It was late 1981, and John Byrne, at the time he was really good at
writing (and drawing), made the FF an enjoyable read again. I think
he got the job mostly due to the fact that he wrote some of the
Thing’s team-up adventures in the latter years of Marvel Two-In-One,
another team-up title put out by Marvel as well as Spider-Man’s own
Marvel Team-Up. And when it came around, it was considered one of
the best runs of its time, from 1981-86.
This volume of Marvel’s Visionaries series of trades compiles about
9 issues of the time, #232-240, and they’re all very enjoyable,
though one oddity is how the use of the British pronunciation for
the word “while”, that being “whilst” does tend to get used at
times. (Byrne was an immigrant from Britain who lived in Canada for
most of his later life, which could explain why that was done.)
The issues compiled here include one in which the Spanish alchemist
Diablo, one of their notable nemeses, attempts to use creatures
based on natural elements (fire, earth, water and air) to attack the
FF at a time when they’re trying to enjoy themselves around town,
interrupting some good times, of course. Reed’s cerebral mind is
what helps piece together the clues surrounding the puzzle here, and
this helps to stop the menaces (though I will have to say that the
earth-and-mud creature summoned up by Diablo was probably the
easiest to deal with, if the one dealing with happens to be Sue
Storm). Then, there’s one in which the Human Torch goes on a solo
investigation to clear the name of a one-time troublemaker he’d
known in school, who became a small time thief later in life, and
was executed for a murder he didn’t commit. While it turns out that
it had no direct connection, the mystery nevertheless leads over to
the villainous Hammerhead back in NYC, who’s using an exo-suit to
pack some extra punch in combat. Not to worry, Torch figures out how
to stop him without killing him, though Hammerhead still manages to
get away, but not his other organized crime colleagues.
This too is a pretty good story, and what’s revealed at the end is
what’s really surprising here.
The next two issues involve a middle-aged accountant who’s got some
kind of psychokinetic power that enables him to manipulate reality
in a way that can help him out if he’s got a problem, and apparently
got it by ways of having been a guinea pig in an army-based
experiment in the 1950’s when he was in the service. As powerful as
it is, he seems rather oblivious to it. He’s instrumental in helping
out when NYC, where he’s going on a business trip for his boss, is
struck by an earthquake caused by the foe to be seen next issue.
Until then, our “Man with the Power!” reverses a lot of what
happened, so that only the FF will know what went on when they come
back from space, where they’re headed to find out what caused all
the trouble, and then, the accountant’s power wears off, which is
probably a good thing for his sake. But the FF, they’ve got to face
something really serious, that being Ego, the Living Planet! And
wow, what an adventure it is alright! As the Four all hop around on
the “planet’s” surface to find out how they can put a stop to its
attempt to wreck havoc upon the earth. It’s a simple story, which is
what makes it enjoyable.
But then wait’ll you get to the next story, an anniversary issue
that features the FF at the mercy of Doctor Doom, who’s reduced
them, quite literally, to tiny figures within a small model town,
using the assistance of the Puppet Master, who foolishly made a deal
with the devil, all because he wanted for his stepdaughter Alicia
and Ben to be happy together, to lure the Fantastic Four, Franklin
and Alicia included, into Doom’s grasp. The Foursome then have to
use some considerable wits to emerge from that particular trap.
Philip Masters, alias the Puppet Master, is a character who was
meant as a kind of tragi-comic figure, in that, while he has been a
crook often, he does have his redeeming qualities as well, and is
usually meant to be seen as someone whose intentions are at times
better than how they’re executed. And that’s what makes him work
well as a character in the MCU – that he’s far from the most
menacing foe one could face, but being an authentic menace isn’t
what makes him work as a character, rather, it’s his personality
that does.
This was also the time when Ben found out that Alicia had realized
for some time already what he'd become years earlier, and assured
him that it did not change what she thought of him one bit. It's a
very touching scene, and helped greatly in developing and expanding
the characters even more over the following years.
The next story is one in which Reed and Sue find themselves
investigating a tall alien woman who’s being used as a backup for a
handful of thieves in robbing jewelry stores around Manhattan, and
Reed guesses that she may indeed have been used as a tool. It’s got
one of the funniest closing lines you’ll read.
But what’s really interesting here following that part is the story
with Frankie Raye, Johnny’s current ladyfriend, a stunning redheaded
college student who turns out to have something very strange going
on about her. Most puzzlingly enough for her, a bikini-like costume
has formed upon her whenever she takes off her clothes, and becomes
absorbed into her skin again when she puts on her robe again, in
example.
But upon Johnny’s encouragement to keep trying hard enough to recall
her earlier life, which she finds she’s got trouble in doing, that’s
when the pleasant surprise comes to fore: she’s got powers similar
to Johnny’s, which she acquired during an accident while helping her
stepfather, apparently Prof. Phineas Horton, the inventor of the
original android Human Torch, whose own given name was John Hammond,
to lug some chemical canisters to his car when she was 14, just a
couple of months after Johnny himself became the contemporary Human
Torch. He’d initially been furious when he read all about Johnny’s
becoming the new Torch, apparently thinking it an act of muscling in
on the name of his own creation, and probably wanted to try and
build a new robot with which to challenge that in a duel. It didn’t
turn out as he’d hoped, what with Frankie’s accident while lugging
the canister over the damaged floorboards of the warehouse where a
lot of Horton’s own tools had been stored after the WW2 and the 50’s
era, but it had given her some kind of a gift. He then took to doing
his best to make up for the accidents caused by his own overreaction
to the news, by trying to hypnotise her into forgetting everything
that happened that night, and then creating a special costume for
her that could be formed via mental effects. In his embarrassment
over the accident, he had then decided it best to split and just
send Frankie some welfare checks until she’d come of age for college
time. That’s when she met Johnny, and her initially reluctant, but
subsequent attraction to him, was what weakened the mental blocks
her stepdad put upon her, and so, she found out what an amazing gift
she had acquired.
It was certainly a pleasant surprise indeed, and also done at a time
when Byrne knew how to draw women very good, much better than he
does today. And just wait’ll you see that “in-joke” spoken by Reed
when Johnny takes Frankie to the FF’s HQ to check her powers to see
their potential!
Things do not work out as well for Ben, as Reed by contrast botches
the attempt at restoring the Thing to human form, and instead causes
him to revert to an earlier form he had when he first became the
orange stone titan he’d become in 1961. It doesn’t change his level
of strength, but still, Ben is by no means pleased that Reed is
trying out what by now, he’s come to consider a lost cause, even
though of course, there have been, and are likely to be for many
more times to come, times when he has or will revert to his human
form again. That’s probably what’s ultimately helped to make him
more patient as time goes by.
They are then paid a visit by Ben’s aunt Petunia, who turns out to
be younger than what he might’ve implied before (she’s in her late
40’s, to say the least, but still looks pretty young), who requests
of them to come to a small town in Arizona, where she and uncle Jake
Grimm, who’d made a serious effort to rise out of the poverty he too
had grown up in, when the Grimm family tree had first started out in
NYC, and reached a successful career as a scientist and a physicist,
have been working, and discovered an ancient Indian burial ground.
There, they find out that the problem is that people are being
literally scared to death by an unknown supernatural force that’s
been dwelling in the area, and it probably has what to do with that
the graves of the dead have been disturbed. They also find
themselves having to deal later on with a little girl who’s living
with an abusive drunkard of a father, but the good news for her is
that, the supernatural forces in this area are on her side!
It turns out in the end that this simply isn’t something that the FF
can succeed in solving, which is why townsfolk then decide to pack
their bags and split, but some others stay, and the problems with
the abusive father are happily solved. The little girl then goes to
her secret hiding place within the ruins to meet the supernatural
beings and thank them for the help they too provided.
The last story here is where Quicksilver, then living in Attilan and
married to an Inhuman, that being princess Crystal, sister of queen
Medusa, arrives at the Baxter Building HQ to request that the FF
come to the aid of Attilan’s Inhuman residents, who are suffering
from a dreadful virus that could end up wrecking much of the
population if something isn’t done as soon as possible, and also
affecting Crystal’s pregnancy with what is to be both hers and
Quicksilver’s first child. This leads to – guess what – moving the
island of Attilan – quite literally – into space! In an awesome and
wow-inducing sequence, the island, with the help of king Black
Bolt’s incredible sonic scream, which beyond that is his only real
ability at vocal sound, is by far the most tremendous sound effect
you’ll ever see. It helps to separate the island from the land its
attached to, and then, off they go, to the moon! Giving Uatu the
Watcher, an alien scientist who finds observing life on earth and
superhero adventures quite facinating, some new neighbors for a
time. And this happily helps in restoring the Inhumans to full
health again, and enables Crystal to have her child at ease. But
what’s really amazing here is what the newborn’s status will be!
What’s interesting about Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff is how, while
he always fought to save humanity from the forces of evil working
inside and out to destroy it, he often tended at the time to frown
upon it as well, and didn’t mind telling people like Human Torch
what he thought of them as “humans”, as he tends to address Johnny
here. That was what worked fairly well for him as a character then,
in that, while he did not share the same kind of biases his father
Magneto did against normal humans, he still tended to have some
flaws of his own, in that he could look down his nose at other
humans, and make it clear what he thought of them for their own
prejudices. And the Inhumans, who first made their debut in the
Fantastic Four in the mid-60’s, are also one of Stan Lee and
Marvel’s most facinating creations, including how Medusa tends to
wear a mask even back in Attilan, probably due to the fact that she
can be an adventuress and crimefighter during the same time too!
Overall, this was a very entertaining collection of some of John
Byrne’s best work when he was doing really good stuff, before
descending to the kind of ret-con hack-work he began doing in the
mid-1990’s. It perfectly conveys a lot of charm and heart, and is
highly recommended for reading, from a time when the FF was at a
very high peak.
