by
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
In Reed Richards' lab, Johnny and Sue attempt to prevent the Thing from interrupting Reed's secret experiment. Feeling left out, Thing is overcome with anger. After setting Sue aside, Thing goes after Johnny. The two of them tussle until Johnny uses his powers to surround Thing in a ring of flame. Reed comes out to extinguish the flame and try to calm Ben down. Before he can explain, Thing decides he's had enough and leaves the group. At Reed's behest, Sue turns invisible and follows him outside.
Out on the street, Sue tries to reason with the Thing. As the two of them argue while she is still invisible, two bystanders assume the Thing is crazy talking to himself. They start interjecting and making fun of the Thing. Sue interjects her foot into ones of the men's butt. Thing proceeds to wrap a lamp post around the other guy to shut him up. With them dealt with, Sue suddenly shouts as she notices a man climbing the nearby Washington bridge. Unable to reach him, Sue fires off her flare gun to alert Reed and her brother. Reed attempts to stretch out and grab the man, but it is just beyond his limits. Johnny flames on and as the Human Torch, he is able to fly safely to the bridge.
Elsewhere in town, we discover the cause of this disruption. A slim, bald man with a frightening Cheshire grin is hunched over a highly detailed model of the Washington bridge. Holding a doll of the man on the bridge, he barely nudges him off the edge when suddenly his finger is scorched. As the Human Torch rescues the man on the bridge, it creates some kind of feedback that burns the Puppet Master. He swears revenge on the Human Torch.
Hearing the exasperation of her step-father, Alicia Masters rushes in to help. The Puppet Master treats her rather brusquely as he continues on his work in secret. With the special radioactive clay he has in his possession, Puppet Master carves a detailed figure of the Thing. He places the doll in a model of his own living room. Back on the street, the Thing is suddenly compelled to travel to the Puppet Master's home. Still invisible, Sue Storm continues to follow her teammate. As they arrive at the Puppet Master's location, Sue is immediately detected by Alicia. It turns out she is blind and because of that, she is more sensitive to sounds. She can hear Sue's heartbeat and breathing. After realizing it must be the Invisible Girl, Puppet Master dons gas masks for the three of them and fills the room with ether to knock Sue out.
The Puppet Master notices that the unconscious Sue looks very similar to his step-daughter. This gives the villain an idea for an elaborate prank. He styles a blonde wig and puts Alicia in a Fantastic Four costume. Alicia feels out to find Thing's face, under her fingers she can sense a gentle sensitivity deep inside Ben's rough, rocky exterior. With both of them under his bidding, Puppet Master commands them to return to the Fantastic Four while he causes a jail break. As Thing and Alicia in disguise return to the Baxter Building, Johnny greets them. That's when the Thing attacks.
Under the Puppet Master's control, Thing smashes out recklessly. Reed gets him to chase him through his lab, making him smash into the table Reed was working at earlier. The Thing suddenly starts turning back into his old self as Ben Grimm again. With this metamorphosis, he is no longer under enemy control. Reed explains that this was the experiment he was working on before, but he didn't want Ben to find out about it until it was complete, in case it didn't work. With the tension between them resolved, they turn to Johnny who got injured during the fight. After seeing that it was mainly his pride that was hurt, they all turn to what looks like a confused Sue. Ben suddenly remembers that she is actually Alicia and fills the rest of them in. As he explains, his human form gives away yet again to the tragic, orange-hued hide of the Thing.
In his hideout, the Puppet Master has put the final touches of his scheme into motion. With a doll carved to look like the warden's trustee of a local prison, the Puppet Master has controlled him to steal the warden's key and unlock all of the jail cells. As the captive Susan Storm looks on, he stages a prison riot with his figures. Needing to do something, Sue turns invisible and makes a break for it. Before she can run too far Puppet Master is alerted to her escape. He grabs a doll he has made of her and squeezes its ankles together. This causes the Invisible Girl to trip to the floor. As she falls, Sue whips out her flare gun and fires it out a window to signal her teammates.
The Fantastic Four race to the Puppet Master's lair. Seeing the "4" signal from the Fantsticar, as they were in search of Sue already. They make it to the building. Inside they are confronted by a huge robotic-looking puppet. Puppet Master is able to control it mentally as he holds Sue hostage. The combined effort of Human Torch, Thing and Mr. Fantastic are enough to quickly overcome the robot. They find the Puppet Master escaping out a window, riding a winged, jet-powered, horse puppet. Reed stretches his arm out, this time successfully rescuing Sue off of its back. With his sister secure, the Human Torch flies out after Puppet Master. He doesn't realize it is jet powered until too late, as the horse blasts off faster than he can follow. Returning to the window, Johnny's flame is overspent as he just barely makes the building. Reed grabs him at the last second to catch him before he plummets to his death.
With the Fantastic Four finally back together, they hear the news on a nearby TV. The state prison is under siege as the prisoners have all been released and are rioting. With the warden as a hostage, the guards are unwilling to fire at the prisoners. Knowing the Puppet Master is responsible for this mess, the Fantastic Four take it on them to resolve the situation. The Human Torch burns his way through the ground inside the prison. Surprising everybody, Johnny is able to snatch the warden out from the prisoners' hands and out of the building. With the warden safe, the rest of the Fantastic Four can cut loose.
The Thing begins by smashing down an entire wall. He grabs a random prisoner and hurls him right into a pile of sand. Inside the prison, Thing grabs a bunch of broken down cell doors and latches them all together. With this he fashions a cage to slam around a group of the criminals. More prisoners start shooting at Mr. Fantastic. With his stretchiness, he rubberbands the bullets right back at the prisoners. He then snatches all of their guns out of their hands. The Human Torch returns just in time to circle these men in a ring of fire. The Invisible Girl picks up a gun and holds it towards one of the inmates while invisible. This shock is enough to stop him in his tracks. With the inmates taken care of, the warden and his men take control of the situation and orders them all to get back to their cells.
Back in her room in the Puppet Master's home, Alicia has come to the horrible conclusion that her step-father is a villain. As she weeps, the Puppet Master watches before breaking her reverie. He announces that he has returned to take control of his greatest puppet of all; himself. Grabbing a doll of himself dressed as a king from behind a glass container, the Puppet Master starts spewing his dream to be master of the world. With his doll under his control, he will order the destruction of the UN, force world leaders to serve him food, and make the Fantastic Four his slaves.
Alicia has had enough. She refuses to give into the Puppet Master's madness. No one should have as much power as he imagines. As she struggles to pry the doll from the maniac's fingers, it slips to the ground as does his step-daughter. Alicia blindly searches for the puppet on the ground. The Puppet Master reaches for it before she can, but doesn't see her outstretched arm. Stumbling over Alicia's arm, the Puppet Master, like his own puppet, trips. He falls out of a second-story window. Seconds later, the Fantastic Four arrive on the scene. Having seen her step-father on their way in, Thing takes Alicia into his arms to gently console her. Sue wonders if they'll ever know what made the Puppet Master fall.
- Notes:
Firsts: The Puppet Master (real name Phillip Masters) and his radioactive clay. Alicia Masters, who we'll quickly learn is not only blind, but also a sculptress. As we start to see here, she becomes the Thing's main love interest.
Pranks a lot: The problem for me with this issue is that I like all of the characters involved, but the main plot of the Puppet Master doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or is given much of an explanation. His "prank" somehow involves causing a prison riot, but it doesn't go any further than that. Then his plan completely changes at the end to him wanting to rule the world.
Lovers Grimm: The most interesting part of this issue is Alicia Masters and the exploration of her connection to her step-father and her connection to the Thing. She seems like a character straight out of a fairy tale, which I guess makes sense given her love interest is in a man named Ben Grimm. Maybe this fairy tale aesthetic is why the Puppet Master always has that disturbing Cheshire grin. There's also a winged horse that turns out flies under jet power instead of the wings.
Welcome to Reality: The theme seems to be illusion or imagination falling away to reality. It begins with the Thing thinking Reed is keeping him out of the loop, but it turns out Reed was doing so to protect him. It ends with the Puppet Master's imagination getting away from him which leads to his betrayal of his step-daughter and ultimately his death (he gets better.) Alicia realizes her step-father is a villain who has been betraying her compassion. There's a winged horse that turns out be flying by jet-rockets instead of the wings. Most importantly, the Thing thinks Alicia likes him better as the rocky-hide Thing instead of his human form as Ben Grimm.
List Opinions: Even though the villain's plot didn't make a lot of sense, there's still a lot of fun moments in this issue and the emotional weight does a lot to elevate the story. The sorrow of Alicia's realization is felt greatly and her attraction to the Thing feels genuine. With Alicia around, the Thing's personality seems more cemented than it has until now. All of the FF's personality seem in line with how I think about them except for Sue, who is yet again relegated to being the hostage.
The somewhat fairy tale qualities of this issue make me think of Thor. Therefore, I think this goes just above JIM 86 with The Tomorrow Man, whose villain's plot to take over the world worked, but everything else about it seemed a bit inconsistent. Below Fantastic Four #2 because the Puppet Master isn't as important as the Skrulls (maybe about as equal importance as Alicia), whose plot to take over earth at least made more sense from their perspective than Puppet Master's did.
List:
- Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
- Fantastic Four #1
- Fantastic Four #4
- Incredible Hulk #1
- Fantastic Four #5
- Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
- Fantastic Four #6
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #85
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
- Fantastic Four #2
- Fantastic Four #8
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #86
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #36
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
- Incredible Hulk #4a
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
- Strange Tales (Human Torch) #102
- Fantastic Four #3
- Incredible Hulk #2
- Fantastic Four #7
- Incredible Hulk #4b
- Incredible Hulk #3
- Strange Tales (Human Torch) #101
Next Time: Ant-Man fights someone who is not a communist for once.
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