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Today, we look at your picks for #24-21 of the greatest Fantastic Four stories ever told!
As always, you voted, I counted the votes and now we count them down, four at a time. If I don’t add a date for the series, it means it is the original volume of whatever series I’m talking about.
24. Fantastic Four #41-43 “The Brutal Betrayal of Ben Grimm”
Jack Kirby and Stan Lee brilliantly mixed from one story to another by showing the aftermath of the Thing dramatically returning to his rocky form in order to defeat Doctor Doom. It was a wonderfully heroic act, but it was a major sacrifice for Ben Grimm, and this issue opens with Ben just wanting to get some alone time to deal with his sacrifice.
Of course, while doing so, the Frightful Four then capture him and brainwash him into becoming evil…
Think about this, the Frightful Four had ALREADY defeated the Fantastic Four in their last fight! And now they have the Thing on their side while the Fantastic Four are down a member, so this was bound to be one heck of a fight (and it was). Vince Colletta was the inker on this one.
23. Fantastic Four #337-341 “Into the Timestream”
When Walter Simonson was working on the Avengers, he had Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman join the team. He then learned that they were going to have to go back to the Fantastic Four, thereby ruining his upcoming Avengers storyline. He left the book, but oddly enough, the Fantastic Four was now available for a new writer, so he took over writing and art duties on that book and then had the Avengers guest-star in the Fantastic Four so that he could then just do the time travel storyline that he was planning to do in the first place!
It’s funny how a plan comes together.
22. Fantastic Four #204-214 “In Search of Galactus”
This is how the story is collected into a trade paperback, so I’ll allow it, but boy, there is a whole lot of story that really isn’t connected to the main Sphinx/Galactus story. In any event, as a tie-in to the conclusion of his classic Nova series, Marv Wolfman had the Fantastic Four (sans Johnny) sent into outer space on an epic adventure that ended with them in conflict against the mighty Sphinix. They return to Earth, with the FF now aging and they recruit Galactus to stop the Sphinx…
Once Galactus wins, though, the Fantastic Four then have to deal with HIM, and Reed does so with some help from the Watcher. Then Johnny has to find a way to save the other members of the team, who are all rapidly aging and near death.
21. Fantastic Four #583-588 “Three”
Hickman’s Fantastic Four run involved introducing “lost” civilizations that had some sort of tie to established Fantastic Four groups, including the Tribes of Old Atlantis.
Okay, so now that they were established, Hickman (with artists Steve Epting, Rick Magyar and Paul Mount) led up to the storyline “Three” (with gorgeous countdown cover art by the book’s regular cover artist, the legendary Alan Davis), which introduced the concept that the Fantastic Four were going to encounter three different major threats, all based on old Fantastic Four set-ups, and that at the end of the event, the Fantastic Four would be down to three members due to one of the major threats leading to the exit of the member from the team (and presumably the mortal plane).
The Invisible Woman was sent to go deal with a conflict involving Namor and Atlantis and the Tribes of Old Atlantis, Mister Fantastic headed off to Nu-World (a world designed to hold the rich and powerful when Earth became too desolate to live on. Instead, a time machine was used to bring the citizens of a future barren Earth back to live on it. It was powered by the corpse of a future Galactus) when Galactus discovered how Nu World was powered and he was NOT happy. Finally, Human Torch, Ben Grimm (through the Future Foundation’s help, Reed Richards had discovered a way for the Thing to become human for a week each year. Ben was still human) and the Future Foundation had to fight off a new Annihilation Wave from the Negative Zone.
First, Sue Richards resolved her storyline and forced Namor to hold to a new treaty and she went home, so Sue was not the member who was going to die. Next, the Nu World citizens all sort of bonded into one being, allowing Reed to evacuate the entire planet all in one fell swoop. So he was able to get home, which meant that Reed was not the member who was going to die (Galactus, by the way, decided to not eat Nu World. Instead, he just destroyed it out of spite for its power source).
So that left Johnny, Ben and the Future Foundation. After holding off the initial wave of attackers (with help from Franklin Richards restored powers), Valeria and the other geniuses were able to find a way to close the gate to the Negative Zone, but somebody would have to stay behind to close the gate. Ben, of course, instantly volunteered, but Johnny then threw him out of the way. Ben’s time was just about up, but I think he was so distraught that he turned back into the Thing a bit early. The two best friends shared a moment of reflection together…
Before Johnny turned and faced the impending horde of attackers, a literal billion to one chance for the hero. Johnny, of course, is always an expert when it comes to masking his feelings behind bravado, so he gave off one last bold proclamation as the wave reached him, as he shouted out one final “Flame On!”
Paul Mounts is brilliant, but damn, the whole art team was brilliant! Steve Epting is always excellent and he was right there this time, as well, with top notch inks from Rick Magyar and some awesome assistance by Mike Perkins to help with the extra pages for this story (30 pages versus a normal 20). With Johnny gone, the Fantastic Four rebranded themselves as the Future Foundation and Spider-Man joined in Johnny’s place, with the book ending and relaunching as FF (by Hickman, Epting, Magyar and Mounts).
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