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Today, we look at your picks for #56-53 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.
56. Fantastic Four #9 “The End of the Fantastic Four!”
This early Fantastic Four tale was probably the peak of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s “the Fantastic Four sure is different than other superhero comics” era, where Lee clearly picked up on what people were interested in about the Fantastic Four was that the characters were so unlike other superheroes (due to their interpersonal conflicts). So the conflicts are ratcheted up a notch in this story, where Reed loses all of the Fantastic Four’s money in the stock market, forcing them to have to sell all of their stuff.
See how quickly Alicia Masters, introduced just last issue, is seeming like a longtime member of the cast. And there’s even a meta-moment where the gang note how superheroes in the comics never have problems like these…
Luckily for the team, they are offered to star in a blockbuster film based on their lives and the money they’re offered is enough to pay off their debts and get back on track. However, when they arrive in Hollywood (Kirby and Dick Ayers get to draw some famous cameos), they discover that the studio head is Namor, who has gotten into the film industry with treasure he’s found in the ocean. He plans to use the filming to taken down the Fantastic Four and woo Sue Storm.
In the end, though, the Fantastic Four outduels Namor and Sue gets Namor to live up to his end of the deal and the movie is a major success and the team is no longer in debt.
55. Fantastic Four #251-256 “Into the Negative Zone”
John Byrne sent the Fantastic Four on a journey to explore the Negative Zone, but unbeknown to them, as they enter the Negative Zone, the evil Annihilus has entered OUR dimension, and the Baxter Building’s only occupants are Alicia Masters and Franklin Richards, so that’s not good.
Byrne uses the Negative Zone journey to tell some outstanding science fiction main stories (with the Annihilus stuff working in the background), including a stunning issue where the whole comic is drawn in a landscape format…
Byrne was really tying some bold, adventurous ideas during his Fantastic Four run. It was very exciting to follow as a reader of the book. In the end, the Fantastic Four discover what is going on with Annihilus and they head home, but obviously Annihilus doesn’t want them there. This leads to a crossover, of sorts, with the Avengers, as Annihilus creates a Null Field in New York City, so we see the Avengers trying to break in from their angle while the Fantastic Four are trying to break in from the Negative Zone. It’s less an outright crossover and more an awesome bit of shared continuity (Byrne and the writer of the Avengers at the time, Roger Stern, were close friends).
In the end, the Fantastic Four defeat Annihilus, but in the process of returning from the Negative Zone, their costumes are turned into “negative versions” of their original looks. The Byrne “negative” look has been the standard look ever since.
54. Fantastic Four Annual #1 “The Sub-Mariner vs. the Human Race
As I’ve written elsewhere recently, back issues were practically nonexistent in the 1950s and 1960s, especially for your average comic book reader. Back issues obviously existed in the 1960s, but they were very hard to find unless you just happened to live near a place that sold them. So comic book companies would take advantage of the fact to do special reprint issues to let fans revisit classic stories. These would be known as Annuals. They sold very well. The problem for Marvel in the 1960s, though, is that they did not yet really have enough material to warrant doing an annual filled with reprints right away, so Marvel came up with an alternative approach. When the company started doing annuals, the original annuals would be filled with MAJOR stories.
The first one is Namor getting back into Atlantis and then declaring war on the surface world in this annual by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Dick Ayers…
It’s an over-the-top adventure that ends with Namor finding that his too-obvious love for Sue Storm has put him at odds with his Atlantean brethren. It’s a nice, character-based ending to a great issue.
53. Fantastic Four #113-116 “The Over-Mind Saga”
This storyline is fascinating because it is the first time that Stan Lee was not involved in a Fantastic Four story! You see, mid-way through the four parter, Lee took a break from all of his comic book work (which led soon to him just stopping writing comics regularly period), and with Roy Thomas busy with other work (including filling in for Lee on Amazing Spider-Man), Archie Goodwin got the nod for this one (with art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott, with one issue by Frank Giacoia), which involved a powerful being known as the Over-Mind conquering the Earth, using his mental powers to take control of Reed Richards’ mind, forcing Sue to turn to an unlikely source to team up with the Fantastic Four to save the day…
It’s funny seeing Doom get access to Reed’s lab, which leads to Johnny making some jokes about how Doom is taking credit for inventions that Reed was already working on. Reed eventually breaks free from Over-Mind’s control, but sadly, even Doom doesn’t help turn the tie. Luckily, the Stranger shows up and takes Over-Mind out of the picture.
There’s a great bit at the end where the Watcher shows up and explains that the Fantastic Four did actually play an important role, as Johnny was, like, “Why did we even bother when the Stranger could have stepped in at any time?” as it turns out that the FF forced the Over-Mind to use up enough power that the Stranger had to pay attention. So, that’s something!
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