Fantastic Four 11a

A Visit With the Fantastic Four

by

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

On a crowded Manhattan sidewalk, children and teenagers wait in line for the latest edition of the Fantastic Four comic. As the real Fantastic Four walk on by, they encounter a group of kids playing “Fantastic Four”. They show off for the children, amusing and bewildering the kids with their presence and advice. When the FF reach the Baxter Building, they run into their mailman, Willie Lumpkin. He has a huge sack of letters all addressed to the Fantastic Four. The Thing uses his strength to take the letters from Willie on one finger. Free of his burden, Willie wonders if he can join the team since he can wiggle his ears real well as a power. Reed jokes that they’ll keep him in mind.

After the Invisible Girl uses her belt beam to open their private elevator, the group ascends to their living quarters. Thing puts the huge sack of mail on the table and the Fantastic Four begin sorting through it. Thing finds a package addressed to him. Hoping it is food, Thing quickly opens it to find a spring loaded boxing glove whack him in the kisser. He starts blaming the Yancy Street Gang and takes his frustration out on his new dumbbell. 

Reed finds a way to cheer his friend up. He’s been working on a new formula to return Thing to his normal human state of Ben Grimm. Thing splashes the serum on and immediately starts looking like his human self. Johnny Storm decides things are getting too mushy for his liking and cuts off to the garage. 

This makes Reed reminisce about his own youth. Reed and Ben became friends when they were roommates in college. Ben was an All-American football star and Reed was a brilliant scientist, receiving all kinds of accolades for his dedication. It wasn’t long before both served the U.S. during World War II. Ben became an ace fighter pilot for the marines over the Pacific Theater of war. Reed, on the other hand, worked underground for the OSS, the entire time dreaming about being with Sue Storm. 

The reminiscing is broken as Sue starts feeling uncomfortable. She still hasn't made up her mind about him or the Sub-Mariner. Reed acquiesces and starts reflecting on their failed mission to space. Reminding everyone of how they got their powers and became the Fantastic Four. How despite Ben’s protests they flew a rocket right into a cosmic storm that downed the rocket and gave them their fantastic power. How after the crash landing, Ben started changing into an orange, rock-hided monster looking Thing. How Johnny spontaneously ignited. How Sue started fading away and Reed saved them by stretching his arm out long enough to signal a passing plane.

Sue breaks the reflecting again as she starts sobbing. Reed wonders what is wrong and Sue explains that she has been getting a lot of hate mail for not contributing enough to the team during their adventures. Reed reassures her by explaining to us that Sue is as important to the team as Abe Lincoln’s mother was important to him. In a much better explanation, Reed describes how she has helped. She helped them fight the Skrulls last year and she rescued them all in their first encounter with Doctor Doom. Ben gets angry with the readers, this causes him to revert back to his rocky form of the Thing.

As Reed and Sue try to comfort Ben, an alarm goes off. It must be from the Human Torch, so they all head to the garage. The source of the alarm seems to be coming from the spaceship they have from their mission on Planet X a few months ago. Inside, they find Johnny next to a birthday cake. They all surprise Sue for remembering her birthday. As they celebrate, Ben looks out of a window to see Willie Lumpkin on his way back with another full sack of mail.

Notes

This is the most 4th wall breaking issue yet. The Fantastic Four read their mail, answer fan questions and celebrate Sue’s birthday.

We learn a number of new things. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm first met in college, where they were roommates. They both served in World War II, Ben as a fighter pilot and Reed as a spy in the OSS. Reed has been pining for Sue since then (which makes things kinda icky if you think about their age difference.)

The events in this story take place roughly a year after the Skrull invasion, so we’ve had over a year of Fantastic Four already in the Marvel Universe. I know Marvel later develops the sliding time scale, but for right now that doesn’t exist and it’s more like the Peanuts or Archie where the characters just don’t age very much. I bring this up now, because this is the first reference to modern day characters having been directly involved in historical events like World War II.

The Reed/Sue/Namor triangle is brought up again as a subplot.

Review & Ranking

This is pretty much a non-story. The Fantastic Four answer fan mail and celebrate Sue’s birthday. We get some interesting back story finally on Reed & Ben. It’s too bad they didn’t have room to explore how the Storms fit into things beyond Reed wanting to be with Sue. It’s has more value to Marvel as a whole for that reason than some of the other stories around this time (Ant-Man, solo Human Torch, upcoming Thor stories for example)

This story mostly works on charm since the story that there is, is rather simple and served as an excuse to answer fan questions about the Fantastic Four. The most grating part is Reed’s explanation of Sue’s importance to the team. He gives this oblivious, sexist diatribe about Abe Lincoln’s mother and how important she was to him, despite a lot of people not knowing who she is. Besides that face palming speech, as Reed goes on the explain after that, Sue has been a major help to the team in specific situations. Besides being the only one of them to best Doctor Doom in their first encounter, she spied on the Miracle Man in #3 to help them defeat him and she helped Johnny defeat the Wizard in Strange Tales. Her infatuation with Namor has stopped him from totally defeating the team and helped get him to betray Doctor Doom on their behalf.

The rank I am giving this issue is above Incredible Hulk #4a which sort of rehashes who the Hulk is and below Tales to Astonish #35 which also reintroduced a main protagonist in the Marvel Universe, Henry Pym/Ant-Man. It makes sense to me to place it between those two.

Next Time: The other half of Fantastic Four #11 as the FF meet the Impossible Man!