Fantastic Four 1

The Fantastic Four

by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

"Those words... "The Fantastic Four"! What can they mean?" -shopkeep

A flare is shot into the sky above a panicking crowd of people. It spells out The Fantastic Four, to summon the various members of the group. They are: Young, blonde, socialite, Susan Storm who can turn herself invisible, her teenage brother the enthusiastic motor-head Johnny Storm, who can burst into flames and fly at will, a gruff, grumpy monstrosity with an orange rocky hide called the Thing and Reed Richards, the shooter of the flare, with the ability to stretch his body to any form he chooses, brilliant scientist and who is also the leader of the team. He has summoned them together to go on their first case, but first we get a bit of back story.

Reed, the brilliant scientist that he is, decided he and the US need to beat the commies to a manned space mission. He got those closest to him, his fiancee Susan, her brother, and his pilot friend Ben Grimm to agree to join him. Ben starts out apprehensive to the whole thing, due to his knowledge of the threat of cosmic rays surrounding the earth, but Sue manages to poke at his pride to get him to go along with them. So all four of them steal away into the night to a rocket that Reed Richards had built for the government. As soon as they depart the earth’s atmosphere, as Ben rightfully predicted, the whole missile is bombarded with cosmic rays. As all four of them panic, Ben’s hands start to feel to heavy to keep control of the spacecraft and the vessel falls back down to earth.

The four emerge from the wreckage relatively unscathed. Suddenly, Sue vanishes before their eyes, as soon as she reappears orange rocks start forming all over Ben’s exterior turning him into the Thing as he goes to clobber Reed who he feels superior to. With emotions running high Reed manages to subdue Ben’s new found strength by finding out he has stretching powers of his own and wraps his limbs around his friend. After they’ve calmed down, Johnny suddenly bursts into flame and flies around. Realizing they all have powers now, they decide to use these powers for the good of mankind, the four of them take on superhero names: Sue goes by the Invisible Girl, her brother Johnny goes by the Human Torch, Ben Grimm goes by the Thing due to a comment made by Sue and finally Reed decides he’ll call himself Mr. Fantastic. And so the Fantastic Four were formed.

Returning to the present, the Fantastic Four discover their mission. Power plants have been sinking all over the world, into the earth itself, each of them precipitated by what seems to be an earthquake. Reed charts these incidents to be centralized from the location of a mysterious place called Monster Isle. The four immediately head off to the island where they do indeed find it to be populated by monsters. Reed takes care of a three-headed winged beast in their way, but the confrontation triggers a cave in which swallows up both Reed and the Human Torch into it. The two of them survive by Reed stretching his body thin into a parachute which Johnny holds onto. After the two of them land deep in the underground, they are both rendered unconscious by the sheer brilliancy of a room full of shimmering diamonds. When they come to they find themselves in special blue suits that restrain their eyesight. The also find themselves the prisoner of an underground resident calling himself the Mole Man.

Back on the surface, Thing saves the Invisible Girl from some huge bi-pedal blue creature before the two of them continue their search for the missing teammates. Underground, the Mole Man reveals his troubled past to the other half. Long ago before he was the Mole Man, people trated him poorly because his looks. No one would date him, he couldn’t hold down a job, no one would treat him like a human being. So he decided if society will shun him he’ll do the same. He searched for the center of the world to find some solace where he could be alone, but he stumbled upon Monster Isle in his travels. Once there he navigated the cave system until he found what he was looking for, however his celebration of finding the place lead to an avalanche which caused a cave in and cost him his sight. He then figured out how to master the creatures underground and he’s survived all this time. Now he wants to destroy all of the earth’s power plants in a bid to take over the world and make it to his liking.

The Mole Man’s monologue is so long, the Thing and Sue manage to find his lair and the half of their team stuck there. They all get into a massive fight with the Mole Man and his creatures. Johnny flames on and uses his flame to create another cave in as all four of them flee to their waiting aircraft outside. The entire island appears to explode behind them as they speed away.

Notes

1st appearance of the Fantastic Four and Mole Man

Generally regarded as the introductory issue to the Marvel Universe. There were stories in the late 30's & 40's before this as well as Westerns, Romance & Fantasy comics that become incorporated into the Marvel Universe.