Pérez began a tradition that served as a callback to the 1960s. It was the first of many appearances in which Impy would visit Marvel.

“The Fantastic Four pretty much behaved as the Fantastic Four would behave [in that issue]. The one thing that we allowed ourselves was to bring Stan and Jack in as guest stars into the story for a couple pages, and, in fact, the Marvel office [staff]. There’s always been that tradition in comics since the early days, that Marvel was doing a comic about the Fantastic Four.”

Impossible Man, in his typical bored fashion, heads over a couple streets from the previous scene.

His head, now rendered as a balloon, is seen spying into the company’s fifth-floor window at 575 Madison Avenue. A conversation is taking place between Kirby, Lee, Pérez, and Thomas. “‘Stan’? What is a ‘Stan’?” Impy humorously ponders.

He quickly becomes infatuated with the concept of comic books, and after barging into the building, demands that they make an Impossible Man solo series. Stan recognizes Impy, saying that “a lot of our readers didn’t like that issue, because he looked too silly.” His refusal is not met well.

Stan, the character, ends up going back on his word, making one more joke about “silly-looking characters” with a framed photo of Howard the Duck behind him. The real-life Lee, as well as fans, had actually come around to the character’s presence.

Stan Lee “never complained about it afterwards,” Thomas says. “I don’t recall us getting a lot of angry mail that time. By then, comics readers kind of grew up

enough to realize the whole subject of superheroes is ridiculous anyway. The concept of Impossible Man is one step in a different direction—in the same direction, really.”

In a “Story Behind The Story: A Personal View by Roy Thomas,” the final page of the issue, Thomas made a wordy case for bringing back Impy and how this story came to fruition. In a “post scriptum,” Thomas added another interesting point about bringing the Bullpen into the story: “A couple days after George finished the story and just as I was about to write it, I learned that—by the sheerest of coincidences—Marv (The) Wolfman had been at the office taking photos for a Bullpen-oriented story he intended to do in his own brand-new action-packed NOVA mag. Panicky lest we accidentally tread on each other’s toes, I have him a call. Marv immediately (and very graciously, I might add) volunteered to scrap his story, but I said why? What he was planning to do, I saw as he outlined it, was wildly different from what I was doing—so, since THE FANTASTIC FOUR would come out first, I’d simply put a couple of lines into George’s and my story to foreshadow what he and Sal [Buscema] were going to do in NOVA (and we’ll let you guess which ones they were)—while Marv, for his part, could pick up where we left off and we’d be all four working together to strike another blow for Mighty Marvel Continuity!”

THE IMPOSSIBLES Impossible Man stuck around the Baxter Building for few years, thwarting attacks against the president by the hands of Deathlok and haphazardly stopping attacks from the Frightful Four. He garnered an interest in watching TV, visiting Hollywood, and even romance, finding something special in the connection between the Thing and Alicia Masters. After posing as Ben Grimm’s top hat and reflecting on the concept of love in an issue of Marvel Two-In-One [#60, Feb. 1980], the series that

paired Grimm with a variety of heroes and villains, he decides to make an Impossible Woman as his companion.

“We are halves of a single whole…,” she says.

Impossible Man and Impossible Woman quickly take the next step and decide to start populating the world with Impossible children, each carrying that trademark grin of mischief. The couple uses the Four’s facilities to find a new home while making a visit, and with that, they’re off to “the perfect Poppup II.” It’s a new world, one that will work perfectly for a new population of Poppupians. With a handshake (which, of course, gave the Thing a joking jolt), Impossible Man and his family left for the new planet in the Kree galaxy.

Hats Off to Impy (left) The Confounding Conehead pops into a Thing team-up in Marvel Two-in-One #60 (Feb. 1980).

Cover by Bob Budiansky and Joe Rubinstein. (right) Impy doubles as Ben’s headwear in these funny panels from MTIO #60.

Written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio and drawn by George Pérez and Gene Day.

“She recognizes him at once—the same sad, gentle eyes, weathered face and a rough voice she’d seen and heard a score of times on TV and the silver screen. She loves his movies and, truth to tell, is a little in love with the man himself. And he now stands before her.

Humphrey Bogart.” …Except Humphrey wasn’t Humphrey. Sure, when rendered by artist Steve Leialoha, the likeness is uncanny. But this Humphrey, standing in Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew’s office and clad in a trenchcoat, was green-skinned and strangely unstable. It is Impossible Man, and another scribe has taken it upon himself to use the Poppup menace.

One of the creators behind this issue of Spider-Woman, issue #45 (Aug. 1982), may be considered an unlikely scribe for Impossible Man. Yet, he would go on to inject the character into multiple comics and storylines. And yes, he’d even bring him back to the Marvel Bullpen.

After all, writer Chris Claremont is no stranger to being terrorized in the fictional version of the Marvel offices. “I speak as one that’s been killed off once and had my head shrunk,” he says, speaking with BACK ISSUE about his take on Impossible Man.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

•

BACK ISSUE • 39

Shake Your Bogie Chris Claremont and Steve Leialoha’s Spider-Woman #45 (Aug. 1982, left) brought back the Impossible Man once again, with Impy impersonating a famous film gumshoe (right).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In the Bronze Age, Claremont’s work was marked by tale, penned by Claremont and drawn primarily by drama. His name is synonymous with Uncanny X-Men, Michael Golden, begins with one lighthearted activity providing bleak and tragic tales, at times. He was known that was part of the X-Men tradition from the early for penning betrayals, deaths, and dramatic resolutions. days: a game of baseball. Claremont maintains that The darker turn is a trait given to the Bronze Age as a the inclusion of games was natural, as the lives of whole, with the introduction of new themes that superheroes couldn’t be daily dismay. The weren’t all sunshine. And Claremont realized round didn’t start that fair, with Wolverine, that his take on Impossible Man could Nightcrawler, and Rogue facing off with come as a surprise for those used to his Storm, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde. But serious work. “The last thing someone as Colossus hits one out of the park, would expect from me is belly the game takes an even starker turn. laughs,” he says.

A massive, Kirby-esque ship parks “Any idiot can kill off a character. above the mansion, and its colossal To get a reader to laugh consistently occupant appears. A green Galactus. … that’s hard.”

Readers with shakier memories may Indeed, Claremont’s stories connot have put it together at first, as the tained more than a couple laughs X-Men’s attempts to stop the oddand chuckles, from hip references to looking take on the tyrant are futile. visual gags that relied on Leialoha’s Shockingly, the green-tinted Ravager chris claremont pencils for full realization. In typical of Worlds takes the X-Mansion and fashion, Impy ends up actually exits, leaving confusion in his wake. benefitting the world, helping Spider-Woman catch a Galactus is an unlikely foe for the mutants, and while few crooks with little effort. And in the end, he’s the team regroups and prepares its next move, readers rewarded by reuniting with his love. Impy says goodbye, are transported to an intimate scene between thenalso in typical fashion, by first offering to help out in Colonel Nick Fury and his partner, La Contessa Valentina future escapades. With quick thinking, Jessica Drew Allegro de Fontaine. As things get heavy, the silhouette convinces the pair to exit Earth again. of a hand can be seen, reaching behind Fury’s head. It’s And perhaps one of Impossible Man’s defining Shadowcat, but when the jig’s up, she’s not sure how stories comes at the other end of the Bronze Age, in she got there. As a green, shape-shifting monster the pages of Uncanny X-Men Annual #7 (1983). The escapes, more questions are left between S.H.I.E.L.D.

40 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

agents and escaping X-Men. The only certainty is that someone has stolen Fury’s eyepatch.

A pattern reveals itself, as the X-Men find that Ka-Zar’s sabertooth, Zabu, has also been taken in the Savage Land. Rogue puts it together first, stating that this whole thing is looking like a “scavenger hunt.”

And what kind of creature would do that? The Fantasticar, Wasp’s costume, the window in Dr. Strange’s Sanctum, and more—Rogue’s suspicions are correct. But it’s only on his last retrieval, in which he tries to obtain Stan Lee himself, that the pest is stopped. In the end, Claremont brings it back to the Marvel offices, and in a brilliant move, Impossible Man stops by the old Madison Avenue location first, now found to be vacant.

Alas, he has better luck at 387 Park Avenue South.

Claremont has upped not only the intricacy of Impy’s activities, but also the amount of name-dropping that comes with visits to the fictional Bullpen. Names like Mark Gruenwald, Eliot Brown, Mike Carlin, Darlene Cole, Michael Golden, Larry Hama, Michael Hobson, and then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter are seen.

And after a brief altercation and misunderstanding, Impy takes the X-Men to see his spoils in person, leaving a proper excuse for late books for the coming month. He proceeds to explain how the grand scavenger hunt started. As he decided to give his wife and offspring individual personalities when he made them, it eventually became necessary for someone to lead everyone. After all, this wasn’t a hive mind like the original Poppup.

An election proved difficult, with each person voting for himself or herself. A contest was created to replace it. But then, the explanation is interrupted by a surprise— a legion of aliens appearing to take their revenge on the troublemaker. Thankfully, Lilandra is able to get him off the hook by acting as judge for the hunt and returning the stolen items.

Impossible Man laments his loss at the pool, joined

by Kitty and Illyana. He convinces them to share their ice cream by transforming two last times—once as Tom Selleck, and then as Garfield, as the trio looks into the camera with the sign-off: “This, folks, is the … ever-lovin’, ever-livin’ end!”

As with most Annuals, the story doesn’t contain any great plot points for characters, save Impossible Man, an unlikely figure in the X-books. It was a chance for Claremont to depart heavily from current events in the world. And in a way, it wasn’t that atypical of a series like Uncanny X-Men, a world where powers—and situations— go far beyond reality. “It plays to the concept that in this series, anything can happen,” Claremont says.

Claremont and Thomas both look back at the character fondly. And both acknowledge the advantages and difficulties of using heroes and villains of an oddball nature—specifically ones that don’t “exactly break the fourth wall, but to go off in a side room, perhaps,” as Thomas describes.

“I looked at what Stan and Jack had done in the first story,” Thomas says. “We just did the story. You knew it was a little more difficult because it was such a ridiculous character. This character may be ridiculous to us, but to himself, he’s dead serious. And anything he does will have real consequences, so we tried to treat it as though as he was nutty by our standards, but after all, he was an alien, and who are we tell an alien how they should behave or think?”

As for his modern appearances, Thomas is pleased to see Impossible Man’s continued presence: “I’m glad

to see the character is around. Too bad he didn’t have his own comic book, as far as I’m concerned. But I could see maybe why he never did on a regular basis. You’d think somebody would have tried it by now though.”

The Bronze Age, as bleak as it sometimes got, provided a venue for characters like Impossible Man to thrive. By building on what had been done in the days of Lee and Kirby, each creative team took it a step further, with Claremont’s involvement proof of the Marvel offices not being afraid of self-parody. For Thomas, introducing the character into the Bronze Age started with enjoying that original appearance in Fantastic Four #11, despite the protest of others.

“My main thing was simply being a fan of the character,” Thomas says, “and finding a way to bring him back.”

Mayhem in Mutantland Guess who pops up in 1983’s X-Men Annual #7? Cover by John Romita, Jr. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ANDY SMITH is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Charlotte, NC. His work can be seen in publications like Creative Loafing, Charlotte magazine, and Weekly World News.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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by

Rob Kelly

1982 (or so): My Dad drops me off in front of Kiddie City (R.I.P.), fistful of cash in hand.

As I usually did, I made a beeline for the Star Wars aisle, picked up the figures I needed (not wanted; needed), and headed for the registers.

One of the aisles you could pass on the way was the “cut-out” aisle: all the toys that weren’t selling, and priced to move. It was there I saw it: on an end-cap were all four Mego Fantastic Four dolls: Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and the Thing. And they weren’t just on the end-cap, they were the end-cap: about four or five rows wide, six to seven rows high, every single peg had one of the stars of the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.

There must have been dozens of them, all slapped with a neon orange sticker saying something like 59 cents, maybe less.

While I had grown up reading comics and collecting Megos, once Star Wars showed up, superhero toys got pushed to the side.

So while I kept the Megos I had, I didn’t bother getting new ones, worrying more about whether I was ever going to find a Bossk (I did, by the way). I remember taking a pause in amazement that there were so many Fantastic Fours, but it didn’t stop me from purchasing what I had gone there to get. I left the FF where I found them: marked down, collecting dust.

Only later did I see the missed opportunity: Not only would my love of superhero toys come back in full force after Star Wars had run its course, but this was the toy equivalent of investing early in Microsoft. I could have picked up dozens, maybe even hundreds, of MOC Fantastic Four Megos for a song, where now they’d be many thousands of dollars. I coulda bought a car—maybe even a Fantasticar! Stupid kid.

ROB KELLY is a writer, illustrator, and comics historian. He is the creator/EIC of The Aquaman Shrine blog, the co-creator/writer of the award-winning webcomic Ace KIlroy, and the creator/editor of the book Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales from the Spinner Rack, from Crazy 8 Press.

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RUSS HEATH career-spanning interview, essay on Heath’s work by S.C. RINGGENBERG (and Heath art gallery), MORT TODD on working with STEVE DITKO, a profile of alt cartoonist DAN GOLDMAN, part two of our MARK WAID interview, DENYS COWAN on his DJANGO series, VIC BLOOM and THE SECRET ORIGIN OF ARCHIE ANDREWS, HEMBECK, new KEVIN NOWLAN cover!

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The first mention of Galactus comes from the mouth of a Skrull space commander as his crew encounters the Silver Surfer in deep space (The Fantastic Four #48, Mar. 1966): “It is not merely him, you fool!! Have you not studied your cosmic history? Wherever he appears, it is certain that Galactus cannot be very far behind!”

From that introduction, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby boldly set up a universal presence for this new cosmic character, harvesting a sense of fear and grandeur.

The story of Galan of Taa isn’t your typical “Bring on the Bad Guys” article. Galactus rises above the archetypal definition of a villain, as he can’t be pinned down as evil. Galactus acts as a dynamic force that compels protagonists to reevaluate their place in the universe, putting perspective on their goals and their existence. Through this mysterious and complex character, creators for decades have explored the vast cosmic unknown and populated it with their own ideas and constructs.

THE GALACTUS TRILOGY In the classic Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48–50, Mar.–May 1966), the Silver Surfer leads his master to Earth, despite the efforts of the usually passive and stoic Watcher. Lee and Kirby took the “World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” to a new level—our heroes had repelled alien invasions and defeated every Earth-based threat, but now they faced a new cosmic antagonist that would put them in their place.

From his conception, Galactus was meant to be more than just another villain. Lee wanted a character who broke their supervillain mold. “We didn’t want to use the tired old cliché about him wanting to conquer the world,” recalled Stan Lee in his introduction to Marvel Masterworks vol. 25 (Oct. 1993). “There were enough would-be world conquerors in the Marvel Universe and in all the other comic-book galaxies. That was when inspiration struck. Why not have him not be a really evil person? After all, a demi-god should be beyond mere good and evil. He’d just be (don’t laugh!) hungry. And the nourishment he’d require is the life force and energy from living planets!”

Galactus arrives in dramatic fashion and doesn’t acknowledge the existence of our heroes, but instead confronts Uatu the Watcher, who he treats as an equal.

Uatu, who has been assigned by his advanced race to observe the Earth, argues that Galactus should spare the Earth because of the potential of humankind. Galactus isn’t moved by the Watcher’s pleas: “It is not my intention to injure any living being! But … I must replenish my by

Jason Shayer

Not Your Routine Rogue We salute the Jack Kirby/George Klein cover of The Mighty Thor #169 (Oct. 1969) with a montage of Galactus cover appearances.

All covers and characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc., except Darkseid and Orion, TM & © DC Comics.

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Silver Age Classics (left) Fantastic Four #48 (Mar. 1966) rocked the world. (right) Galactus’ reach extended outside of the FF— including this appearance in Thor #168 (Sept. 1969).

Covers by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

energy! If petty creatures are wiped out when I drain a planet, it is regrettable … but unavoidable!”

While Galactus may be removed from human emotions, his faithful herald proves to be his conscience.

The Silver Surfer learns firsthand about humanity through the blind sculptress, Alicia Masters. In Fantastic Four #50 (May 1966), the Surfer has an epiphany and takes up humanity’s cause against his master. So strong are his newfound convictions, the Silver Surfer attacks Galactus, ever knowing that even his cosmic might is nothing compared to that of his creator.

With the help of the Watcher and the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four and Earth meet Galactus’ challenge and earn their continued existence. While it may have been a bluff, Reed Richards was prepared to sacrifice himself to destroy Galactus by using the Ultimate Nullifier. Before leaving, Galactus strikes down his former herald and binds the Silver Surfer to the Earth.

“And for some reason I went to the Bible and I came up with Galactus,” revealed Jack Kirby during an interview for The Masters of the Comic Book Art documentary in 1987. “And there I was, in front of this tremendous figure, who I knew very well because I’ve always felt him, and I certainly couldn’t treat him in the same way that I would any ordinary mortal. And I remember in my first story, I had to back away from him to resolve that story. And, of course, the Silver Surfer is a fallen angel, and when Galactus relegated him to Earth, he stayed on Earth. And that was the beginning of his adventures.

And they were figures that had never before been

46 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

used in comics. They were above mythic figures. And, of course, they were the first gods.”

It’s difficult not to see biblical themes that are leveraged in the relationship between Galactus and the Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer is the fallen angel who was willing to defy his god’s desires. For his insolence, Galactus punishes the Surfer in a similar way to Lucifer being cast out and denied re-entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. And keeping with the biblical themes, the Watcher plays the satanic figure with his offer of knowledge with the Ultimate Nullifier, which parallels the apple from the garden Eden. You can also see the Watcher’s role as a modern-day Prometheus, bringing cosmic knowledge to the Marvel heroes, like Prometheus brought fire down from Olympus.

GALACTUS: THE ORIGIN Concerned of the potential threat that Galactus may one day pose to Asgard, the All-Father Odin in The Mighty Thor #167 (Aug. 1969) dispatches Thor to gather more information. Galactus welcomes the audience with Thor and they have a cordial sit-down where Galactus explains that he isn’t a direct threat.

Galactus relates his origin and his primordial need to feed off of the energies of living worlds.

At first, this Lee and Kirby origin seems similar to the origin of Superman, instead with a scientist named Galen who has realized that their civilization is doomed. However, it’s not just the world of Taa, but the universe itself that is dying. Galen departs with a

few other survivors and enters the “blazing cosmic cauldron into which all the matter in the universe was plunging!” Within this cosmic crunch, the sentience of the dying universe spares him and transforms him into “a living organism who possesses the matchless power and raging appetite of a galaxy.” And thus, Galactus was born. Uatu the Watcher is the first to come across Galen’s damaged starship and studies him as he completes his incubation period and emerges to take his place in the new universe. “For no matter how many worlds I devour … how many civilizations I destroy…” states Galactus in a monologue that wraps up the issue, “it is my destiny to one day give back to the universe— infinitely more than I have ever taken from it.”

The origin material from these issues was collected and massaged into a stand-alone issue, Super-Villain Classics #1 (May 1983). Bob Layton provided the memorable cover with Mark Gruenwald, John Byrne, Ron Wilson, and Jack Abel credited with contributing the bridging material that shaped the issue into a cohesive story.

With Fantastic Four and Thor, Lee and Kirby took their first steps at defining the Marvel Universe beyond the planet Earth. Up until that point, they had used aliens as villains-of-the-week, but with Galactus, Watcher, Ego, and many others, they started to explain how the greater Marvel Universe functioned. Their fun storytelling approach to tackling the mysteries of the cosmos still resonates with readers and creators today.

GALACTUS VS. EGO Galactus returns to Earth in the pages of Thor #226 (Aug. 1974), guided by a new herald, Firelord. This time, in this tale by Gerry Conway and John Buscema, Galactus isn’t interested in satiating his hunger, but rather seeks Thor’s help to defeat the cosmic menace known as Ego, the Living Planet.

“I was excited,” recalls writer Gerry Conway.

“Galactus was one of my favorite Marvel characters.

Back when I first wrote for Marvel I was like a kid in a candy store, just filling up on all the good stuff with no idea what I was getting myself into.

“One of my favorite comics as a fan was Fantastic Four #48. The idea of an entity so powerful he worries one of the previously most powerful entities in the Marvel Universe (the Watcher) was an enormously thrilling idea to me. The scale of the character’s reach, metaphorically, reminded me of Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. A story universe that could contain a being like Galactus was a very large universe indeed. I’m not sure I could imagine doing a story better than the one Stan and Jack told.

Master and Herald Of course, it’s debatable as to whether Galactus or Jack Kirby is the “master” here… This 1969 Marvelmania poster by the King is courtesy Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

You’ve Got a Friend Galactus calls upon the Thunder God for help in Gerry Conway’s Thor #226 (Aug. 1974). Cover by John Romita, Sr. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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“I loved Ego—but in many ways he’s a much ‘smaller’ character than Galactus because he’s somewhat comprehensible,” Conway explains. “He’s basically insane (whatever that means on a planetary scale), so we don’t expect him to react ‘rationally.’ Galactus has an agenda that’s incompressible by its nature to human thinking. So he’s a much more interesting and challenging character to create stories around.”

Thor joins Galactus’ crusade, along with Hercules, and they attack Ego. Galactus exiles the Living Planet into deep space. Yet Galactus was disheartened in the victory, feeling for Ego who was a being much like him on many levels: “Once, I too was a man, much as Ego was a man—and a part of that man still breathes within me, as a part still breathes within Ego. To survive, I must do many things which shame me—things I would not do, had I the choice. Were I not Galactus, and were not Ego mad—we might have been comrades in a way you can never understand. But I am Galactus—and Ego is mad—and our destinies are decreed.

We have our roles and we must fulfill them—though the sadness is great indeed.”

Gerry Conway observes, “Galactus was an incredibly sophisticated take on the concept of ‘God.’ He was beyond human considerations of good and evil.

We just didn’t matter to him. It’s wonderful that in Stan and Jack’s initial confrontation with Galactus, humanity ‘wins’ by presenting Galactus with a threat we’re not even capable of understanding—it’s literally a deus ex machina ending, and it works because the threat Galactus himself presents is existential.

So treating him as a ‘bad guy’ misses the point. He is neither good nor bad.

He just … is. And because of that, he can be either a protagonist or an antagonist.

I think it’s a mistake to ‘humanize’ him, or to anthropomorphize his motives.

He can’t be understood by humans.”

MANY UNHAPPY RETURNS TO EARTHS In Bill Mantlo and George Pérez’s Fantastic Four #172 (July 1976), Galactus’ new herald, the Destroyer, detects the existence of the High Evolutionary’s Counter-Earth. The Fantastic Four engage the Destroyer, but they are unsuccessful at preventing him from summoning his master, who’s more than eager to devour an energy-rich duplicate of Earth.

“My approach to writing cosmic beings was to see what Stan and Jack (and occasionally others) had done, and build from there, augmented by my own scant knowledge of science fiction and fantasy,” admits writer Roy Thomas, who took over the writing of Fantastic Four with issue #173 and was accompanied by artist John Buscema. “I think Galactus is like the capstone of the Marvel Universe.

He virtually sets the boundaries, at least in conjunction with the Watcher.”

The High Evolutionary stands his ground in Fantastic Four #173 (Aug. 1976) and confronts Galactus. Galactus is sympathetic to the High Evolutionary’s pleas and agrees to temporarily spare Counter-Earth in exchange for another populated world that would agree to give itself up. After 48 hours, Galactus returns to devour Counter-Earth, but the High Evolutionary engages him long enough for Sue Richards to find another planet that will appease him. Galactus is fooled into devouring what seemed to be a planet inhabited by humanoids. The planet turns out to be Popup, the homeworld of the Impossible Man’s people, and since they share a single consciousness, they survived within the Impossible Man himself, while sacrificing their bodies to give Galactus terminal indigestion.

The High Evolutionary couldn’t simply watch Galactus die. Feeling a certain kinship with the world devourer, the High Evolutionary devolves Galactus into a raw, primal energy, one that wouldn’t be cursed with his unquenchable thirst for energy.

Galactus’ fate was later addressed in Fantastic Four #210 (Sept. 1979), written by Marv Wolfman with art by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott, where his homeworld ship gathers that residual energy and recreates a physical version of the cosmic god. In this issue, the Fantastic Four recruit Galactus to fend off the threat of the Sphinx. However, Galactus has no interest in defending the Earth; after all, it was the only world to deny him. Reed gambles, and in exchange for Galactus’ help in defeating the Sphinx, he offers to release Galactus of his pledge to never harm the Earth.

Like a Bad Penny… …Ol’ Eat-’Em-Up keeps returning to plague the FF. Covers to FF #173 (Aug. 1976) and #210 (Sept. 1979) by Kirby and Sinnott and Keith Pollard and Frank Giacoia, respectively.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

48 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Galactus and the Sphinx go toe-to-toe in FF #213 (Dec. 1979) in an Earth-shaking battle. Not only does Galactus prove to be the Sphinx’s superior by defeating him and destroying his mystical Ka stone, he condemns the Sphinx to live an unbreakable loop of time where he is forced to experience his tragic lifetime over and over. This vindictive choice of punishment for an amoral being like Galactus suggests that Galactus took their battle as a personal affront and that within that cosmically powered exterior, there’s a human remnant.

Despite his victory, Reed tricks him and stares him down with what he claims to be a copy of the Ultimate Nullifier.

Unwilling to call Reed’s bluff, Galactus withdraws from the Earth once again, but warns Reed that he will return to consume the Earth.

HERCULES VS. GALACTUS After appearances in Dazzler #10 and ROM #26–27 in the early 1980s, Galactus makes a memorable appearance in the Hercules: Prince of Power limited series in 1982, which took place in an alternate universe set in the 24th Century. This limited series was meant to be a stand-alone series that had a fun tie-in to recent successful science-fiction movies like the Star Wars franchise.

In Hercules: Prince of Power #4 (Dec. 1982) by writer/artist Bob Layton, Galactus threatens to devour the world that Hercules was visiting. Hercules confronts Galactus and declares that the planet is under his protection. Galactus is unmoved by Hercules’ pronouncement, so Hercules attacks him, but is quickly taught that he isn’t in Galactus’ cosmic league.

Unwilling to give up, Hercules changes tactics and

Odd Outings Among Galactus’ out-of-the-ordinary appearances: (left to right) Dazzler #10 (Dec. 1981), cover by Frank Springer/Vince Colletta; ROM #26 (Jan. 1982), cover by Al Milgrom; and Marvel Team-Up #137 (Jan. 1984), cover by Greg LaRocque. (bottom) Herc and Galactus, drinking buddies! The cover (inset) and a few interior panels from writer/artist Bob Layton’s Hercules: Prince of Power #4 (Dec. 1982).

All TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. except ROM TM & © Hasbro.

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The Byrne Years Longtime FF writer/artist John Byrne crafted several memorable chapters in the Galactus saga. Among them: Fantastic Four #243 (June 1982), 244—where FF supporting cast member Frankie Raye becomes Galactus’ herald Nova—and 257 (Aug. 1983).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

uses an alien poison that is claimed to be the most potent in the universe: “One drop of this stuff can turn a black hole inside out!”

The poison doesn’t faze Galactus, but it does get him slightly inebriated—so much so that Galactus removed his helmet and had a good belly laugh at Hercules’ expense. Hercules’ efforts pay off as Galactus spares this world: “For the first time in memory, someone has made Galactus forget his hunger!”

The removal of Galactus’ helmet was the first glimpse we had at Galactus’ face since he was created. Galactus’ face was designed

by Bob Layton, as mentioned on his blog (boblayton.com): “I had discussed the idea of showing his face with editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and we both agreed that the Devourer of Worlds should have a somewhat Roman look to him—sans helmet. But, boy—there were a lot of nervous people in the Marvel offices when I let it be known that I was going to do that (along with getting Galactus drunk in that process).”

BYRNE’S GALACTUS John Byrne wrapped up his first year as writer and artist on Fantastic Four with his own Galactus trilogy in issue #242–244 (May–July 1982). In contrast to the original trilogy, Terrax, one of Galactus’ former heralds, holds a large portion of Manhattan hostage and bullies the FF into helping him attack his former master. The irony of this situation is that Galactus had specifically chosen Terrax since he was amoral, and Galactus had hoped to avoid any future betrayal similar to the Silver Surfer’s.

“When I started writing and drawing The Fantastic Four, one of the first things Jim Shooter, as editor-in-chief, said to me was, ‘Redeem Galactus!’ ” wrote John Byrne in March 2013 on his Byrne Robotics Forum. “The character, one of the greatest—and most intellectually challenging—Stan and Jack created, had indeed fallen on hard times.

He had become a ‘cosmic thug,’ and much of his original grandeur

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had been whittled away. (The most ignominious moment was surely when he ‘ate’ the planet Popup and developed ‘cosmic indigestion.’)

So, since I really, really, REALLY liked the character, I took Shooter’s words very much to heart, and over the next four years set about rebuilding Galactus in his original image. This culminated with ‘The Trial of Reed Richards.’ Of course, it was WHILE I was doing this that Shooter authorized the Hercules: Prince of Power miniseries, in which Galactus gets drunk and takes off his helmet. Sigh.”

In Fantastic Four #243 (June 1982), Byrne hints at the bits of humanity within the demi-god: “Galactus does what Galactus must to survive. Still, my deeds weigh upon me, and so does my very sanity totter upon a razor’s edge.” Byrne is sowing the seeds and foreshadowing Galactus’ defeat in this storyline.

Instead of attacking Reed, Ben, and Johnny, who had invaded his home, Galactus greets them and informs them that he is aware of Terrax’s actions. Galactus, even in his weakened state, easily dispatches Terrax and strips his former herald of the Power Cosmic. However, in his depleted state, Galactus has no choice but to feed on Earth, despite Reed’s protests.

“Speak to me not of humanity, Reed Richards!” says Galactus, defending his actions in Fantastic Four #243. “You talk of color to one struck blind. My humanity is lost in the swirling mists of time. So do not speak to me of four billion lives. Galactus has seen the end of forty times four billion worlds. Must we know grief for each of these? Had he but tears to cry, Galactus could weep oceans in their memory and in the end, they would still be dead, and madness would at last have claimed me.” Byrne is again carefully placing a plot trail through which he will bring about the shocking climax of this story. Byrne also establishes a layer of humanity within Galactus that Galactus is aware of, but now because of the cosmic role he plays, he has to cast it aside.

One unique detail Byrne added to the Galactus mythos was that Galactus could vary in size, depending on his energy level. As the Earth’s heroes gather to drive off Galactus, they notice that Galactus is smaller than when he first appeared. From another post on his forum in April 2010, Byrne noted that “Applying the interpretation I added to the mix, that Galactus actually changes size depending on his level of hunger, I suppose a truly satiated Galactus might approach Celestial size,” to which Byrne elaborated a bit more in a subsequent Byrne Robotics Forum post in February 2012: “I introduced to idea that he changes size depending on how much energy he has absorbed (and how much is left) as a way of “excusing” the fact that Kirby didn’t seem to draw him the same height from appearance

to appearance.”

Despite Galactus’ weakened state, the heroes realize they still can’t physically defeat him and turn to the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange, who casts an Images of Ikonn spell to subdue Galactus.

Byrne pulls on those human aspects of Galactus that he carefully foreshadowed, about how Galactus didn’t have the time to absorb the guild for his actions. This spell forces Galactus to confront his costly actions and his mind collapses, overwhelmed by the guilt.

So now what do our heroes do with an unconscious and dying cosmic god? Reed Richards takes the only real human and heroic option and uses his intellect to save Galactus’ life. This recharge provides Galactus with enough energy to leave Earth and seek another planet to satiate his hunger. Before leaving, Galactus imparts these humbling words: “Earth shall never more need fear me… For perhaps here, on this tiny whirling mote alone in all the cosmos has Galactus truly found those he might dare name … friends.”

Just over a year later, in Fantastic Four #257 (Aug. 1983), the ramifications of Reed’s decision to save Galactus catch up with him and he’s abducted from Earth. The rest of the Fantastic Four search for him in FF #261 (Sept. 1983), and that leads them to the blue area of the Moon to seek the council of Uatu the Watcher. Uatu then transports them to a ragtag alien fleet of beings who are the collected remnants of the worlds devoured by Galactus.

When they find Reed, who is being tortured as part of the execution process for the crime of saving Galactus’ life, Uatu demands a formal trial (Fantastic Four #261): “…There is about Galactus much, much more than mere mortal minds can ever comprehend. My race has known of him since his very beginnings, yet we understand only a tiny fraction of his overwhelming power and purpose. And do not doubt that Galactus has a purpose. There is an order of things in this universe. One such as he would not be permitted to exist unless he had a place in it.”

The consequences of this trial were so important that Uatu summons writer/artist John Byrne to have him transcribe the proceedings. It could have also just been a fun, tongue-in-cheek response to the Assistant Editor’s Month! Either way, it was a fun device by Byrne to inject himself into the story much like Lee and Kirby had done during their run on The Fantastic Four.

Odin the All-Father is then summoned to the trial to shed a bit of light on the cosmic significance of Galactus. He explains that Galactus was the sole survivor of the previous universe, preserved by the Sentience of the Universe and reborn in the new universe. Byrne saw Galactus as the universe’s way of testing the worlds that the character encountered. “To each world in time he comes and his very coming is a test. Those that pass the test are strengthened by it, and made more worthy of that great fate which is the promised end of our universe. Those that fail, fail totally, and are forever expunged, wiped from the slate of time and space.”

Galactus then interrupts the proceedings and elicits a response from the story’s narrator, which we can assume is Byrne’s voice: “A million and more alien eyes look upon him who is Galactus, and for each race the vision differs. For Galactus is truly no longer a being in the absolute physical sense. He is as Odin named him, a force of nature. And each mind that views him struggles as best it can to perceive that unguessable force as an image it can comprehend.”

This characteristic of Galactus’ being was another contribution by Byrne to give him more of that god-like aspect.

Galactus then dramatically declares his friendship for Reed Richards, which doesn’t really help Reed’s cause. And finally, in what turns out to be a cavalcade of cosmic beings, Eternity, the

personification of all life in the Universe, makes itself known. Eternity allows everyone to temporarily merge with the consciousness of the universe and understand Galactus’ place in the universe.

In this two-part story, Byrne establishes that Galactus does have a designed role in the universe. He backs up Uatu’s initial statement using other cosmic authority figures to reinforce both the importance and the mystery of Galactus’ role. There’s a certain sense of majesty and wonder about Galactus’ place in the universe; it may be beyond mortal comprehension, but it’s still entertaining to explore and conceptualize.

Byrne revealed on his message board in February 2005 his vision of Galactus’ role and how he saw the end to Galactus’ story: “Realizing at last what his purpose is, Galactus cracks the seal on his suit, starts to remove his helmet, and in that instant all the energy he has absorbed explodes out of him. He becomes the ‘big bang’ of the next universe, and when the smoke clears, we see Nova [still Galactus’ faithful herald hundreds of years into the future] has been reborn, as that universe’s Galactus.” [Editor’s note: Byrne’s “Last Galactus Story” was the subject of a “Greatest Stories Never Told” article in BACK ISSUE #46.]

SECRET WARS Galactus was an interesting choice to include in the 1984 event Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Mike Zeck and John Beatty. A seemingly omnipotent being known as the Beyonder kidnaps a roster of heroes and villains and pits them against each other on a newly formed planet called Battleworld.

Galactus ignores the game and openly defies the Beyonder by confronting him (Secret Wars #1, May 1984): “You! Beyonder! Hear me! Hear Galactus! I sense that you are truly a being from beyond this universe—this multiverse! I sense the energies you wield … and I know… I know—! You can take from Galactus, Devourer of Worlds,

Big Event The influence of Galactus played a role in the mega-crossover Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.

Splash page to Secret Wars #9 (Jan. 1985). Art by Mike Zeck and John Beatty. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Heralds Two Courtesy of Heritage, original cover art by Marshall Rogers, inked and signed

by Joe Rubinstein, for the first issue of writer Steve Englehart’s Silver Surfer series. (inset) Cover to issue #1 (July 1987), in color.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

his hunger! You can end his ceaseless, monstrous craving for the very essence of living worlds—let it be done!

I will not wait! I will not let some petty charade delay my respite! The torment must end now!”

Galactus’ goal isn’t to defeat or attack the Beyonder, but rather to demand that the Beyonder free him of his cosmic burden. Shooter’s perspective adds a tragic flare to the Galactus’ character as he struggles with a torturous existence. But the Beyonder proves to be more powerful than Galactus and swats him aside like an annoying insect. While Galactus didn’t really fit into the Secret Wars’ theme of good versus evil, he serves as a means to calibrate the power levels of the Beyonder.

“And why Galactus? He doesn’t fit! Human beings and even gods may be tempted, but Galactus is a force of nature—no more capable of having enemies than a hurricane or an earthquake!” asks Reed

Richards in Secret Wars #9 (Jan. 1985). Galactus recovers from his defeat at the hands of the Beyonder and is unwavering in his determination to confront the Beyonder again.

After an audience with Galactus, Reed returns to the heroes to convince them that Galactus should be allowed to devour the planet. He argues that if the Beyonder does honor the rewards of a victory in his game, it would be for the greater good. Shooter’s interpretation of Galactus’ greatest desire was that he longs to be free of the destructive hunger that compels him to devour worlds. Fulfilling that desire would save countless planets and lives. What becomes evident in Shooter’s take on Galactus is that he is being rather selfish and perhaps all too human, putting his needs before the larger needs of the universe. If he could be purged of his need to devour planets, it would jeopardize his cosmic role. Perhaps we can look at this event as a momentary lapse of judgment or weakness, where Galactus sees an opportunity to bypass a rather challenging cosmarshall rogers mic destiny.

However, the heroes aren’t swayed Photo by Tenebrae

by Reed’s logic and continue to fight. at English Wikipedia.

The heroes successfully defend the planet and drive off Galactus. He returns to his homeworld spacecraft Taa II and consumes it. But before he can absorb that energy, Dr. Doom siphons his powers and uses it to temporarily defeat the Beyonder. As the limited series concludes with the Beyonder being restored to power, there’s no closure in terms of what happens to Galactus. The consequences of this event expanded the cosmic-power levels of the Marvel Universe, created a power class beyond Galactus, and put a character perspective on Galactus that would be used by later creators.

ENGLEHART’S SILVER SURFER “When I took over the Silver Surfer, the one thing I wanted to do was get him back into space, free, and after a few bumps in the road, Marvel let me do that. So I got to explore him when he wasn’t whining about being trapped all the time,” Englehart tells BACK ISSUE readers. “My Silver Surfer got to roam the spaceways and participate, or not participate, with the cosmic beings he encountered, as he chose. But it was always just under the surface that Galactus made him and Galactus could unmake him at any time. Thus, the story where he stood up to Galactus was a watershed moment. The Silver Surfer might die, but the Surfer wouldn’t whine any more.”

In The Silver Surfer #9 (Mar. 1988), the Elders of the Universe set a plan into motion to use the six soul gems to destroy Galactus. By destroying Galactus, the Elders hope to destroy Death and Eternity and bring an end to the universe and ultimately end their eternal existence with which they had become disenchanted.

“Putting the Silver Surfer back into space gave me all of [Marvel] space to play with, and all inhabitants

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thereof,” Englehart says. “The Elders of the Universe were fairly minor characters as individuals, but putting them together made for a rich and complex mix, and all together added up to something able to take on Galactus. I don’t think I had any larger message; I was just playing with the pieces I’d gotten myself.” The Elders of the Universe almost succeed, but the Silver Surfer and Nova rescue Galactus, and he then devours his enemies.

Englehart defines Galactus’ place in the Marvel Universe in Silver Surfer #10 (Apr. 1988): “Galactus is the third force in reality. Between the entities called Death and Eternity. I exist to rectify their imbalances!” Galactus then has a discussion with Eternity, to whom he refers as “father” and takes the form of living sun to interact with him. “To me, Eternity brings Allness, and Death brings Nothingness—and Galactus is the being who transforms All to Nothing by consuming it,” according to Englehart.

“He’s the link between Alpha and Omega, and just as important in the scheme of things because without a connection, the first two exist in complete solitude.

Thus, a sun made sense for him, because suns consume themselves on the way to Nothingness.”

The issue wraps up with a lingering plot thread that has Galactus suffering from a case of indigestion, unable to properly digest the Elders. That plot thread is picked up a few months later in Silver Surfer #16 (Oct. 1988), with Galactus dying because he was unable to digest the Elders he had devoured. He pleads for assistance from Reed and Susan Richards and the Silver Surfer.

Their adventures bring them into contact with another paired set of cosmic beings, Chaos and Order. While Eternity and Death are the base forces of the Marvel core reality, Order and Chaos are a similar representation of another reality. While Chaos and Order are more naturally at odds, Eternity and Death are less confrontational. The Marvel core reality needs a force like Galactus to shake up that balance every once and awhile. Impressed by that trinity, Chaos and Order decide to create the being called the In-Betweener to escalate their own conflict.

Englehart, as many other writers, hints at Galactus having a greater purpose. But is that purpose so far removed from what we can understand that we shouldn’t bother, or does that perhaps drive us to become something more?

“I enjoy thinking about stuff like that, so I’m all in favor of striving for something greater than we think we are,” admits Englehart. “Galactus caused me to think and hopefully can cause others to do the same.

But as for whether he gives a damn about that or us— I don’t think he does. If he thought about the lives he was consuming, he’d go mad, so he doesn’t consider us at all. It’s like eating yogurt; there are millions of bacteria in there, and we could care less.”

In Silver Surfer #17 (Nov. 1988), the In-Betweener describes himself as “I am everything, for I am nothing!

I am a concept … of concepts!” The undevoured Elders convince the In-Betweener to kill Galactus. In his weakened state, Galactus can’t defend himself.

However, the In-Betweener can’t destroy Galactus, since Galactus is a unique being and there is no other cosmic force that is diametrically opposed to him.

Chaos and Order intercede at the behest of the Silver Surfer and free Galactus of the indigestible Elders.

Silver Surfer #18 (Dec. 1988) features one of the more memorable cosmic slugfests of the 1980s, pitting Galactus against the In-Betweener. Englehart cleverly knew his teenaged audience wouldn’t appreciate a fight on the metaphysical level of the reality in which

A Legend Retold

these beings exist. Instead, he had them engage in old-fashioned fisticuffs. “Those two are cosmic beings but they were in conflict,” says Englehart. “Possibly everything we see of them is simply our interpretation of events we can’t really comprehend. Based on his name, Galactus might actually be the galaxy.”

Galactus is eager to rid this reality of the In-Betweener, as he represents a threat to Galactus’ existence since he wanted to take Galactus’ place. The threat of the In-Betweener was a challenge to Galactus’ identity and his role in the universe. The In-Betweener proves to be a foe that can match Galactus on every level, and in the end became that diametric opposite that he himself had been looking for to defeat Galactus. The faithfulness of his herald Nova helps turn the tide of their battle, and the In-Betweener is sent back to his reality and into the hands of Chaos and Order.

Englehart recalls, “The first Marvel comic I ever bought was The Fantastic Four #49, right in the middle of the Galactus Saga as illustrated by Jack Kirby and Joe FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Original art to Byrne’s homage to the classic Silver Surfer/Galactus tale, produced as a pinup for the FF’s 30th Anniversary issue, Fantastic Four #358 (Nov. 1991).

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Beyond the Bronze Age Writer Louise Simonson was joined by the art team supreme John Buscema and Bill Sienkiewicz in 1999 for the six-issue miniseries Galactus the Devourer. Shown here, from the Heritage archives, are Big John’s cover rough for issue #2 and the finished cover art.

TM & © Marvel Chracters, Inc.

Sinnott in their prime, so I’ve always seen [Galactus] as the most majestic creature in the Marvel Universe.

Writing Galactus was an extension of my approach to Dr. Strange. When I started writing Dr. Strange in his own book, I had to write a guy who was more knowledgeable and cosmic than I was, so I set out to comprehend that kind of mind. Later, writing the Silver Surfer or Galactus or any cosmic being, I was pretty comfortable with minds larger than my own.”

THE BIG COSMIC CRUNCH Galactus was born in 1966 from the fountainhead of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creativity. Forty-eight years later, he’s still an intriguing, popular character that has once made it to the big screen (albeit radically altered, in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) and will probably been seen again in the expanding Marvel movie franchise. Why do we find Galactus so compelling?

Why hasn’t Galactus faded into limbo? Is it his god-like symbolism, or his incomprehensibility, or is it because he transcends good and evil unlike the majority of Marvel villains?

In a universe of superheroes who are superior to humans, cosmic entities like Galactus humble those heroes while at the same time capture our imaginations.

Galactus was created and continues to be used as a primal human response to understand and conceptualize the universe.

“Galactus should stand outside the Marvel Universe, beyond it, and be an existential threat rather than a personal one,” explains Gerry Conway. “Like the weather,

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Galactus should be something you try to anticipate, but know you can’t affect. You should just endure.”

When I asked Roy Thomas where he thinks Galactus fits into the Marvel Universe, he simply and succinctly replies: “I think the Marvel Universe fits into him. He could consume it all.”

Creators have used and continue to use Galactus as a means to explore an almost-spiritual or mythological aspect of the Marvel Universe. Comic books can be viewed as modern-day myths, and these creators are the ones who are shaping and exploring these myths.

Consider some of the conceptual ideas about Galactus: Byrne’s view that all beings see Galactus in their own image, or Englehart’s view that Galactus is the link between the Alpha and the Omega. How is this exploration any different from the many myths and religions attempting to understand the universe in which we exist?

We live with so many questions, and this grand, cosmic being exists as a way for us to begin to formulate answers. This exploration is what fascinates us all and has made Galactus such an inspiring and compelling character.

JASON SHAYER is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and is known as the Marvel 1980s guy. You can find him nostalgically revisiting the 1980s at marvel1980s.blogspot.com.

by

Franck Martini

The names of the creators who worked on The Fantastic Four during this decade would be enough to let you envision how great the 1980s were for Reed, Sue, Johnny, Ben, and the short-term members of the team: Wolfman, Byrne, Pollard, Englehart, Stern, Buscema (both!), and Sienkiewicz … and Sinnott, of course—do you really need more as an intro?

Imagine entering a comic shop (or more likely a newsstand) in late 1979 and discovering the Marvel comics bearing a January 1980 cover date… Many of those issues feature storylines that are frequently featured in Top Ten lists: Tony Stark was recovering from his battle with alcoholism in Iron Man #130 (by Michelinie and Layton); The Amazing Spider-Man was celebrating its 200th issue (by Wolfman and Pollard), with Spidey settling an old score with the burglar who killed Uncle Ben; Daredevil had a fill-in issue by Steve Ditko (#162), but that was just a breather between two Miller/Janson issues; the Avengers were fighting the Grey Gargoyle in #191 (by Stern, Michelinie, and Byrne); the X-Men were about to fight for their lives against a new group of villains you may have heard of— the Hellfire Club—in issue #129 (by Claremont and Byrne); and Johnny Storm was the only remaining living member of the FF while Ben, Sue, and Reed lay dead of old age at his feet in Fantastic Four #214 (by Wolfman and Byrne—yes, Byrne again, providing art for the top three team books of Marvel that month!).

The early ’80s showcase Marvel Comics at one of its finest periods ever, and a very large chunk of the decade would follow in the same vein. Fantastic Four follows this trend: classic stories, some of the best creators in the field, major turning points, epic sagas, romance, death, new characters—this decade had it all!

REFRESHED FOR THE ’80s BY WOLFMAN As it is frequently the case, the ’80s do not really start in January 1980 for the FF. The real beginning of a new era of the Fantastic Four takes place 18 months before, as Marv Wolfman takes over the writing chores of the book. Simply put, it is a team book with a split team. And truth to be told, those splits were quite commonplace for the FF during the ’70s. Departures from the team, power losses, new members, alternate versions of characters—it really felt like a lot of the ’70s was spent deconstructing the classic vision of the Fantastic Four.

Such was the feeling for Wolfman: “As a fan, I was tired of seeing the FF split up time and again. It felt old in the been-there/done-that sort of way. So my idea

Dynamic Decade While Fantastic Four was graced by numerous A-list creators during the 1980s, standing at the top of the heap was writer/artist John Byrne, who instituted change—while maintaining a “back to basics” approach. Cover to FF’s 20th Anniversary issue, #236 (Nov. 1981), inked by Terry Austin.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Wolfman Winds Down Among Marv’s contributions to the FF canon: (left) an aged FF in issue #214 (Jan. 1980, cover by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott) and (right) a crossover with Spectacular Spider-Man #42 in issue #218 (May 1980, cover art

by Al Milgrom and Sinnott); the latter issue heralded the return of the original Fantastic Four logo.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

was to keep them together and just have adventures quite a new take on the Torch: “I forget why I wrote it the way Stan and Jack had done.” like this, but I think it had to do with not using him Focusing on the “Stan and Jack way” would be a that much in a positive way before,” Marv says. frequent motto throughout Wolfman’s run. He would Wolfman’s run concludes after a final two-parter create epic storylines, with two major highlights, involving a scientist turned into a god, the intervention starting with the Dr. Doom story that spans from issue of Blaastar, and quite an impressive display of power #195 to 200 (June–Nov. 1978). “I wanted to do

by Franklin Richards: “I definitely wanted a massive, emotional battle between them,” Franklin’s powers to be worrisome. In fiction, he reveals. “As a fan, I hated the idea that everything needs to be a dramatic every confrontation between hero and problem until it’s not.” villain was indecisive. I wanted a real This was a run that Marv Wolfman confrontation with a real climax and never really enjoyed: “I loved The I wanted it to be personal and Fantastic Four, but felt as a writer, emotional.” Then the team would be except for issue #200, I never did the embarked in a major story involving job on the title I wanted to. Stan and the Skrulls, the Nova Corps (ending Jack had left huge footprints and I some plots leftover in the Nova book didn’t feel that I filled them at all.” also written by Wolfman), and Galactus Amazingly, Wolfman is one of and the creation of his herald Terrax. the rare writers who kept the classic Wolfman realized that “Galactus was roster throughout his run: “I think marv wolfman using elemental characters as his the FF works only when the main heralds.” The story finishes in the four are there and not when there aforementioned issue #214 (Jan. 1980), where Ben, are substitutes,” he said in BACK ISSUE #7 (Nov. 2004).

Sue, and Reed are all dying of old age as they were shot Issue #218 (May 1980) is a crossover issue with by an aging ray by Skrulls a few issues before. This issue Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, and is notable is essentially a solo Torch story, as Johnny tries to find a because of the return of the classic FF logo—which way to reverse the effects of the gun and save his would stay for the rest of the decade. teammates. With the aid of a dying Reed, the Torch Following Marv Wolfman, an odd two-part manages to save the day, albeit after a few pages of inventory story written and drawn by John Byrne self-deprecation as he believes he has failed. It was appeared in FF #220–221 (July–Aug. 1980). Recalled

56 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Byrne in Tom DeFalco’s Comics Creators on Fantastic Four (Titan Books, 2004): “Ah, the Coca-Cola story! … [Coke] wanted to use the FF [for a story they would distribute], so I came up with a self-contained, very innocuous kind of story. … It was less than a doublesized issue, and when it was finished, Coca-Cola said it was too violent … and they rejected it. [Editor] Jim Salicrup suggested we cut it in half, add a couple of pages, and turn it into two issues of Fantastic Four. They are the two dullest issues of the FF ever published.”

A VISUAL SHAKE-UP WITH BILL SIENKIEWICZ Doug Moench became the next FF writer, for a relatively short run on the Negative Zone after fighting a issues #219 (June 1980), and 222–231, living black hole (#228–231). plus one Annual (#15). It’s quite a Moench describes the FF as “a surprising run, and was appreciated family unit under a lot of stress and by readers, according to the letters bill sienkiewicz constantly bickering, but they really page. Sub-Mariner appears in the love one another.” What is striking Photo by Luigin Novi. first issue (#219), then none of the “classic” FF foes will appear until after Moench’s departure. about his run on FF is how much the family aspect of “I was told to stay away from the established guys for the book is emphasized. Just view how much Franklin at least a year,” Moench reflected in Comics Creators on Richards is used during those issues. He is involved in Fantastic Four. “I remember looking forward to using most of the stories and central in two of them (Salem the classic villains, but I ended up leaving the book Seven’s and Shogun Warriors). It is quite a fresh approach on the character, and it definitely changes before I ever had a chance to use any of them.”

Moench brings back the Salem Seven for a three- the tone of the book and the stories.

Visually, those issues are drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz parter focusing on Franklin’s powers (#221–223); the FF fight a Norse God crying tears of crimson, and inked by regular Joe Sinnott and some guest inkers with a little help from a familiar God of Thunder (Pablo Marcos, Bruce Patterson). Obviously, this talented (#224–225); they team up with the Shogun Warriors artist had to bring his touch to Fantastic Four, albeit a style against a giant “mecha” (#226); fight against Body quite influenced by other artists at the time: “The Neal Snatchers-like creatures called the Brain Parasites in Adams influence was a major and most obvious aspect to an horrific tale (#227); and the last three issues my work,” said Sienkiewicz in The Jack Kirby Collector #33 become more cosmic, as the FF are transported into (Nov. 2001). “When I was asked to do the book, I turned FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Franklin Under Siege (left) Bill Sienkiewicz’s startling cover to FF #222 (Sept. 1980); inked by Joe Sinnott. (right) Courtesy of Heritage, the George Roussos color guide to the splash page of #225, the issue featuring a Thor cameo.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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See: Sienkiewicz’s Stint!

From the Doug Moenchscripted/Bill Sienkiewiczillustrated run: (top left) Doug and Bill’s first issue, FF #219 (June 1980), with Joe Sinnott cover inks; (top right) page 17 of #225, Sienkiewicz’s layouts finished by Pablo Marcos; (bottom left) Bill inked

by Bruce Patterson, on page 3 of #227; and (bottom right) Marvel master Joe Sinnott bringing a more traditional look to Sienkiewicz, on page 23 of #230. Special thanks to Anthony Snyder and Heritage Comics Auctions for the original art contributions.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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it down because I didn’t feel my style was right for it at the time. But after a bit of editorial arm-twisting, I agreed, … because I was told that Joe Sinnott’s inks would unify the style. … And the idea of being inked

by Joe Sinnott was an offer I didn’t want to miss.”

And what a great book it was to watch, as Sienkiewicz and Sinnott provide a unique blend of art.

Reed literally stretches in all directions with a very Plastic Man-ish use of his neck, for instance: “I recall wanting to make Reed more like Plas and do more stretchable stuff with him,” said Moench in Comic Creators on FF. “My only criticism of Stan and Jack is that they didn’t use Mr. Fantastic as well as Jack Cole used Plastic Man.” Also in these issues, the Thing is spectacularly portrayed both for comic effect and as a powerhouse.

For Joe Sinnott, Sienkiewicz’s pencils were quite a challenge, too: “I liked Bill Sienkiewicz,” Sinnott said in the French magazine Scarce #47 (Winter 1995).

“His layouts were quite different, yet they were very precise and always interesting.”

Yet neither the writer nor penciler really felt at home on the book. Moench was displeased with the stories he produced (and possibly disappointed for not being allowed to use classic villains) and by the art (“I remember thinking this should look like Jack Kirby, and I’m getting Neal Adams”). So Moench left the book and Sienkiewicz was supposed to remain as artist, with a certain John Byrne taking over the writing chores.

But that was not meant to be, as Sienkiewicz left the book and Byrne also became artist and inker on FF.

FROM “GIRL” TO “WOMAN”— NOT JUST A NAME CHANGE

That Sienk-ing Feeling

John Byrne’s lengthy run on Fantastic Four is explored, issue by issue, in BACK ISSUE #38. So there’s no need to do that here again. Go and get that issue if you haven’t read it yet. But here, we’ll discuss some topics not covered in depth in that article.

During Byrne’s run, two sub-stories would be developed at length: Susan Richards’ evolution as a more assertive person and Ben Grimm’s deconstruction and progressive breakdown. Also, through single issues, Byrne would add some interesting social aspects and bring relevance to the classic superhero world, including a believable depiction of the FF as mature characters with a clear-cut “adult” life.

The evolution of Susan—the Invisible Girl—happens both through subplots and dedicated stories. After Byrne’s departure, Susan would be in a totally new place, having gained self-esteem after many trials. When compared to Wolfman’s or Moench’s Sue, or earlier interpretations of the Invisible Girl, Byrne’s Sue Richards reads like a totally different character.

Before Byrne’s arrival on the book, Susan is, as Moench said, “no more than Reed’s faithful companion.”

Some criticisms appeared during Wolfman’s days in the letters column of issue #216, and Sue’s role became a recurring element of discussion there.

Exchanges between readers, both men and women, evolve around Sue’s intelligence, her role within the team, and her permanent insecurity, FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Two more Sienkiewicz/Sinnott stunners: (left) a bondage cover (sorta) on #224 (Nov. 1980), and (right) the Avengers guest-star in FF #230 (May 1981).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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A “Girl” Named Sue Sue Richards’ past as a damsel in distress and a hanger-on was put to rest as John Byrne matured the Invisible Girl as a character, eventually leading to her becoming the Invisible Woman. Here are two Sue-centric FF covers by Byrne: #245 (Aug. 1982) and 266 (May 1984).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

but also about how she could use her powers in a more aggressive way rather than simply as a defensive solution.

FF #222 (Sept. 1980) is a perfect example of the character’s low-key personality, from the splash page, where she is displayed on her knees while Franklin is riding her like a horse, to page 12, as Franklin is kidnapped and she claims, “I can’t deal with this alone … can’t even think, got to summon the others fast.” The team gathers, and Franklin is possessed by Nathaniel, the son of Franklin’s nanny Agatha Harkness. After being prostrated for three pages, Susan snaps and threatens her son’s kidnapper.

Reed slaps her to make her “snap out of it!” She then spends the rest of the issue between a state of horror and a completely passive attitude.

With Byrne, this would change quickly because he has a plan for her. After all, he had worked on strong and assertive women (Phoenix, Storm, Kitty Pryde, and Emma Frost, to name a few) during his run on Uncanny X-Men with Chris Claremont. All of them are far more progressive than Sue Richards at the time.

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Byrne said in the Sept.–Oct. 1985 issue of Comics Feature: “Sue is your basic-issue female character. … [In the] first 20 or so issues [of Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four], she’s kind of wimpy and … has no backbone worth mentioning. Nowadays, women have a more significant role in day-to-day life. So, obviously, without changing who she is, … I’ve tried to move her into the ’80s, to recreate her as an ’80s woman.”

By five issues into Byrne’s run, Sue had already evolved into a totally new category. From her haircut change in issue #232, to the development of her powers— her force-field becomes a means of transportation (#235, 237), even for the whole team (#236)—to an increased role in the team’s missions (#232 again, plus #235, 237), Susan moves on—literally. Fantastic Four’s 20th anniversary issue, #236 (Nov. 1981), is a nice depiction of how she has evolved. Trapped by Dr. Doom and the Puppet Master in the fictitious city Liddleville, the FF look like their earlier counterparts from the Lee/Kirby days. Sue twice takes the lead during this issue, first to regain her powers, then to launch the attack on Doom’s castle (“I’m the only one who can go and you know it,” she says to her husband). Byrne also said in Comics Feature: “Deep down she would probably prefer to be a wife and mother (that was the approach I took in the 20th anniversary issue), but she has been thrust into this superhero role and as such she is dealing with it.”

The next key episode is #245 (Aug. 1982), when the Invisible Girl “fights alone for the life of her son,” as the cover says. She is spotlighted from three different angles: first as an assertive and assertive person, during a TV interview with a rather aggressive and rude journalist (it feels like Susan is answering some of the readers’ complaints mentioned previously as she explains her role, her strengths, and her choices as woman and mother); then as a superheroine, as her powers are in full display as she fights a powerful human who has just beaten the three other members

Family Crisis Byrne wisely creates an atmosphere of isolation and loss by surrounding this heartbreaking panel with black.

Original art from Fantastic Four #267 (June 1984), courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Sidelined Sue Mrs. Richards doesn’t appreciate Reed’s overprotectiveness in this two-panel sequence from page 13 of John Byrne’s Fantastic Four #269 (Aug. 1984).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE ANNUALS ARE ALSO WORTH A LOOK! Do you like Skrulls (who doesn’t?)? Captain Marvel? The Salem Seven? Franklin Richards? Dr. Doom? The Inhumans?

Do you like the works of creators George Pérez, Steve Ditko, Doug Moench, John Byrne, Kieron Dwyer, or Steve Englehart?

Yes, the 1980s were the times when the main writer and/or artist on a Marvel book would also work on its Annual.

And most of these FF issues are before the interconnected Annuals that ran from the late 1980s into the 1990s.

For Skrulls, you can aim for Annuals #15 (1980, by Moench/Pérez, featuring Marvel’s original Captain Marvel), #17 (1982, by Byrne, featuring what happened to the Skrull cows from FF #2), #18 (by Byrne/Gruenwald/Bright/Gustovitch, the wedding of Black Bolt and Medusa), or #19 (by Byrne/Sinnott, featuring the Avengers).

If you want to see Franklin defeat Dr. Doom and Mephisto, #20 is for you.

If you want to see Black Bolt speak to Crystal in a very emotional moment, then it’s #21 that you need.

Annual #16 (1981), written by Ed Hannigan and drawn by Steve Ditko, is a bit of an oddball, but it’s worth tracking down at your local comic-book store.

Most of these books are quite easy to find and rather cheap, too, really worth your hard-earned cash.

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of the FF; and finally as the mother who saves the day as she recognizes that this mysterious and powerful character is a grownup version of her son. In many ways, this story is central in Byrne’s characterization of Sue and is one of the finest of the run.

It’s not surprising that Sue chooses to take the leadership of the team when Reed’s mind is apparently wiped out during their trip to the Negative Zone in #255, or in #261 when Reed is missing and Sue says to Ben and Johnny: “I’m not inviting a debate, gentlemen. With Reed missing, I am the acting leader of the Fantastic Four; we will do as I say.”

Byrne’s plan for Sue was clear, as he told Comics Feature in 1985: “I’ve been expanding on Sue’s role since I started on the book. She says, ‘Okay, I’m not this wimp whose sole purpose is to get captured by the bad guy anymore. I’m a strong, self-sufficient member of the group.’ When Reed is out of action, Sue becomes the leader of the group.”

But this evolution has a price, and Sue will pay it dearly and repeatedly during the rest of Byrne’s run.

For instance, the Richards family’s desire to live like a regular family with secret identities (starting with issue #257, Aug. 1983) will be short-lived, or at least very difficult to implement.

“The background of Sue is rather conflicting as far as whether she represents more of an ’80s housewife or an ’80s career woman,” Byrne said in 1985. “We have a great deal of stuff to suggest that she’s this basic housewife type, and yet there are also elements that say that she tried out to be a movie star and all kinds of things.”

More importantly, Sue’s pregnancy with a second child conceived in the Negative Zone ends tragically with the baby’s death (#267, June 1984). Susan naturally suffers from this and slips into depression, with understandable displays of grief or anger (in #269 she is protectively sidelined by Reed, and #274 includes a poignant scene as Sue opens the room that was supposed to be the nursery of the baby she just lost).

Byrne declared in Comics Creators on Fantastic Four: “I often say that this story happened because they wouldn’t let me kill Franklin. … Ultimately, Franklin turned out to be a fun character and I’m glad I didn’t kill him. But I had pieces of stories and they wouldn’t

fit anywhere else. So I thought, ‘Let’s have Sue pregnant subplots (along with Johnny and Alicia’s developing again and have her lose the baby, and I can have romance) can appear more appealing that the main essentially the same emotional impact.’” stories in the book.

Tortured physically by Mephisto (#277, Apr. 1985) Byrne offered a later take on Sue’s evolution in and then manipulated by Psycho-Man, an unhinged Wizard Magazine #47 (July 1995): “I used to adopt a Susan snaps and goes “Dark Phoenix,” becoming the character on each book. On FF it was Sue, far and evil creature Malice in #280 (July 1985). Fighting her away. She was such a cipher when I came on, and I teammates to a standstill, Sue is finally freed of her wanted to find out what I could do with her without Malice persona after an intense exchange with Reed turning her into someone else.” that contains a lot of dirty laundry and covers a lot of (As a footnote, in 1987’s post-Byrne Fantastic Four previously unspoken issues between the two. #300, an issue written by Roger Stern and drawn by A vengeful Sue leads the attack against Psycho- John and Sal Buscema, Sue is out with She-Hulk and Man’s micro world in FF #282–284 (Aug.–Oct. 1985), Alicia, shopping for the upcoming wedding of the which is emotionally difficult for her. The final victory Human Torch and Alicia. Meanwhile, Reed is at home is a bitter one: The evolution of Sue concludes playing with Franklin, who’s riding his dad like a as she gives Psycho-Man a taste of his own cowboy—mirroring the splash page of issue medicine and changes her codename, #222. That’s a nice but simple example deciding she is now to be called the of how things have changed in the way Invisible Woman.

Sue is depicted in a few years but also In 1985, Byrne said: “I’m inclined how Reed has grown into a more to think that she is the most powerful present father as well.) member of the group. Part of the whole scenario I did with the ‘Dark Invisible Girl’ story was to demonstrate how powerful Sue is. She has certain limitations because she’s ‘one of the good guys’ and cannot utilize her power to its full content. … By john byrne removing the barriers, by letting Malice (the Dark Sue character) cut loose with Sue’s powerful force, I was able to demonstrate that this is a lady you don’t mess around with.”

Sue would also deal with the apparent death of Reed in Byrne’s final issues with a lot of courage and strength, perhaps as proof of her new name and status.

Byrne writes Sue with a lot of subtlety during his six-year tenure, and at times his Invisible Woman

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Malice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore Sue in her “Dark Invisible Woman” guise of Malice.

Jerry Ordway inks Byrne on this original art page to #280 (July 1985, courtesy of Heritage) and the cover to #281.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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DECONSTRUCTING BEN GRIMM

Ben and Byrne (left, inset) One of John Byrne’s—and just about every FF fan’s—favorite Thing stories, from Fantastic Four #51 (June 1966).

Cover by Kirby and Sinnott. (bottom left) Alicia sees the Thing for the first time in the landmark issue, #236. (bottom right) While he’s rocky on the cover, inside FF #238 the Thing returns to his original “oatmeal” form.

Cover inks by Austin.

And note the not-sosubtle Byrne cameo on the cover.

John Byrne’s Ben Grimm is a deeply depressed man. It is a simple as that. The classic FF #51 (June 1966), “This Man, This Monster,” is one of Byrne’s favorite issues of the title, and his take on the Thing is largely derived from this story. Byrne’s Ben is not a source of jokes—the Yancy Street Gang is barely mentioned and the mood is not an uplifting one.

For Byrne, Grimm is an insecure person. He is torn between his desire to revert to his human looks and his fear that his blind girlfriend Alicia Masters is more in love with the Thing than with Ben Grimm, the person.

But he sees his powers as a curse overall and does not consider his time in the Fantastic Four as happy days.

Remembering the FF’s origin, in issue #261, the Thing says, “That’s how it started for all of us an’ life’s been one long pain in th’ butt ever since.”

In issue #236 (Nov. 1981), the Ben Grimm of Liddleville is a normal human being, happily married to his dream girl. As the FF discover Doom’s plot, Ben is the only one willing to remain in the fantasy reality where they are trapped because there, he can live a normal life.

He will eventually come to his senses and be the first to regain his powers (and rocky looks). This leads to a delicate scene where Alicia—no longer blind in Doom/Puppet Master’s world—sees Ben as the Thing.

The Thing is shaken emotionally in issue #238 (Jan. 1982) when Reed believes that he has found a cure for Ben, but the operation fails and Ben reverts to his original Lee/Kirby form, a muddier-looking Thing.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Byrne recalled in Comics Feature: “I turned him into an oatmeal again. I thought it would be cool and fun to draw, but it turned out that … the rockier Thing is actually much, much easier to draw.”

This remains the status quo for a few issues until #245, when the adult Franklin senses the Thing’s inner turmoil and uses his powers to cure him.

Surprisingly, Franklin understands that curing Ben is not turning him back to his human form but rather, changing him back to his rocky self. Be it from a mental block or a fear of losing Alicia, Ben returns to his classic look. For a while.

During the two-parter against the Messiah (#263–264, Feb.–Mar 1984), Ben befriends the Mole Man, a first step in a direction that shows the villain as more a monster than a man, which will culminate with FF #296.

And then Secret Wars crossover happens. On the Beyonder’s planet, the Thing can revert to Ben Grimm at will. He chooses to stay on the planet rather than come back with his teammates. This somewhat selfish act shows that Ben has changed once again, and that being human means more to him than being with Alicia. She-Hulk replaces Ben as the FF’s muscle. “This gave me the opportunity to mess around with the group dynamics,” said Byrne.

Ben’s departure is something that Alicia accepts in #266, but this abandonment detours her into a relationship with Johnny Storm.

Alicia Masters is also a character very dear to John Byrne (“She was dream to write. It seemed like every time I approached her, I found new layers, new nuances,” he said in BACK ISSUE #7). Alicia suffers physically and mentally at the hands of Annihilus when the FF had left for the Negative Zone (#251–256, Feb.–July 1983). The subplot that leads her to Johnny (#267–275, June 1984–Feb. 1985) is very delicate and displays great writing from Byrne.

WHAT IF? FF-RELATED ISSUES: There were many FF What If? stories during the 1980s, and they are all quite worthwhile, with some top creators involved: • What If? #21 (June 1980, by Mantlo/ Colan) is a sequel of What If? #1 (Feb. 1977). Sue is marrying the Sub-Mariner, and Reed wants her back and is ready to do whatever it takes.

A rare occasion to see the FF drawn by Gentleman Gene Colan.

• What If? #31 (Feb. 1982, Stern/ Kupperberg). “What if there was no FF?” The Thing never joins the team and becomes a fugitive.

• What If? #36 (Dec. 1982, by Byrne).

“What if the Fantastic Four had not gained their powers?” The FF become a Challengers of the Unknown sort of team … simply amazing.

• What If? #42 (Dec. 1983, Gillis/Frenz/ Sinnott). “What if the Invisible Girl had died?” A very emotional Kirbyinspired story where Sue does not survive the birth of her baby.

Ben returns to the pages of Fantastic Four in issue #274 (Jan. 1985), right before he departs from the Beyonder planet, in a story linking him to monsters (a common theme in the Thing’s solo book which was published in the mid-1980s). His discovery of Johnny and Alicia’s love makes him drift away even further, even if it was clear for him that his relationship with Alicia was over. “Breaking the Thing up with Alicia was a step towards changing him back to the tragic character he originally was,” said Byrne.

Except in the Thing’s own solo title, that issue was the last time Byrne wrote Ben Grimm in the FF book. The Thing is one of Byrne’s favorite characters, and even though the Thing book has its appeal, one wishes that Ben had been more active with the FF during Byrne’s run—although that would have prevented Fantastic Four from showcasing She-Hulk in a more visible way than The Avengers ever did, and might have prevented the Johnny/Alicia love story.

Byrne had planned the Thing’s return to FF, however, as he said in 1986 to Comics Feature: “We’re playing with the Thing’s role in the group. This is building towards #296. He’s never going to be permanently removed. When I wrote him out, the intention was always to bring him back, and for the 25th anniversary issue.”

But John Byrne would leave Fantastic Four before Ben’s return, with writers Jim Shooter and Roger Stern finishing two of Byrne’s plots: the Thing’s return to the group in issue #296 and Johnny and Alicia’s wedding in issue #300.

During an online chat in 1998, Byrne revealed that Fantastic Four #300 “was to be the wedding of Johnny and Alicia, but I did not know, even a mere half-dozen issues ahead of that story, if [Marvel was] going to go through with it. I had all kinds of ideas for the Puppet Master, Doom, various other things (including a double wedding, with Wyatt and Jen). I had made a strong decision in my mind that I would make the marriage/no marriage decision when I actually got the issue to write.” Except for the double wedding, this scenario looks a lot like what actually happened in #300.

Up Close and Personal Among the memorable moments in Byrne’s FF: (top) Johnny’s letter from a death-row inmate, from #233; and (bottom) Ben’s Aunt Petunia is finally revealed, in #239!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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FF vs. Super-Man (top) From the collection of Joe Hollon, a 2010 John Byrne commission pitting the Thing and Torch against the Gladiator, inspired by their classic battle in (bottom left) Byrne’s FF #249 (Dec. 1982). Five years later, Byrne revisited that FF cover on DC’s Superman #8 (Aug. 1987).

FF and Gladiator TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Superman and Legion TM & © DC Comics.

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MATURE THEMES John Byrne’s run is marked by outstanding issues, a new take on Galactus, and a deeper and layered vision of Dr. Doom (“I like the dichotomy of the character.

He is cruel and largely without conscience and yet he can show passions, display self-contained virtues that set him apart from any other villain,” Byrne said to Comic Book Resources in 2000). Byrne brought references to social themes and shared some of his views on society during his six years on the book.

One such case is issue #233 (Aug. 1981). On page 2, we are the witnesses of the final moments of a sentenced (and it will turn out, innocent) man. The electric chair awaits David George Munson, and the gloomy halls of the jail shock readers on this powerful and chilling page

by Byrne. The rest of the story is an out-of-the-ordinary police investigation led by Johnny Storm, ending with an exchange between Munson’s mother and Johnny, where the importance of the role of a hero is explored.

Fantastic Four #234 (Sept. 1981) is another odd story that shows what happens when an ordinary man possesses amazing powers without realizing it. Subtle touches of day-to-day life and difficult father/son relations are displayed. The story starts in this man’s small house and finishes in front of Ego the Living Planet.

Issue #239 (Feb. 1982) is (in)famous for the presence of Ben’s Aunt Petunia, who is far from the older lady readers might have expected. But it also shows the story of a young girl with an abusive father. Once again Byrne’s words are powerful when the young Wendy is

severely beaten by her father: “Wendy has never seen her father so drunk, or so angry. He has beaten her before but never like this. She aches.”

By the mid-1980s, “I had been on FF for about five years at that point and was starting to get a little bored,” Byrne admitted in Comics Creators on Fantastic Four.

He chose to stop inking his pencils (with Al Gordon, Dan Adkins, and Jerry Ordway inking issues) and started “looking for ways to get different creative muscles working and different parts of the engine working.”

Issue #275 (Feb. 1985) is proof of that, with Byrne taking on freedom of the press and what it means to be a public figure. This is the popular issue where unauthorized photos taken of She-Hulk toplesssunbathing on the FF’s roof fall into the hands of a sleazy publisher and his rag, The Naked Truth. Nothing she does as She-Hulk or as attorney Jennifer Walters can halt the publication of the photos.

Issue #285 (Dec. 1985), simply called “Hero,” is “the single most satisfactory story that I have done,” Byrne said in 1985. What is interesting about this dramatic look at suicide is the way Byrne felt at the time about the role of parents: “Things don’t happen if the people in charge do their job right. … This kid ... ends up killing himself because his parents are too busy with their lives. ... My whole philosophy has always been: if you have children, that’s your job right there.”

Finally, during his run Byrne chose to add some references of the characters’ sex lives. For Reed and Sue, a married couple, there are subtle references (#236, FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Best of Byrne Among John Byrne’s finest FF moments, two very different studies of the price of celebrity: (left) the She-Hulk/Naked Truth issue, #275 (Feb. 1985); and (right) the heartbreaking hero-worship tale, #285 (Dec. 1985).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Alicia and Johnny, Sittin’ in a Tree…

Writer Roger Stern’s FF tenure was brief, but he rocked Ben’s world by marrying the Thing’s former girlfriend Alicia Masters and Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four #300 (Mar. 1987).

Cover and interior page drawn by John and Sal Buscema.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

page 11, panels 1 and 2) and some less subtle ones (#254, page 6, panel 5, and page 10). Johnny and Alicia clearly seem to spend prenuptial nights together (#275, page 12, and #277, pages 6–9). There is innuendo around Wyatt and She-Hulk (starting with #270), and the paparazzi snapping risqué pictures of She-Hulk in #275 show her lack of inhibitions. Sexual references (especially for non-married people) were quite new at the time in a major mainstream book, and these situations were always nicely handled by Byrne.

So, what is Byrne’s opinion on mature themes?

Right after writing #285 (Dec. 1985), he declared that “the morality of the stories I write has to be different from if I was writing for a different audience because we’re doing it for children. … We can do death, miscarriages, drugs, abortion, and God knows what as long as we handle it properly. You don’t want to constantly lay the real world at a child’s feet.”

Finally, one of the major changes of this epic run is perhaps the way Byrne evolved artistically. As he said in Modern Masters vol. 7 (May 2006): “It became my first real, fulltime, me doing everything. Even inking,

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as it turned out.” In terms of writing, it was quite experimental, as Byrne recalled to Comic Book Artist: “I penciled the page completely and then … tried to squeeze in the dialogue I had in my head. Like all new writers, I was verbose.” Artistically, he switched from full pencils to breakdowns. “It took me ten issues to find a comfortable inking style. The first time I was comfortable with the inks was my first major Galactus story [#243],” he admitted in Wizard #47.

The reasons of Byrne’s departure from Fantastic Four are numerous (office politics, his move to DC to take over Superman, his tumultuous relationship with Jim Shooter, a certain loss of interest) and vastly documented. Byrne would never return to FF, even though it was proposed to him twice: “I dislike setting myself up for comparison with my earlier work,” he said in an online chat in 1998.

Overall it was a labor of love, and perhaps more than that: “I plugged into the FF as I have no other book, my creations included. Perhaps it is the long fan association … or the long professional association, but I knew those people as well as I know members of my own family. Everything else has been fun in its own way, but the FF was nearly a vocation.”

THE SHORT ROGER STERN STINT Roger Stern has a lot in common with John Byrne. They are friends. They worked together—as editor/artist (Uncanny X-Men) and as writer/artist (Captain America and many more afterwards). And Stern would twice become the writer to follow Byrne on a title, first on Fantastic Four—starting in 1985 as scripter over Byrne’s plot in #294, then as writer in #295—and then two years later at DC on the Superman titles.

Stern starts by concluding Byrne’s story regarding a time-displaced Central City, where the first seeds of the upcoming departure of Sue and Reed are planted.

The FF are considered as gods in Central City and their powers are copied by genetically altered warriors. Five

years later, this might have been seen as a meta-message for some Image Comics characters, but here it’s really just a fun story.

As part of Marvel’s 25th Anniversary Month celebration, Fantastic Four #296 (Nov. 1986) features a special story plotted by Jim Shooter and scripted by Stan Lee, with art by a lot of people. [Editor’s note: For more about Marvel’s 25th Anniversary Month, see BACK ISSUE #69.] The long list of artists, inkers, and the involvement of Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief may imply a bit of red tape. Jim Shooter said on his blog in 2011: “I don’t think I ever wrote an issue of the FF. I plotted an anniversary. I did some rewriting on some botched scripts. And, being EIC, I frequently weighed in on the direction of the series.” Issue #296 is a nice and well-written story by two top writers.

In this issue, the Thing returns to the FF. It is also the last issue edited by Mike Carlin, who left Marvel and went to DC to edit John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, and Jerry Ordway on the Superman books.

With the classic roster now in place (and with She-Hulk still on board, meaning that we have five persons wearing FF costumes!), beginning with Fantastic Four #297 (Dec. 1986) a new artistic team joins regular writer Roger Stern on the book: John Buscema as penciler and his brother Sal Buscema on inks—quite a pair! And the FF embark on a cosmic mission tailor-made for Big John: large fights, big warriors, explosions … the art really shines on these first two issues. Stern follows Byrne’s plots and dives deep into Ben Grimm. Emotionally, the Thing is at the heart of the stories and he is in a dark place. He wears a full costume and a helmet, since his looks scare Franklin and he doesn’t wish to be seen. Ben contemplates suicide in roger stern #297 as he chooses to let himself wander in deep space. An intense conversation with Johnny follows, and Ben is rescued against his own will.

Issue #299 (Jan. 1987) is a great buddy story, once again with a strong focus on Ben Grimm. It is also a recap of all the major events the Thing has gone through over the years. She-Hulk and the Thing exchange drinks and have a helluva fight while Spider-Man and the Human Torch catch up on events, and things start to get better between Johnny and Ben. All in all, it’s a great setup to the tricentennial issue.

The wedding of Johnny and Alicia is a nice done-inone tale, in Fantastic Four #300 (Mar. 1987). It contains all the right things you’d expect in an anniversary issue: character-driven moments and dialogues, an impending threat, and the subtle presence of Dr. Doom.

Then Ben (definitely in the spotlight after two years off the book) goes on team-up with Franklin against the Wizard in another fun-filled issue (#301).

Roger Stern’s final issue is FF #302 (Apr. 1987), which tells the tumultuous tale of Johnny and Alicia’s honeymoon.

Transition is clearly in the wind on Fantastic Four, as issue #302 features Tom DeFalco scripting over Stern’s plot,

FANTASTIC FOUR VS. THE X-MEN Taking place right after FF #300 and Uncanny X-Men’s “Mutant Massacre” storyline, this four-issue miniseries (Feb.–June 1987) is written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Jon Bogdanove. The X-Men have many members down, especially Kitty Pryde, who is literally dissolving. Will Reed help her, or will Dr. Doom?

Franklin is a central character in the story, and there are a lot of fun-filled fights between the two teams.

Claremont is very good here with nice characterization and a different take on the FF. Available in two different hardcover editions, this mini is very good!

The FF are also obviously part of other group miniseries like The Contest of Champions or Secret Wars and Secret Wars II, especially in the first Secret Wars, in which Dr. Doom is a central character and She-Hulk joins the team.

This Man, This Monster!

Another mutation for badgered Benjy. FF #310 (Jan. 1988) cover by Ron Frenz and Joe Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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SomeThing in the Way She Moves Poignant moments from the controversial Englehart era of the late 1980s, in original art form from the Keith Pollard/ Joe Sinnott team: (left) the former Ms. Marvel freaks out, in FF #311 (Feb. 1988, courtesy of Heritage); and (right) Ben’s heartache over Alicia, in issue #314 (May 1988, courtesy of Anthony Snyder).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

and John Buscema only providing breakdowns, with brother Sal penciling and inking the story.

Stern’s short run is very much family-centered. He said in BACK ISSUE #7 that “the FF is about Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben. Other combinations may make for an interesting change of pace, but nothing beats the original.” She-Hulk is slowly phased out of the book and the team is reunited with Franklin, who takes a growing role when Ben returns. Stern explained that he takes pride in the wedding, of course, but also in managing to “finish transitioning the Thing back into the FF and She-Hulk into the Avengers. I kept things running for a few issues and didn’t screw up too badly.”

While he did an admirable job, Stern never really settled on the book and left quickly. Why is that? “It was partly office politics—my editors changed in mid-run— and partly because I couldn’t get John Buscema excited about drawing the FF … and it was a fulltime job just trying to get him excited about The Avengers,” Stern quipped on his website in 2004. It would be Steve Englehart’s task to get John Buscema excited about Fantastic Four once he became the last main writer on the book in the 1980s.

But first would come fill-in issue #303 (June 1987), written by Roy Thomas, with Romeo Tanghal inking John Buscema. This is a sort of “What If?” story guest-starring former FF member Thundra, where Ben would return to Earth at the end of the Secret Wars and marry Alicia instead of staying on the Beyonder’s planet. It serves as closure for Ben … and it looks like he’s now ready to move on.

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A ’60s VIBE TO FINISH THE ’80s— ENGLEHART’S FF “Consensus” is not the word to describe how fans feel about writer Steve Englehart’s three-year run on Fantastic Four. Enjoyed by some and disliked by others, there is little place for indifference when one mentions this period of the book. Yet it contains some terrific characterizations, great soap opera, and excellent art during most of the run. Let’s have a look…

Getting rid of Reed, Sue, and Franklin had never been done before, and it would take a while before such a schema would happen again (in the post“Civil War” days at Marvel, to be precise). Storywise, the Richards family’s departure makes sense, for many reasons: their failed attempt to live a normal life in the issues around #260 (Nov. 1983), Sue’s miscarriage, and the growing feeling that Reed and Sue should take more time for their son.

Steve Englehart tells BACK ISSUE, “I wanted to get back to the original vibe of the book, which was, ‘We’re just people, we didn’t set out to be heroes, so we’re making this up as we go along.’ I also wanted to break up Reed and Sue and Ben and Johnny, which I thought had grown pretty stale. So I sent Reed and Sue away for awhile, gave Ben his long-awaited chance to be the leader … and if that helped him feel better, that was a side effect. Basically, I wanted to see parts of him we hadn’t seen over the first 20 years, whatever they might be.”

From Englehart’s first issue there is a Silver Age vibe on the book. Joe Sinnott returns as inker, providing

a very classic look, and even the credits box of the issue is very much in the vein of the classic Marvel ones (“Stainless Steve Englehart, Big John Buscema, Joltin’ Joe Sinnott…”). Ron Frenz signs on as cover artist beginning with FF #305, providing a bombastic vintage Marvel flair.

The Richards’ departure takes place over the course of three issues. Reed announces his decision in issue #304 (July 1987)—Englehart’s first issue—then Crystal (of the Inhumans, a past love of the Human Torch) joins the team the following issue, a decision that does not sit well with newlywed Johnny Storm and looks like a team choice made by Ben to mess with Johnny’s head. In issue #306 (Sept. 1987), Sharon Ventura, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel II, joins the team. By issue #307, Reed and Sue can leave with a peaceful mind, knowing that a new team is in place. The FF fight a very disturbed Quicksilver, plus Diablo, who returns to the book for the first time since #232.

Then starts the Fasaud story arc (#308–310, Nov. 1987–Jan. 1988), in which the new FF encounter a creature based on electric- and TV-inspired powers. The story contains some geopolitical points and an opportunity to better explore Sharon Ventura’s issues. She has suffered a violent sexual assault and has a strong hatred for all men because of it. Her anger is so strong that it prevents her from touching any of the FF, even to save their lives.

According to Steve Englehart, “Ben’s love life had revolved around Alicia, so I wanted someone new. Right now, I couldn’t tell why I picked Sharon to fit the slot, but once I thought of her, I thought of her rape, and had this idea about her not wanting to be so beautiful, and … I was just following my gut. My stuff is usually pretty organic.”

But as Ben is slowly getting Sharon back on her feet, they travel into space and get bombarded by cosmic rays and mutate. Ben becomes a spiky and rockier Thing, while Sharon, now She-Thing, looks a lot like Ben did in the early days of the book.

John Buscema leaves the book with #309 and Keith Pollard comes back with #310, roughly 100 issues after his last FF. His first “mission” is to define Ben and Sharon’s looks: “It gave me a chance to be creative, play around with the character and see what I could do with him.

Nobody had drawn the Thing like that before,” Pollard said in Comic Creators on Fantastic Four.

But it would turn out to be a not-so-simple task for Pollard in the end: “If I’d known Steve was going to continue the storyline for another [20] issues, I might have come steve englehart up with a whole different design for Ben, something that would have been a lot easier to draw.”

Here is the situation of the characters by issue #311 (Feb. 1988): Johnny Storm is recently married to Alicia Masters; his past girlfriend Crystal has just joined the team, and it’s clear that he still has a thing for her; and Ben Grimm is recovering from his breakup with Alicia and starts a relationship with Sharon Ventura—who hates men, has just turned into a She-Thing, and has suicidal tendencies. How soap opera-ish can it get? “Soap opera became the vibe because Ben’s love life had always been a key aspect of his character,” says Englehart. “With [the Thing] in charge, I was focusing on him more, obviously, so I went that route. And Johnny’s thing with Crystal had been a staple of his character at one point, and it had gone terribly wrong over the years, so that story was also begging to be told.”

What is striking in those issues is the positive impact of Reed and Sue’s departure on Ben. Now being the leader of the team, the Thing makes quick and efficient decisions, and even if he has doubts sometimes about his choices, he never looks back, takes care of all members (maybe more of Sharon than others), and leads quite effectively.

Issue #311 (Feb. 1988) shows Sharon’s reaction to her mutation, and the title says it all: “I Want to Die!” We witness her acceptance process of this new look … and it’s a very emotional ride. Englehart said in BACK ISSUE #7,

Back in the Saddle Again The late 1980s saw the return of both John Buscema and Rich Buckler as FF pencilers. (top) Big John inked by Joe Sinnott, from issue #309, and (bottom) Buckler inked by Romeo Tanghal, from #329. Both courtesy of Anthony Snyder.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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New Twist on a Familiar Tussle Englehart offered a double-shot variation on the traditional Thing/Hulk battle: (left) new-look Thing vs. Gray Hulk in FF #320 (Nov. 1988) and (right) Ms. Marvel (She-Thing) vs.

She-Hulk in #321.

Covers by Frenz and Sinnott.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“The She-Thing touched something very primal about the group that brilliantly: “I was trying to live in the FF’s reality, and that seemed like had been lost for 25 years.” By the end of issue #312 and a crossover the way it would go,” said Englehart about that scene. “Because the with X-Factor and the “Fall of the Mutants” storyline, Sharon accepts Thing was the lead, a lot of things developed that involved body her fate and envisions how she will make do. At the time, Hank (the image. And how else is poor Alicia supposed to ‘see’ him?”

Beast) McCoy was losing his mental abilities, and he and Sharon The FF keep on bumping from one place to another in issue #317 get trapped during the story and exchange their views on their (Aug. 1988), in which they go hunting for the Beyonder with the respective situations. This issue contains powerful characterization. Comet Men. FF’s soap opera gets even more important, and Crystal Englehart says, “by showing Sharon’s reaction and Ben’s reaction to leaves the team during Annual #21 and moves back to the Moon, it, we learned new stuff about him. It had always been a given rejoining the Inhumans. And the new fourth member of the FF that turning into a Thing was a terrible curse a noble man is … Dr. Doom (#318), just in time to visit the Negative had to live with—and now, here’s a noble woman who Zone and fight the Beyonder. was taking refuge in it. That blew [Ben’s] mind In issue #319 (Oct. 1988), Englehart establishes a because it upset his long-held sense of who he was.” connection between this character of infinite power Starting here, the FF leave on a wild adventure. (the Beyonder) and a very well-known source of It starts at the Project Pegasus premises, then to the infinite power: the Cosmic Cube. This double-sized Mole Man’s tunnels, where Ben has the secret and issue’s story, titled “Secret Wars 3,” is the last we foolish hope that the Mole Man may be able to cure will see of the Beyonder for a while. Yet all was not him and Sharon. Ben decides to have “a little fun” well for Steve Englehart, as he said during an online and the team starts exploring the tunnels, which seem chat for Comic Book Resources: “Ralph Macchio, the to connect with other locations and dimensions. editor, asked me to get rid of the Beyonder, whom They reach the realms of Belasco (#314), and then Ralph despised. I had not liked him much myself, encounter Tigra’s cat-people. But there is not a second but when I did my research, I got to see what ron frenz to breathe: Trying to escape from Belasco, they Shooter had been trying to do, so I think I sent him teleport in front of Master Pandemonium, fresh from on his way with some dignity.” his encounter with the West Coast Avengers (#315). The teleportation Ralph Macchio confirmed the approach in Comic Creators on has taken them all to another planet and they must form an uneasy Fantastic Four: “I was never satisfied with the concept of the Beyonder alliance to go back home. The Comet Men arrive and bring them back in the first two Secret Wars limited series. I wanted to go back and to Earth at the now-frozen location where the Savage Land used to clarify the Beyonder’s place in the Marvel Universe.” be. And not it’s not finished yet—issue #316 (July 1988) starts with the Things keep on being fun as the new Thing fights the Gray Hulk arrival of Alicia and adds Ka-Zar and Shanna—and Morbius—to the mix. in a visually stunning issue (#320, Nov. 1988), and in the next issue This issue contains the very surprising scene when the blind Alicia She-Hulk encounters She-Thing and the storyline of a rogue Watcher discovers Ben’s and Sharon’s physical changes. She runs her fingers is launched. Yet it feels like something is missing: Johnny keeps on across the Thing’s form to discover her former boyfriend’s new shape, being torn between Alicia and Crystal (even though Crystal left a few while Ben’s new girlfriend Sharon and Johnny Storm are watching … issues before) and the romance of the two Things is less interesting and Johnny is having ambiguous thoughts for Crystal, who also than the beginning of their relationship. watches the scene. Simply, in three panels, Englehart establishes an Englehart grew unhappy of his treatment at Marvel, as he organic yet complicated network of relationships. And it all works explained on his website: “At this point, Marvel made its infamous 72 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

decision that innovation should end. The initial impact was felt on West Coast Avengers, where my Mantis storyline was first eviscerated and then abolished. To try to salvage her, I took her untold storyline and moved it, with middling success, to the FF. To protest the end of what had been “the House of Ideas,” I changed my byline to S. F. X. Englehart, using the standard abbreviation for simple Sound Effects.”

Graviton + Kang + Mantis + “Inferno” tie-ins = a certain confusion on the book, which was already getting slightly more complicated to grasp. With “Fall of the Mutants” and “Inferno” crossing over, tie-ins were a difficult fit for Fantastic Four: “I did not [like crossovers] because I thought they weren’t done all that well—too formulaic, with no underlying character sinews—but I do think it’s incumbent upon a pro working for a company to work with the company’s decisions and do the best you can with them. So I tried to make the best of those things and fit them to my storyline as creatively as I could,” reflected Englehart.

SINNOTT’S DEPARTURE AND THE END OF A DECADE Fantastic Four #322 (Jan. 1989) is the last issue inked by the legendary Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, who would continue inking the amazing Ron Frenz covers until #333 (mid-Nov. 1989), Englehart’s final issue. The covers were very important and notable; as noted earlier, Frenz’s covers have a Kirby flair. Frenz does his best to channel the strengths, the excitement, of the Kirby classic covers from the ’60s, sometimes with touches of Walt Simonson (#313). The covers around issue #320 are the more openly Kirby-esque, such as #325 (Apr. 1989), with the Silver Surfer reaching for the Human Torch very much in the spirit of the cover of issue #72 (Mar. 1967).

In Tim Lasiuta’s splendid Joe Sinnott tribute book Brush Strokes with Greatness (TwoMorrows, 2007), Sinnott recalled his final issues and some of the last people he inked on Fantastic Four: “I continued to ink the Fantastic Four until the early #300’s. Having worked on it so long, I think I added a sense of continuity to the title that helped it make it a fan favorite. Big John Buscema was an amazing draftsman to work with.

He could draw anything. John Byrne was one of the cleanest pencilers that I have worked with.

His pencils were immaculate.

I’ve worked with people like Bill Sienkiewicz who were always experimenting, while artists like Keith Pollard gave me breakdowns to finish up. Whatever he gave me, it always turned out nice. It was my job, so I did it.”

Surfin’ the Oldies Artist Ron Frenz not only channeled Kirby magic with his powerful FF covers, but in the case of Fantastic Four #325 (Apr. 1989) he revisited the Kirby/Sinnott cover to issue #72 (Mar. 1967, inset).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

At the end of Englehart’s run, it seems that a lot of editorial/writer disagreement is happening. It all starts after the end of the Kang/ Mantis storyline with the return of Sue and Reed, as Englehart blogged: “I was ordered to bring back Reed and Sue—the exact thing that had dragged the book down in the first place—and undo the other changes in the book. At this point I took my name off the series altogether, opting for the pseudonym I’d created years before for work I didn’t want to be associated with: ‘John Harkness.’

“But I’m not the kind of guy to take such things lying down, so I wove a plot that put the real FF into suspended animation and sent bland replicas to take their place. Then the real FF dreamed all the plotlines I would have explored over the coming year. That provided a modicum of fun, but overall, this was one of the most painful stretches of my career.”

FF editor Ralph Macchio remarked in Comic Book Creators on the Fantastic Four: “We had a parting of the ways creatively. I remember there was a storyline [Steve] embarked on and I knew right away that we were beginning to see the characters differently. There were stories that he wanted to do that just didn’t work for me, so I made a change.”

In the first few pages of issue #326 (May 1989), Reed Richards attempts to return to the FF’s Four Freedoms Plaza base, Sue tries to talk him out of it, and then the security system attacks him for a few pages until he receives a not-so-warm welcome from the team. (One could view this as Englehart’s metaphor for his perceived treatment by Marvel.)

Reed and Sue are back, Ben loses his powers, and the Frightful Four attack … there is still a lot to like in those final Englehart issues.

The rogue Watcher creates doppelganger versions of the FF and replaces the heroes with them, while the real Fantastic Four remain in suspended animation with the Frightful Four (#326–329, May–Aug. 1989). The fraud versions behave negatively, and while in suspended sleep, the real team dreams of the potential stories that Englehart had envisioned (#330–332 Sept.–Nov. 1989): the Doom/Kristoff war (with a very What If?-like ending), an Ultron attack on the team (a story with amazing potential!), or a possible solution to the soap opera between Alicia, Johnny, Crystal, and Ben (a story that does not bode well for Sharon Ventura).

This ends in a global brawl in #333 (Dec. 1989) involving two teams of FF, the Avengers, and the Frightful Four. The final scene is an exchange during which Alicia and Franklin visit “John Harkness” and ask him to fix the bad image of the FF caused by the doppelgangers. And Harkness (Englehart) replies: “I’ll try. But it might take a better man than me to straighten out this mess.”

Published mid-1989, this story can be viewed as the end of a glorious decade. After being very disappointed by the fact that he could use Sue and Reed for only two issues in The Avengers (#299–300, Jan.–Feb. 1989), Walt Simonson takes over the writing of the FF by issue #334 (Dec. 1989), an “Acts of Vengeance” crossover orchestrated by John Byrne (writer of

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Diabolical Doc Doom, Times Two

COLLECTED EDITIONS A lot of FF material from the ’80s is available in trade paperback or hardcover editions: • The Byrne era is covered twice: in the FF Visionaries series (eight volumes) and in two Omnibus editions (which includes What If? #36).

• Late ’70s–early ’80s issues by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne are in the Byrne Omnibuses and also in Fantastic Four: In Search of Galactus (#204–214).

• FF #282, 285, 288, and 316–319 are part of the Secret Wars II Omnibus.

• The arrival of new members She-Hulk and Sharon Ventura (among others) can be found in Fantastic Four: Extended Family.

• The Stern issues, the early Englehart issues, and the FF vs. X-Men mini are in Fantastic Four Epic Collection: All in the Family (#296–307, Annual #17). Let’s hope for more Englehart collections to come.

• No collection (yet) for the Moench/ Sienkiewicz run, but it should be done soon with an upcoming Essential FF.

74 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

(left) An undated headshot of the vindictive Victor von Doom,

by Joe Sinnott. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonyscomicbookart.com). (right) Doc Doom as sketched in 2009 by Rich Buckler. Courtesy of Ben Herman.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the Avengers books at the time). Simonson then becomes writer/artist with Fantastic Four #337 (Feb. 1990). A new, great era begins with a new approach on the team.

Major highlights include Dr. Doom, the Celestial Saga, and the New Fantastic Four—but those 1990s stories are a subject to be explored in an future issue.

As one rediscovers this decade of Fantastic Four stories, it feels like a “Best of Marvel ’70s–’80s creators” collection. Perhaps more than any other title, FF featured a lot of terrific writers and artists—some at their peak, some less at ease—all with the goal of following the trail of Lee and Kirby and hoping that they would be faithful to the originators of the book. And most of them succeeded— there are very few bad issues in those ten years, and reading them is one fun ride.

Many thanks to Marv Wolfman and Steve Englehart for the time they took to answer to very precise questions about books they wrote a long time ago!

FRANCK MARTINI discovered the Spider-Man daily strip in the French TV guide at the age of three. After that, “Nothing would ever be the same again.” When no one is watching, he is also an intranet manager with a patient wife and two daughters.

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

Find BACK ISSUE on

MEN OF TOMORROW

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

Captain Future cover art © 1942 Better Publications, Inc. Strange Adventures, Captain Comet, and Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Many Bronze Age babies were introduced to the work of author Edmond Hamilton (1904–1977) through reprints of his Superman, Batman, and Legion of Super-Heroes stories originally published by DC Comics in the late Golden Age and early Silver Age. Before scripting “The Origin of the Superman/Batman Team” and co-creating Batwoman, the Legion of Substitute Heroes, and the Composite Superman, the Youngstown, Ohio, native got his start in the pulps in 1926 with the Weird Tales story “The Monster-God of Mamurth.” Hamilton was a client of sci-fi literary agent Julius Schwartz, who, as most of you know, enjoyed a loooooong career as a DC Comics editor.

In December 2013, Haffner Press released its third volume of The Collected Captain Future, gathering four tales starring Hamilton’s galaxy-spanner: Quest Beyond the Stars, Outlaws on the Moon, The Comet Kings, and Planets in Peril, stories originally published in the 1940s in Captain Future pulp magazine. With an unusual entourage of a robot, an android, and a living brain by his side, Captain Future’s pulse-pounding prose adventures set the standard for many rocketeers that followed. The Collected Captain Future, Volume Three also reprints letters columns from the original editions, providing a glimpse into sci-fi fandom of the Golden Age. Weighing in at 698 pages, this hardcover edition retails for $40.00 US. Its cover, reprinting artist Earle K. Bergey’s cover to the Spring 1942 issue of Captain Future, is seen on this page.

Visit haffnerpress.com for more information.

Hamilton’s Captain Future twice imprinted DC Comics continuity. Editor Julie Schwartz and writer John Broome were purportedly inspired by Hamilton’s “Man of Tomorrow” when they introduced DC’s “Man of Destiny,” the mutant hero Captain Comet, in Strange Adventures #9 (June 1951). While Murphy Anderson would ultimately be known as the Captain Comet artist, Carmine Infantino drew the character’s first cover, shown on this page, as well as his earliest stories.

Over three decades later, Schwartz and writer Paul Kupperberg introduced the character Colonel Future in Superman #378 (Dec. 1982). As Kupperberg noted in my 2006 TwoMorrows book The Krypton Companion, this nod to Hamilton’s hero gave the captain a promotion and saluted the writer himself by using Hamilton’s name as Colonel Future’s alter ego. Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano drew the Colonel Future Superman cover seen here, with Curt Swan and Dave Hunt illustrating Kupperberg’s script.

Fans of science-fiction pioneer Edmond Hamilton should also seek out The Reign of the Robots: The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Four, Haffner Press’ 696-page hardcover ($40.00 US) reprinting a mix of familiar and never-beforereprinted adventures from early-’30s pulps Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, Wonder Stories, and Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror.

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CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE DEPARTMENT Steven Thompson transcribed Randy Wiggins’ interview with David Anthony Kraft for the World’s Finest Comics #300 article in BACK ISSUE #69. Sorry we weren’t aware of that at the time, Steven, or else you’d have been credited in that issue.

Also, after the publication of our “British Invasion” issue, BI #63, we discovered that the photo of Jim Shooter with the Marvel UK office staff (page 2) was taken by Steven Cook, who tells BI: “I worked at Marvel UK and took a great many photos there during the ’80s. Some of them, including that one and similar frames, were part of my ‘Secret Origins’ exhibition and they are on my site here: www.steven-cook.com/Photography-Secret-Origins.”

We regret that your photo was submitted to us without the proper credit, Steven, and appreciate your follow-up.

HAPPY TENTH ANNIVERSARY, BACK ISSUE!

Ricky, for over a decade now, you’ve been one of BACK ISSUE’s most loyal readers. So on behalf of all of us who produce this magazine, allow me to thank YOU! And you didn’t realize when penning your kind letter that you’ve set me up for a plug: BI #77, shipping in November 2014, is themed “When Comics Were Fun.” It’s got a Fred Hembeck cover and cover gallery, plus articles about Blue Devil, Plastic Man, the Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, Cap’n Quick and a Foozle, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, normalman, and Marvel Fun and Games Magazine.

FOUR FANTASTIC FOES In the letter below, Terry Austin shares the story behind the Superman #400 portfolio shown at right. Special thanks to Mr. Austin for the scan!

TERRY AUSTIN’S SUPERMAN #400 PORTFOLIO MEMORIES Your recent issue of BACK ISSUE devoted to comic-book anniversary issues brought back fond memories of several of the milestones cited that I was involved in, mainly the Marvel 25th Anniversary issues, Batman #400, Superman #400, and, astoundingly, Superman #300 as well! Seeing the page of Curt Swan and Bob Oksner artwork reproduced on page 32 caused me to recognize my background inks (hey, that suitcase in the first two panels that Clark Kent uses to ditch his Superman uniform in the ocean as he gives up his superhero persona in the far-off year of 2000—that’s the suitcase that my mom and dad bought for me when I left Michigan and traveled to New York to look for work in comics following my graduation from Wayne State University in Detroit) and forced me to recall that that monumental issue was one of the Superman books I did uncredited background inking on after being hired by Carmine Infantino to do so following my inking the backgrounds on the Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man tabloid (as discussed in my letters printed in BACK ISSUE #66 and 72).

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TM & © DC Comics.

How do you celebrate ten years of memorable comic books from the 1970s and 1980s?

How do you celebrate ten years of unique and talented writers who have captured the spirit and legacy of comics?

How do you celebrate ten years of dynamic BACK ISSUE covers, that are appealing and dynamic to the eye?

How do you celebrate ten years of talented artists who have made BACK ISSUE a landmark in comics?

How do you say “thank you” to the most talented group of people who make BACK ISSUE a wonderful magazine to read?

Mr. Eury, I want to thank you and your staff for ten amazing years of BACK ISSUE magazine. It takes us back to when comic books were fun to read.

I think it is one of the best and most unique ideas for fans and lovers of comics.

I want BACK ISSUE to continue to be in publication for many years to come.

Thank you!

– Ricky T. Butler, Jr. But it’s the memories of Superman #400 that provoke me to share a story or two with you and your readers…

A perusal of the contents of that issue will reveal that was I was privileged to ink a bold pinup of Superman and the Space Shuttle penciled by the incredible Jack Kirby (and it managed to get printed without the face being reworked by Murphy Anderson or Al Plastino, he said, tongue planted firmly in cheek), as well as a short story concerning Superman’s uniform being the inspiration for a revolt by the downtrodden in Earth’s future penciled by my pal Marshall Rogers. What may not be known is that editor Julie Schwartz first commissioned a Superman pinup that was penciled and inked by me for that issue even before he approached me about those other two assignments. Armed with a list of current freelancers whose involvement in a project meant increased sales in the fledgling direct-sales market that had been generated by the marketing department at old DC (I made a photocopy that I still have of a similar list prepared by Marvel’s direct-sales department around the same time because I was sure that the day would come when they would deny that any such thing even existed), Julie was attempting to locate any of these folks at the 11th hour as the book’s contents were being locked in when he approached me to ask if I knew of any way that he could contact Bill Sienkiewicz. He explained that he had left several telephone messages for Bill and that there had been no response. Since I was sharing a two-family house in Connecticut with Bill at the time, I explained that it would be no more difficult than walking downstairs and that I would make sure that Bill phoned him when I returned home that day. A couple of weeks later, Julie again approached me in DC’s hallway to inform me that Bill had turned in his pinup, which indeed would be featured in the issue, thanks to my timely intervention; however, it had knocked the one that I had penciled and inked out of the book but that I shouldn’t feel bad since my other two contributions were still in there. I could only sigh and reflect on the truth of the adage, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

TM & © DC Comics.

FF BONUS ART #1 Here’s a treat from the Heritage archives: a 1980 watercolor specialty illo of the FF vs. Doc Doom by Energetic Ernie Chan!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Sometime after that, DC decided to enter the art portfolio end of the direct-sales market and elected to print (in black and white) selected pieces from Superman #400 for their first production (and Julie seemed relieved to tell me that my solo piece would be included there at last). I have here a letter from DC inviting me to a wine and cheese party at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon on June 20, 1984, in the “Brown Room” on the third floor of 75 Rockefeller Plaza, for a contributor signing of 25 copies of the Superman #400 Portfolio. What a memorable afternoon that was as the young turks in the business got to hobnob with their artistic forefathers! Frank Miller chatted with Will Eisner, and John Byrne was introduced to Jerry Robinson, as two by two we were called over to the table designated for the signing of our portfolio plates (I was summoned twice as I also had to sign the plate that I had inked over Jack Kirby). Happily, I spent several minutes in conversation with Steve Ditko, whom I had met a few weeks earlier at the Marvel offices when I had been assigned to ink a two-part Captain America story that he had penciled for their biweekly title, Marvel Comics Presents (talk about intimidated; I sat on those jobs for over a year before the editor finally forced me to dive in so that they could finally see print).

What a joy it was to discover that one of my all-time-favorite artists was a thoroughly nice guy as well! For those who may be curious, Steve mostly spoke to me that day about what a difficult time he had working on the smaller art paper that the companies had changed to sometime in the late ’60s—I was glad to assure him that it didn’t show in the printed work as far as I was concerned.

Throughout the The Comic Buyer’s Guide of August 31st of that year, I see a photo of John Byrne and me signing our plates, as Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin heckle from the sidelines (which is captioned as “some of the newer talents in comics”). At the end of the event, we were all gathered together for a group photo (which included non-signees Dick Giordano, Sal Amendola, and Joe Orlando), which is printed there as well. I see that the “newer talents” congregated at the right side of the photo while the old guard gravitated to the left (they are all in suits and ties—us new guys, well, no)—me, I hid in the back, behind Jerry Robinson and next to my Westport neighbor and friend Leonard Starr; Steve Ditko, despite the urgings of his old friend Dick Giordano and Julie Schwartz, declined to join us [for the photo].

To thank us for our participation, we were all given goodie bags of Superman merchandise, including a Superman symbol tie pin (wasted on us young punks, apparently) and a plastic Superman cape (which still hangs at the back of my closet).

For years afterwards, every time I was feeling down about something, I would imagine wonderful Will Eisner running around his backyard, wearing that plastic cape, arms outstretched and making whooshing sounds as if he was flying—the absurdity of that image never failed to cheer me up!

We were also assured by mail that we would receive copies of the signed plates from the artists who could not attend the signing. So every few months, a surprise package would arrive from DC containing an autographed portfolio plate from Jack Davis, Brian Bolland, Mike Grell, Bernie Wrightson, or Jim Steranko. The one that took years to arrive, as I recall, perhaps understandably, was Moebius. And the one artist who never returned his signed portfolio plate at all?

The ever-elusive Bill Sienkiewicz!

– Terry Austin

POSITIVELY SPEAKING Another great issue of BI! Man, you must get tired of hearing that all the time!

I have always loved anniversary issues. They influenced my artistic side; like many comics fans, I created my own comic books in my youth, and always made sure my anniversary issues held some slam-bang story. But to make sure I hit that celebration mark, I marked every tenth issue as an “anniversary special.”

The first anniversary issue I bought was Superman #200.

Looking back on it, it was just another Silver Age imaginary story, but to me it was special because it was in the 200th issue. I assumed, then, that all centenary issues were going to be big celebrations. So Jim Kingman’s “Antiversary Issues” article was an eye-opener; it never occurred to me that some books wouldn’t celebrate a milestone like this.

I appreciated that you covered each anniversary issue in chronological order. Or have you been arranging your articles like this all the time and I just haven’t noticed until now? In any event, it made for a nice time-traveling experience.

Jack Abramowitz’s humorous take on Adventure #400 was a great read. I remember reading it and being appalled—how could a 13-year old (me) know more about Supergirl lore than the guy writing her stories? I was disappointed in how this anniversary celebration got wasted, but then I read Action Comics #400 a couple of years later and got a real taste of a squandered opportunity.

Mike Pigott’s analysis of Showcase #100 reminded me of that issue’s pros and cons. I always liked the guilty pleasure of those “Let’s see how many characters we can cram into this book” stories, and the art reproduction on page 39 is a good example of why they’re fun. You can study a page like that for a long time, identifying all the characters. What I didn’t like about the story is how it handled a FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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Michal, your letter warms my heart; thanks. Re your comments: Actually, most of the material in each BI issue is chronological.

Sometimes there’s give-and-take, and occasionally a cover feature might alter that (such as Gotham by Gaslight leading off #67), but still, usually an issue’s articles will run in the order in which their material was published.

Glad you liked the BI Cover Gallery! I felt that readers (and our contributing writers) would appreciate a recap of what’s gone before. It was also fun revisiting all of those great covers!

And so long as I’m helming this magazine, our editorial tone will continue. That doesn’t mean we’ll avoid or censor controversial topics or comments, but we’ll endeavor to present things in a positive manner.

FF BONUS ART #2 This page’s friendly FF portrait was produced in 1984 by Extraordinary Earl Norem for the kids’ book Fantastic Four: Island of Doom. Courtesy of Heritage.

B&B AND BI BOOSTER BACK ISSUE #69 was the best issue yet.

I enjoyed reading about Brave and Bold #100, 150, and 200. That article was fantastic.

The article featuring the covers of all 68 issues of BACK ISSUE was really awesome.

Keep up the good work.

By the way, I would like to see the following subjects covered in upcoming issues of BACK ISSUE: Retro Golden Age and Silver Age superheroes and villains, and modernday comic books featuring public-domain superheroes and villains in all-new stories.

– Allen Trembone Concrete TM & © Paul Chadwick. All Rights Reserved.

78 • BACK ISSUE • FF in the Bronze Age Issue

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

unique character, Angel O’Day. I grant you, Angel and the Ape wasn’t the monster hit DC was probably hoping for back then. But in those stories, Angel O’Day was more than a sexy blonde. She had self-confidence and attitude. In her return appearance in Showcase #100 she was depicted as a whining, simpering, clumsy airhead who could only accomplish anything through blind luck. Instead of her selfassured persona, we got a bimbo who fretted over decisions with “Oh, Sam! Where are you when I need you?” Thankfully, she came back better than ever in the post-Crisis Angel and the Ape miniseries.

Thank you for the BI Cover Gallery and synopsis of each issue! I like to refer back to old articles and this made them easier to find. You’re very generous with parenthetical footnotes within your articles, referring the reader to past issues for more details; I like that, keep doing it. I’d suggest some sort of complete database of all of your past articles that readers could access online as they are great reference material.

(Sure, Mr. Eury, work on that in your copious spare time.)

Re the Carmine Infantino subject brought up in the letters column: Thank you for keeping BI positive. There are plenty of opportunities in comics history to be bitter about treatment given or not given to creators, and there are outlets for venting about these things. But it’s refreshing to read a publication that puts a positive spin on things and instead focuses on the fun of the hobby.

And finally, Mr. Eury, thank you for sticking with BI for ten years. You’ve done a fantastic job. I hope you will stay with it for at least another ten.

Some of us old fogies of fandom need a magazine like yours!

– Michal Jacot

Glad you liked our anniversary issue. It’s always a pleasure to hear from a fellow Brave and Bold fan.

While the comics of the Golden and Silver Ages are the domain of Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego magazine, your request brings to mind a possibility for BI: an issue looking at Bronze Age revivals of Golden and Silver Age characters (Sandman, Justice Society, Air Wave, etc.). Some of those characters have been covered previously (like Vigilante), and the Spectre’s Adventure Comics run is coming in #78, but this might make an interesting theme. What do the rest of you think?

FF BONUS ART #3 Unbeatable Bob Larkin’s original cover painting (courtesy of Heritage) for the 1979 Fantastic Four trade paperback from Fireside Books ends this month’s lettercol— but before you shift your eyes right to gaze upon that masterpiece…

Next issue: ’80s Independents! In-depth looks at three of the decade’s most celebrated indies: PAUL CHADWICK’s Concrete, DAVE SIM’s Cerebus the Aardvark, and RICHARD AND WENDY PINI’s Elfquest!

Plus: ’80s independent comics go Hollywood, DAVID SCROGGY remembers Pacific Comics, TRINA ROBBINS’ California Girls, and DENIS KITCHEN’s star-studded horror/sci-fi anthology Death Rattle. Cover by Paul Chadwick, an alternate version of his classic Concrete #2 cover. Don’t ask, just BI it! See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

FF in the Bronze Age Issue

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NEW ISSUES:

TwoMorrows.

A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

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BRICKJOURNAL #30

ALTER EGO #127

ALTER EGO #128

ALTER EGO #129

ALTER EGO #130

1940s WILL EISNER/”BUSY” ARNOLD letters between the creator of The Spirit and his Quality Comics partner, art and artifacts by FINE, CRANDALL, CUIDERA, CARDY, KOTZKY, BLUM, NORDLING, and others! Plus Golden Age MLJ artist JOHN BULTHIUS, more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s History of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, cover by DANIEL JAMES COX and JASON PAULOS!

CAROL L. TILLEY on Dr. Fredric Wertham’s falsification of his research in the 1950s, featuring art by EVERETT, SHUSTER, PETER, BECK, COSTANZA, WEBB, FELDSTEIN, WILLIAMSON, WOOD, BIRO, and BOB KANE! Plus AMY KISTE NYBERG on the evolution of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLEY, and a new cover by JASON PAULOS and DANIEL JAMES COX!

Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure heroes in comics! With art by FOSTER, HOGARTH, FRAZETTA, MANNING, KANE, KUBERT, MORROW, GRELL, THORNE, WEISS, ANDERSON, KALUTA, AMENDOLA, BUSCEMA, MARSH, and YEATES—with analysis by foremost ERB experts! Plus, the 1970s ERB comics company that nearly was, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by TOM GRINDBERG!

CAPTAIN MARVEL headlines a Christmas FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) Fantasmagoria starring C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER, MARC SWAYZE—and the FAWCETT FAMILY (presented by P.C. HAMERLINCK)! Plus: Comic book/strip star artist DAN BARRY profiled, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more! Cover by C.C. BECK!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

DRAW! #29

LEGO ARCHITECTURE with JONATHAN LOPES, a microscale model of Copenhagen

by ULRIK HANSEN, and a look at the LEGO MUSEUM being constructed in Denmark! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building with DAMIEN KEE, and more!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, "Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman" cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

DAVE DORMAN demonstrates his painting techniques for sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book cover, LeSEAN THOMAS (character designer and co-director of The Boondocks and Black Dynamite: The Animated Series) gives advice on today’s animation industry, new columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

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BACK ISSUE #76

BACK ISSUE #77

BACK ISSUE #78

KIRBY COLLECTOR #63

KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

“Weird Issue!” Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps, ORLANDO’s Weird Adventure Comics, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, DITKO’s Shade the Changing Man and Stalker, CHAYKIN’s Iron Wolf, CRUMB’s Weirdo, and STARLIN and WRIGHTSON’s The Weird! Featuring JIM APARO, LUIS DOMINGUEZ, MICHAEL FLEISHER, BOB HANEY, PAUL LEVITZ, and more. Batman and Deadman cover by ALAN CRADDOCK.

MARVEL UNIVERSE! Featuring MARK ALEXANDER’s pivotal Lee/Kirby essay “A Universe A’Borning,” KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, a look at key late-1970s events in Kirby’s life and career, STAN LEE script pages, unseen Kirby pencils and unused art from THOR, NICK FURY, HULK and FANTASTIC FOUR, plus galleries of ETERNALS, BLACK PANTHER, and more!

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Captain America, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ’70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

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SAVE

15

THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS!

WHE % OR N YOU ONLDER INE!

1994--2014

SUMMER 2014 AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1950s

BILL SCHELLY tackles comics of the Atomic Era of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley: EC’s TALES OF THE CRYPT, MAD, CARL BARKS’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, re-tooling the FLASH in Showcase #4, return of Timely’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, HUMAN TORCH and SUB-MARINER, FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics campaign, and more!

NOW SHIPPING! (240-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $40.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 9781605490540

1965-69

JOHN WELLS covers the transformation of MARVEL COMICS into a pop phenomenon, Wally Wood’s TOWER COMICS, CHARLTON’s Action Heroes, the BATMAN TV SHOW, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and Denny O’Neil leading a youth wave in comics, GOLD KEY digests, the Archies and Josie & the Pussycats, and more! NOW SHIPPING!

Ambitious new series of FULLCOLOR HARDCOVERS documenting each decade of comic book history!

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ALSO AVAILABLE NOW:

The 1970s

JASON SACKS & KEITH DALLAS detail the emerging Bronze Age of comics: Relevance with Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’s GREEN LANTERN, Jack Kirby’s FOURTH WORLD saga, Comics Code revisions that opens the floodgates for monsters and the supernatural, Jenette Kahn’s arrival at DC and the subsequent DC IMPLOSION, the coming of Jim Shooter and the DIRECT MARKET, and more!

1960-64: (224-pages) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-045-8 1980s: (288-pages) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-046-5 COMING SOON: 1930s, 1940-44, 1945-49 and 1990s

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490564 • SHIPS AUGUST 2014

DON HECK:

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2014!

MATT BAKER

LOU SCHEIMER

CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

Biography of the co-founder of Filmation Studios, which for over 25 years brought the Archies, Shazam, Isis, He-Man, and others to TV and film!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

(288-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

A WORK OF ART

DON HECK remains one of the legendary names in comics, considered an “artist’s artist,” respected by peers, and beloved by fans as the co-creator of IRON MAN, HAWKEYE, and BLACK WIDOW, and key artist on THE AVENGERS. Along with STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, and STEVE DITKO, Heck was an integral player in “The Marvel Age of Comics”, and a top-tier 1970s DC Comics artist. He finally gets his due in this heavily illustrated, full-color hardcover biography, which features meticulously researched and chronicled information on Don’s 40-year career, with personal recollections from surviving family, long-time friends, and industry legends, and rare interviews with Heck himself. It also features an unbiased analysis of sales on Don’s DC Comics titles, an extensive art gallery (including published, unpublished, and pencil artwork), a Foreword by STAN LEE, and an Afterword by BEAU SMITH. Written by JOHN COATES.

2014 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (with FREE Digital Editions)

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ALTER EGO (8 issues)

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues w/Special)

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