Strange Tales 102

Prisoner of the Wizard
by
Stan Lee, Larry Leiber & Jack Kirby

In Glennville, a newsreel of the Human Torch's most recent exploits when he thwarted The Destroyer is playing to a packed theater. Among the enthralled audience is a tall, long faced, bearded man who people refer to as The Wizard. The Wizard secretly wishes to test his own power against that of the Torch's. On the way back to his house, his thoughts are full of an obsessive desire to prove his intellectual might against the hero.

As The Wizard returns to his home, he goes over his many achievements. A home he describes as ultra-modern that he himself made, which looks a bit Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. A hovering "air chair" to recline in, from which he looks at his news clippings covering various intellectual accomplishments he has been praised for. Only a month ago he beat a robot at chess. He has performed difficult traps as an escape artist. Proclaiming the defeat of the Human Torch will be his ultimate achievement, The Wizard reaches out to the local paper.

A few days later, the newspapers announce The Wizard's newest endeavor. He is going to attempt to travel to the center of the earth. Unbeknownst to the public, this is all just a ruse to lure the Human Torch to him. As he drills below the earth's surface, he manages to get himself stuck. Johnny sees a report about this on the news, so under Sue's encouragement, he goes off to help him.

The Human Torch arrives at The Wizard's hole. He uses his intense heat to penetrate the slag that has caved in on The Wizard's digging vehicle. Bursting through the vehicle, Johnny find The Wizard alive and well. Just as planned. He pulls the Wizard out of the wreckage and flies with him back to the surface of Glennville. The Wizard thanks the flaming youth for saving his life; as a reward The Wizard invites the Human Torch over to his house. Inside The Wizard's house, the Human Torch is given a tour. The Wizard in particular wants to show him his special "three-dimensional" camera he has invented. As the Torch stands before the device, it suddenly sprays him with chemicals that douse his flame. Only his head remains fiery to keep his secret identity intact. The Wizard announces to the Torch that he is his prisoner. Holding him at gunpoint, the Wizard puts the Torch into a special room padded with asbestos.

While he has the Human Torch locked in the asbestos coated room, the Wizard plans to ruin the hero's reputation. Donning a special suit he designed, The Wizard is able to flame on and fly. In his disguise, The Wizard breaks into a bank vault. He starts robbing it of all it's cash, not even having to contend with guards whose bullets just melt against his flaming body. Next he burn into a state prison, freeing many criminals the the Human Torch himself had locked up. After that he creates a wall of flame on the Washington Bridge and forces the motorists to pay him a toll to pass.

As the Wizard is creating chaos, the real Human Torch frees himself. He has learned to create short bursts of increased heat so that nothing can withstand it. Using this, he make the room so hot he can melt through even the asbestos-lined wall. Flying outside, the police start shooting at the flying figure for all of the damage that has actually been caused by the Wizard.

While dodging police bullets, the Human Torch finds the Wizard who is travelling in a taxi. The Wizard tells him to meet him at his house that evening for a final test of power against him. The Torch agrees and goes to make a phone call.

That night, the Human Torch joins the Wizard at his house. The Wizards shows him photos he took of himself getting into his Human Torch disguise. He challenges the lad to reveal his secret identity or he won't reveal the photos to the public to exonerate the Human Torch from the chaos he caused earlier in the day. The Human Torch counters The Wizard by claiming that he can snatch those photos out of the air, before he can burn them in a nearby fireplace. The Wizard calls his bluff, when suddenly the photos do indeed fly out of his hands. As the Human Torch calls the police, The Wizards sulks in his defeat.

The police arrest the Wizard. As the Human Torch leaves, his sister Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, makes her presence known. It was she that Johnny called earlier in the day. It was Sue who used her powers of invisibility to snatch the photos out of the Wizard's hands and into Johnny's. Johnny claims...

Notes:

Firsts: The first appearance of The Wizard. His plan doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this issue. He becomes a much greater antagonist later as he forms the Fantastic Four's counter group the Frightful Four.

Unmasked: Johnny's "secret identity" becomes a huge plot hole in this issue when it is explained away in a later story. I don't know why The Wizard's motivation is to prove he's more powerful than the Human Torch. If he's this brilliant inventor guy, he should be taking on Reed Richards instead. Johnny is good at mechanical things as we've seen with his repairing of cars, but that's all stuff known about Johnny and not the Human Torch who he "secretly" is.

Sibling Success: I like that Sue helps Johnny out. Especially after last issue where he turned down the Thing's help. It's just a nice little note to end an otherwise confounding story on.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #6
8. Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
9. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
10. Fantastic Four #2
11. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #86
12. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #36
13. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
14. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
15. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
16. Strange Tales (Human Torch) #102
17. Fantastic Four #3
18. Incredible Hulk #2
19. Fantastic Four #7
20. Incredible Hulk #3
21. Strange Tales (Human Torch) #101

Journey Into Mystery 86

On The Trail of The Tomorrow Man

by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby

"I'm happy to play a part in keeping the free world strong and secure against the forces of tyranny" 

-Thor

The year is 2262. Earth has progressed to the point where they have no need of weapons. War is a foreign concept here. As the people joyfully fly through the air on their hovercrafts, one man is not happy. He is a scientist named Zarrko. Life in this peaceful future has grown too boring for him. Constructing earth's only time travel device, Zarrko prepares to carry out his plan. He uses a time scope device he's invented to view previous eras. Spying on the modern age (1962) he discovers that mankind was using atomic bombs back then.

On a US military testing site, the mighty Thor is helping the military conduct new research. First by outracing an anti-missile missile. Then they start to set off a cobalt bomb right next to him. Thor claims he can bear the brunt of it's blast. As they start to countdown to the explosion, Zarrko in his time machine appears out of nowhere. The soldiers halt the countdown and in the ensuing confusion Zarrko makes off with the cobalt bomb. With a toss of Mjolnir, Thor nicks some of the metal off of the time machine before it can fully dissipate.

Thor tracks down the Tomorrow Man. With an okay from the military, Thor takes the bit of metal from the time machine with him. He flies from the desert to a high mountaintop. Up there he uses his hammer to create a thunderstorm. In the midst of the storm, the thunder god summons his father, all-seeing Odin. Odin's head appears in the sky before his son. Thor asks Odin if he will permit him the ability to breech the barriers of time to follow the intruder Zarrko. Under Odin's command, Thor attaches the shrapnel to Mjolnir and spins it around as a time compass. Odin reminds Thor that the power to travel through the 4th dimension of time is always with him as long as he has that hammer. Thor dissipates.

Appearing in the future time of 2262, Thor quickly has a following among a crowd of onlookers. From them, Thor gets the information he needs. Zarrko returned a month before Thor. Since then, he has lorded over the populace with the cobalt bomb. Thor reassures them that he has a plan to defeat this tyrant. The next day, as Thor approaches Zarrko's castle, the scientist has heard of Thor's arrival. Fuming in his headquarters, Zarrko is unsure of how this man has followed him through time. Zarrko commands his guards to go out and deal with him.

Thor puts his plan into action. As the guards ride out on their hovercrafts, a mysterious figure in a gray robe knocks a tree down in their path. As soon as the guards collide with the tree, Thor leads the robed figure into Zarrko's fortress. When they get inside, Zarrko pulls a lever that drops Thor down into a pit of magnetic mirrors. The mirrors pull and fling Thor all over the chamber. Just then the man in the robe reveals himself. It's Thor.

Thor attacks Zarrko. He smashes his magnetic controller with Mjolnir. With the device in pieces, the man who was disguised as Thor in the mirror chamber is now safe. Zarrko confronts Thor with a gun that will shoot him into another dimension. As Thor is shot into this other dimension, he exhales a breath of hurricane force. This pierces the dimensional veil before it can fully close. Thor emerges to chase down a fleeing Zarrko.

Chasing the Tomorrow Man, Thor ends up in a room with giant robots. The robots are able to snatch Thor's hammer from his grip, leaving the thunder god only one minute to execute a plan before he turns back into Don Blake. As the robots encroach him, Thor starts tearing up the floor underneath. With his tremendous strength, Thor quickly finds what he is after, water pipes. He pulls the pipes apart with his hands, which start to flood the room. The water invades the robots' circuits, causing them to short and malfunction. They release Thor's hammer; without a second to spare Thor holds it aloft.

Thor continues his pursuit of the man from tomorrow. With C-Bomb in hand, Zarrko boards a spaceship and takes off. If he can't enslave the world, he'll destroy it instead. Thor summons a raging storm to stop the spaceship. The spaceship is thrashed in the air, forcing the bomb to dislodge and fall out. Thor races the bomb to the ground, like he raced the missiles at the testing ground earlier. Successfully grabbing it, Thor carefully lowers to the ground. Zarrko's landing is not as sound.

As Zarrko crawls from the wreckage, some EMTs gather him up. His memory, by all accounts, seems to be gone. The people of 2262 praise Thor for saving them from the tyranny of Zarrko. Thor says his farewell and takes the cobalt bomb back to 1962. A short time later, as Don Blake, he approaches his nurse Jane Foster. She is reading the newspaper covering Thor's recovery of the bomb. She wishes Don could be less dull and more like Thor. Don wonders if she'll ever figure it out.


Notes:

Here we have the first of many alternate future earths. This one will later be designated as Earth-6297. The earth we are most familiar with in the Marvel Universe is Earth-616. These designations generally (but not always) correspond with the date the comic was published. Earth-616 = 1961, June - Fantastic Four #1's release date. Earth-6297 = 1962, September. (I'm not sure where the 7 comes from, unless it was the exact date of the 7th when it was released.)

More Firsts: appearance of Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man. Mostly a Thor villain. He doesn't show up a whole lot. Also our first major appearance of Odin. He will show up a whole lot. We learn that Thor's hammer has the power to travel through time.

General Cameo ?: This Thor story could be considered the first Marvel crossover. Without going by name, there is a military general (second panel posted, general on the right side) at the testing grounds with Thor who looks a whole lot like General "Thunderbolt" Ross from the Hulk comics. Now given they don't mention him by name, we can't say for certain that this is the first evidence of a shared universe between the titles. But it would make sense if it was a cameo by him.

Attempting to analyze deeper: This story is mostly about Thor's opposition to tyranny, as stated by the quote at the top and his need to stop Zarrko. There's also a motif that shows up about racing against time; Thor races against the missiles at the testing site. He races against Zarrko to get the bomb back. He loses his hammer against the robots and has his race against his own humanity. Then he races the bomb itself before it can hit the ground.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #6
8. Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
9. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
10. Fantastic Four #2
11. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #86
12. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #36
13. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
14. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
15. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
16. Fantastic Four #3
17. Incredible Hulk #2
18. Fantastic Four #7
19. Incredible Hulk #3
20. Strange Tales #101

Next Time: The Human Torch is put in a battle of wits when he faces The Wizard.

Tales To Astonish 36

The Challenge of Comrade X!

Inside a New York bank, Ant-Man is freeing some criminals. Some bank robbers were trying to steal from the bank's vault, but got themselves locked in. Ant-Man, along with the police, are in the process of rescuing them. Small enough to get inside the lock, Ant-Man uses his human-sized strength to manually turn the tumblers to open the vault door. The crooks pour out and are immediately taken into custody by the police. As Ant-Man rides away on his ant mount, the police praise his help.

Behind the Iron Curtain, Comrade X is summoned. News has gotten out about Ant-Man, so now the Soviets are determined to find out the formula for his shrinking. They have dreams of sending out tiny armies to conquer enemy nations. The mustachioed Comrade X is their best espionage agent, so they are sending him to capture Ant-Man and get his formula.

A few days later, back in New York, a young woman arrives at a police station. She frantically asks them to get her in touch with Ant-Man, for it is a matter of life and death. Although the police don't know how to reach the hero, some nearby ants do. They bounce the signal of Ant-Man's name across their antennae like a telephone signal until it reaches Henry Pym's lab. There he has a device set up to receive this signal. Henry Pym puts on his costume and uses his formula, now in a gaseous form for quicker use, and shrinks.

Ant-Man leaps into action. He inserts himself into a tiny catapult contraption. Then hits a button that shoots him out of the barrel, like a bullet. Flying out of the lab, he uses his helmet to contact nearby ants. Hundreds of ants come out to create a barrier between him and the pavement. Landing safely, Ant-Man mounts one of the ants. He sees the lady leaving the police station and follows her to a taxi.

Inside the taxi, Ant-Man sneaks inside the lady's purse. After the ride, the lady enters her apartment and puts her purse down on a counter. Ant-Man emerges and is quickly spotted by her. He asks her why she wanted to contact him. Through tears she starts explaining how she fell in love with a man who turned out to be a Soviet spy named Comrade X. She didn't care about that until he started cheating on her, she's getting revenge by revealing everything to Ant-Man. He wants to spy on him to get his secret shrinking formula. The crying lady tells him that Comrade X is hiding on a freighter at pier 89 at the docks. Ant-Man mounts up on his ant and takes off for the pier.

Ant-Man leads an army of ants up the freighter docked at pier 89. As they board the ship, they carelessly trip a light alarm. This alarm is seen by the crew, who prepares itself for the invasion. Comrade X grabs a glass container and forces it over the passing Ant-Man; now trapped like the bank robbers from the beginning. Noticing the glass container has pinholes so he can breathe, Ant-Man uses this to his advantage. He produces a signal to summon more ants outside of his glass prison.

The ants respond. They carry loose bits of wood from the pier to float over the ocean and onto the freighter. The freighter which is leaving the pier now that Ant-Man is trapped on board. The ants reach the ship and travel up the anchor chain to their captive leader. Running up a guard's leg, the ants make the man stumble and smash the glass container apart under his frantic boots. Now free, Ant-Man runs to a hole in a wooden wall before the guard can seize him again.

Searching through the ship, Ant-Man finds the communications room. From there he tells the ants to chew on a ceiling lamp wire so that it crashes down on the radio operator's head. With the operator incapacitated, Ant-Man grows to normal size. He uses the radio equipment to signal the nearby Coast Guard.

While Ant-Man uses the radio, the other ants under his command carry out his orders. They steal a key that unlocks Comrade X's room. Ant-Man receives the message from the ants that they have carried out this part of the plan and enters to confront Comrade X. Comrade X sees him first and whips out a container of DDT. As he threatens to spray Ant-Man with the chemicals, hundreds of ants travels up to the ceiling and blot out the overhead light. With Comrade X in a blind panic, Ant-Man ties his bootlaces together under his heels and pulls him down to the ground. Once there, the ants comes down to swarm towards his head. They grab his face and pull her mask off.

Underneath the mask is not Comrade X, but rather Madame X. He has been a female all along. The same lady Ant-Man had talked to from the police station. Ant-Man explains how him and the ants knew; When he was inside her purse during the taxi ride, he found the mask complete with a voice modifier to make herself sound more masculine. When Ant-Man is done explaining, the Coast Guard boats arrive. As they take her away, Ant-Man mounts off on an ant with everybody wondering who he really is.

Notes:

First crossdressing character in the Marvel Universe. There's nothing wrong with that if you feel that is a part of you. If you also happen to be an enemy government agent trying to steal secrets is where you'll be put in danger.

The only noteworthy change in this issue is that Henry Pym has changed his shrinking chemical from a liquid into a gas form so that it's easier for him to take while he is outside his lab.

The ants bounce signals from one antennae to the next in a "web of communication" as the narrator says. I'm calling it the Anternet.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #6
8. Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
9. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
10. Fantastic Four #2
11. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #36
12. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
13. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
14. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
15. Fantastic Four #3
16. Incredible Hulk #2
17. Fantastic Four #7
18. Incredible Hulk #3
19. Strange Tales #101

Next time: We get our first trip into the future with Thor.

Strange Tales 101

The Human Torch

After racing a missile, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, heads for him and his sister Susan Storm's house in Glenville for the night. Johnny claims that the area has become more popular now that people know Sue, the Invisible Girl, lives there. However, they are unaware that Johnny is the Human Torch. Only 4 close friends knew his secret, but an editor's note tells us they have all moved away (these must be the friends we saw in FF #1, #3 & #4).

Inside his home, the Torch goes over his mostly asbestos covered room that Reed designed for him. A precaution in case Johnny accidentally flames on during the night. After getting ready for bed, the teen recalls the Fantastic Four's origins. The failed journey into space, the crash back to earth and the gaining of supernatural powers. As Johnny slips off to sleep, elsewhere in town a mysterious figure calling himself The Destroyer stalks a nearly completed amusement park.

The next morning, Johnny and some of his school mates walk past the same amusement park. That day at the local newspaper, the Glenville Gazette, the publisher, Charles Stanton, receives a note. It is from The Destroyer who threatens to strike if the amusement park is completed. Charles tosses the note away, who thinks it's just a prank. The following day as the roller coaster is tested, it breaks off of the track. Bystanders, including Johnny, look on in horror as the man starts to fall. Johnny uses smoke from a nearby pipe-smoker to camouflage himself as he flames on. The Human Torch rescues the plummeting park tester, then goes back into the smoke to change back into Johnny to keep his secret identity intact. The amusement park workers go over the track, but since they can't find a reason why it was sabotaged, they figure it was faulty construction.

The day after that, the Glennville Gazette receives yet another letter from The Destroyer. It claims responsibility for the roller coaster malfunction the previous day, and promises to strike again. Charles decides to take it more seriously, so he heads over to the park to let them know. The owner of the park tells Charles that he doesn't see any connection.

A few days later, Johnny and his friends visit the amusement park again. This time the workers are testing out the parachute jump ride (as seen on the cover). Again the ride starts to break apart. Johnny distracts the crowd's attention by shooting fireballs out of his fingers so he can go hide in a nearby fun house and flame on as the Human Torch. He uses his flame to weld together the base of the ride that is breaking apart. Before returning to his friends, he creates a flaming duplicate of himself. He uses this to distract the others so he can secretly change back to Johnny again. This new attack alerts the owner to realizing the note was serious after all.

More days later, Johnny reads a copy of the Gazette. He reads that The Destroyer has challenged him to a battle. The article dares the Torch to meet him at a cabin in the woods that night. As Johnny gets ready, there's a knock on his door. It's the Thing. He has come to help Johnny battle the Destroyer, but Johnny tells the Thing that he wants to fight him alone. After calling Johnny a stubborn brat, the Thing stomps off.

Later that night, as the Human Torch, Johnny spies the cabin where he is to meet The Destroyer. Peering through a window, he makes out a person sitting in a chair. Too dark to see any detail, the Torch creeps inside. He finds the sitting figure to be only a dummy. Suddenly liquid foam bursts from the wall and ceiling of the cabin, completely coating and dousing the lad's flames. The Destroyer, who is watching from outside, is preparing to finish Johnny off when he hears some teenagers approaching from a distance. This scares The Destroyer off. Johnny emerges from the cabin and asks the teenagers if they've seen the Torch in order to protect his secret identity.

Johnny goes back home. He tries to put together some clues to stop The Destroyer. It suddenly dawns on him that The Destroyer is only attacking the more elevated rides, but not harming any of the others. Johnny flames back on and heads to the roller coaster. From up high he can see why The Destroyer is sabotaging the taller rides. They have a view of the coast. And on the coast lies a Soviet submarine.

The Human Torch defeats commies. He flies down to the quickly submerging vessel and uses his intense heat to cause the sea to boil around the submarine. This makes it too hot so the enemy agents must surface. Suddenly the Coast Guard shows up to help the Torch. They gather up the commie agents and then go in search of The Destroyer. The Destroyer pulls a gun on them, but Johnny melts it with his flame. They take the villain into custody and remove his mask. It is Charles Stanton, the publisher of the Glennville Gazette. The Coast Guard piece together the information: Charles was sneaking secrets to a communists in the sub. He wanted the amusement park rides destroyed so that no one could see the secluded area that they were using. As the Coast Guard takes them all into custody, the Human Torch flies off to change before his flame dies out.

Notes:

Welcome to the convoluted mess that is Human Torch's solo stories. It turns out the newspaper publisher was sending notes to himself that nobody else could read in order to threaten the amusement park. How does that work? Also Johnny does not have a secret identity. The Fantastic Four is a public group who do not hide behind masks. In the last story he was being honored as the Human Torch along with the rest of the FF by members on Congress.

If you can ignore the stuff that doesn't make sense and just read it as a light-hearted romp, it's some fun romp.

Trying to make some sense out of this, you could possibly argue that Johnny is only worried about people in his immediate community figuring out who he is, but in like 5 issue's time we find out that this is not the case at all.

If want to go deeper, I guess there could be a theme of hiding things found if you look hard enough. Johnny is hiding his secret identity from everyone and The Destroyer is trying to hide his scheming with the soviets.

Random observation: The Destroyer's costume looks a lot like Hydra's and Baron Mordo's.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #6
8. Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
9. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
10. Fantastic Four #2
11. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
12. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
13. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
14. Fantastic Four #3
15. Incredible Hulk #2
16. Fantastic Four #7
17. Incredible Hulk #3
18. Strange Tales #101

Fantastic Four 7

Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X

On the far off Planet X, its master Kurrgo spies on the Fantastic Four as they go through their mail. Kurrgo's advanced race of pale, big-headed beings are in catastrophic danger. A rogue asteroid is closing in on their planet with enough destructive power to end all life. His people, advanced as they are, have never been all that into space travel for they only have two spaceships in the entire world. Not enough to rescue all the inhabitants. Kurrgo thinks that the Fantastic Four would be able to help him find a solution. Through force. So he sends his indestructible robot guard to earth to capture them.

In the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four are arguing over attending a dinner the United States Congress is holding in the group's honor. Sue, Johnny & Ben all argue that they'll be too nervous which will cause their powers to go off; making a national embarrassment of themselves. Reed, being the leader, tells them they are all being silly so they should all just get ready. They can't refuse a request from congress.

As Johnny goes to take a shower he makes some snide remark towards the Thing. During his shower, Ben sneaks in and carefully, without detection, makes Johnny's water too hot. This causes Johnny to flame on, which causes the water to create smoke as it falls onto his fiery body. The smoke permeates through the building, alarming Sue & Reed. Reed stretches through a vent to find a source for the smoke when they hear the commotion between the Human Torch and Thing. Thing explains he was just trying to start something to get out of going to the dinner party.

Entering earth's atmosphere, the spaceship from Planet X arrives. Detected by a newly installed satellite, the spaceship alerts US intelligence. The spaceship is just nearly spotted by Thing as the Four travel to Washington in the Fantasticar. Ben just figures it was some kind of rocket test. The spaceship plows right through jet interceptors and then lands undetected in a remote valley.

Out of the spaceship steps Kurrgo's robot. The robot uses a device to detect the Fantastic Four that also produces a mist of energy making the members of the Fantastic Four feel funny as soon as they reach the Capitol. Once the Four are at the dinner, the congressmen honor the team with a trophy as a symbol of gratitude. The spaceship has honed in on Capitol Hill and as it hovers over faster than the eye can see, it transmits a low frequency hum over the entire area. Chaos ensues...

With the entire Congress and military suddenly after them, the Fantastic Four flee. Johnny flames on and flies out. Reed uses his stretching powers to hang from a chandelier  Sue turns invisible and fools the servicemen into tripping over each other. The Thing lifts up a chunk of wall out of place and then hides behind it. Once outside and in the Fantasticar, Reed, Johnny and Sue, wait for the Thing to emerge, which he does by bursting out of the ground. Thing grabs an extended leg of Mr. Fantastic's as they fly away.

The Planet X spaceship chases the Fantasticar. Reed attempts to out maneuver it. Failing that, he guides it towards the roof of the Baxter Building. Once they've all landed, Kurrgo's robot emerges. With a riled up crowd forming at the base of the tower, the robot prophecies how each one of them will be captured by the forces of earth. They agree the only course of action is to join the robot back to Planet X. The reluctant Thing senses a trap. On the way there Reed and Thing have a brief conversation about Reed wanting to go along out of curiosity.

After a faster than light journey through space, the Fantastic Four land on Planet X. Immediately they are confronted by Kurrgo, who describes the situation...

Reed wonders why they don't fly away since they have the means for space travel. Kurrgo replies that they have never cared for it so they have only built two spaceships on the entire planet. The population of 5 billion would never fit.

Thing thinks they should just head back home from this hopeless situation, but he is immediately swatted away by the robot guard. Johnny flames on and attempts to destroy the robot with a super nova blast, but is stopped by his sister. As Reed proclaims, if Johnny had flamed on to that intensity he would kill them all. Kurrgo then announces that they have only 24-hours to find a solution or they are all doomed. As Planet X begins to shake apart from the proximity of the asteroid's gravitational pull, Reed starts thinking. Kurrgo reveals all he cares about is his subjects living so he can retain being their Master.

Reed immediately sets the team to task. With only a few hours to spare Reed reveals his inventions; A giant cannon that the Four have helped him assemble and some capsules to put inside the cannon. Inside the capsules is a shrinking formula (not unlike Henry Pym's). With these, he plans to shrink the entire populace so that they can all board one of the spaceships while the FF take the other one back to Earth. Kurrgo agrees to this solution and takes the enlarging capsule with him.

As Planet X begins its violent death throes, the Fantastic Four race across the crumbling surface to reach the waiting spaceship. The shrunken Planet-Xians all board the other one. All except Kurrgo who is struggling with the enlarging gas capsule. He gets to thinking only he will take the enlarging serum and keep the others small so he can rule over them more easily. This greedy thought causes him to lag behind the others. They fly off as Kurrgo stumbles and refuses to give up his dream of absolute power. Leaving the master behind as the world is split asunder. As the Fantastic Four head back to earth in the spaceship, Reed reveals that there was no enlarging gas, so the Planet Xians will have to remain small.

Notes:

This isn't a great issue, but I feel like the Fantastic Four have found their voice with this one. Thing in particular is sounding like how we'll get used to him sounding as the series continues. Reed shows himself as the leader of the group. Not just a leader and a scientist but also an adventurer. I think the whole family/team dynamic is a lot more solid here than it has been thus far. It's better at the small stuff going on rather than the big plot stuff.

This is the first time the Fantastic Four have gone on an interstellar mission. The first time we see some of Marvel space outside of Earth. A very small sliver of what is to come. They also now have a spaceship. An actual alien spaceship that Reed didn't invent.

Gaffe: As they are leaving Planet X, Reed says, "there was no reducing gas", but he clearly is meant to be saying there was no "enlarging gas" because the aliens did indeed shrink.

Head Cannon thoughts: I wonder if that ray that made people hostile had any lingering effects and that in part is why a lot of people in the Marvel Universe seem particularly angry when it comes to superheroes. It could also have something to do about the upcoming oddball supervillains about to show up in the Human Torch's stories in Strange Tales and many other upcoming series.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #6
8. Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
9. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
10. Fantastic Four #2
11. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
12. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
13. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
14. Fantastic Four #3
15. Incredible Hulk #2
16. Fantastic Four #7
17. Incredible Hulk #3

Next: The Human Torch has his very first solo adventure. (Ugh)