FANTASTIC FOUR VS THE INHUMANS AND GALACTUS

This weekend’s escapist and light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the very first encounters the Fantastic Four had with the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer and Galactus.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #44 (November 1965)

Title: The Gentleman’s Name is Gorgon

Villains: Gorgon, Medusa and Dragon Man

Synopsis: This story picks up after Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) and Invisible Girl (Sue Storm-Richards) get back from their honeymoon following Dr. Doom’s attempt to kill them during their wedding ceremony in Fantastic Four Annual Vol 1 #3. 

While renovating the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building headquarters, the umpteenth argument breaks out among the team members, including the Thing (Ben Grimm), and so the Human Torch (Johnny Storm, Sue’s brother) angrily leaves for a while. He takes his latest sports car for a drive to cool off.

Through a comic book coincidence, the Human Torch gets caught in the middle of a fight between the super villainess called Medusa and her fellow Inhuman called Gorgon.

Medusa, a member of the Fantastic Four’s enemies the Frightful Four (The Wizard, Sandman, Trapster and Medusa herself) reveals to the Torch that she and Gorgon are both Inhumans and Gorgon has come to make her return to their race’s hidden city called Attilan.

Medusa takes the Human Torch captive and forces him to fly her to Dead Man’s Lake, where the Fantastic Four imprisoned their enormous android foe Dragon Man during their most recent clash. Dragon Man gets loose and winds up fighting Gorgon, the Fantastic Four and Medusa.

Dragon Man, still infatuated with Invisible Girl, takes her captive King Kong-style and flies off with her. Meanwhile, Gorgon’s earthquake-inducing powers cause the skyscraper that he and our heroes are fighting on to collapse under them.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #45 (December 1945)

Title: Among Us Hide the Inhumans

Villains: Dragon Man and the Inhumans

Synopsis: The Fantastic Four survive the building’s collapse and go on to subdue Dragon Man once again. In the aftermath they realize that Gorgon succeeded in his mission to abscond with Medusa. Later, the Human Torch encounters the Inhuman called Crystal and the two fall in “love” with each other.

Johnny’s flame powers convince Crystal – who got separated from Gorgon while searching for Medusa – that the Human Torch must be a creature similar to herself and the rest of the Inhuman Royal Family. She has her huge, horse-sized dog Lockjaw teleport her and Johnny Storm to the place where her fellow Inhumans have been hiding while waiting to see if Medusa can be found.

Introductions are made, but when the Human Torch talks about Medusa being a criminal, Crystal reveals that Medusa is her sister. Misunderstandings mount up and lead to the Torch fighting Karnak, Triton, and Gorgon. 

During the lopsided battle, Johnny desperately manages to make a flaming number 4 in the New York sky, which distress signal leads the Thing, Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl to his location. The assembled Fantastic Four fight the Inhumans until the battle is interrupted by the arrival of the most powerful Inhuman – Black Bolt, the King of Attilan.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #46 (January 1966)

Title: Those Who Would Destroy Us 

Villains: The Inhumans and the Seeker

Synopsis: Black Bolt joins his fellow Inhumans in fighting the Fantastic Four. As the carnage continues, Triton winds up being driven back into the sea to save his own life.

Unfortunately, Triton gets captured by the villainous Inhuman called the Seeker (Kadlec), thus causing Black Bolt, Crystal, Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak to panic and have Lockjaw teleport them away for now.

The Fantastic Four now learn from the Seeker (at right) about the fact that the Inhumans are genetically created products of the alien Kree experiments on Earth in prehistoric times.

The Seeker himself is working against the Royal Family and wants to capture them all for an unknown party.

The resulting battle between our heroes and the super-powered Seeker winds up putting Triton’s life in jeopardy again for this issue’s cliffhanger ending. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #47 (February 1966)

Title: Beware the Hidden Land

Villains: Maximus the Mad and the Seeker

Synopsis: Teamwork between Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic saves Triton’s life. The Seeker insists that per Inhuman Law he has a right to take custody of Triton. Mr. F. shouts down opposition and, claiming that they have no standing against Inhuman Law, he turns Triton over to the Seeker.

After the Seeker flies off with Triton his prisoner, Reed (Mr. Fantastic) reveals to his teammates that he planted a homing device on Triton so that they could surreptitiously follow the Seeker to the Inhumans’ hidden city.

Meanwhile, in that hidden city called Attilan, the Great Refuge, Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, Crystal and Lockjaw have been under attack by Black Bolt’s villainous brother Maximus the Mad (at right). Maximus was left in charge while the rest of the Royal Family was in New York looking for Medusa.

In typical fashion, Maximus decided to try seizing the throne from his brother and taking Medusa as his consort. He has unleashed an army of Alpha Primitives (a genetically created breed of less intelligent Inhuman laborers) against the newly returned Royal Family. 

As soon as the battle seems likely to end in a defeat for the Alpha Primitives, Maximus the Mad orders them to surrender and claims that the Alpha Primitives misunderstood his orders. That’s clearly a lie, but Black Bolt is always unreasonably charitable toward his brother.   

NOTE: Years later, during the Kree-Skrull War, it will be revealed that Black Bolt blames himself for Maximus’ insanity and his guilt makes him a chump for his brother’s frequent schemes.

The Seeker returns Triton to the Great Refuge and his boss Maximus again lies himself out of accountability for the rough treatment that the Seeker gave to Triton.   

Back with the Fantastic Four, they have been flying one of their aircraft as they follow the homing beam from the tracer that Reed put on Triton. At last they arrive at the Andes Mountains and set down just outside the Great Refuge.

NOTE: Yes, in its first few appearances, Attilan was located atop the Andes Mountains. Eventually the hidden city used its Kree technology to teleport to the Himalayas, where the Great Refuge spent several years. Next it teleported to the artificial-atmosphere-containing Blue Area of Earth’s moon. 

The Human Torch and Crystal run to each other and embrace (oh, get a room), and their mutual affection helps lessen the tension between the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans. Reed and Sue begin negotiations with the Inhumans, trying to encourage them to reveal their presence to the rest of the world. 

Meanwhile, Maximus the Mad unleashes his latest invention, the Atmo-Gun, a huge futuristic cannon which can “weaponize the atmosphere” in various ways. The Atmo-Gun opens fire on the Fantastic Four and the Inhuman Royal Family as well as the world at large. Our heroes are all buffeted around by it for the cliffhanger ending.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #48 (March 1966)

Title: The Coming of Galactus

Villains: Maximus the Mad, the Silver Surfer and Galactus

Synopsis: The Fantastic Four and the Inhumans regain their footing against the Atmo-Gun’s rays. Maximus’ plan to kill off the rest of the Royal Family along with billions of human beings is thwarted.

Maximus didn’t understand the similarities between human and Inhuman anatomy, and the initial setting for the Atmo-Gun peters out ineffectually. As the Inhuman Royal Family prepare to take Maximus the Mad into custody, he switches to another setting.

Now he uses the weapon to change the atmosphere into a black dome of negative energy to seal off Attilan from the outside world forever. The Human Torch and Crystal don’t want to be separated, but the Royal Family keep Crystal on their side of the expanding dome while Johnny’s teammates drag him to the Fantastic Four aircraft outside Attilan.

All efforts by the F.F. and the Inhumans fail to break through the black energy dome, so Mr. Fantastic flies his team home, promising Johnny to devise a way to shatter the dome and free the Inhumans.

Out in space, we readers are shown how the Skrulls manage to conceal their homeworld from the Silver Surfer, the current herald of Galactus. The Surfer moves on and winds up approaching Earth.

When the Fantastic Four arrive back in New York City they are shocked to see the skies all over the world turned into heat-free flames. A global panic begins, following which the flames vanish, to be replaced by tightly concentrated rocks, each one hundreds of miles long.   

Uatu the Watcher (the big, bald alien on the cover) visits his old friends the Fantastic Four at the Baxter Building and explains that, using his race’s advanced technology, he created the flames and now the rocks in the skies around the world in an attempt to conceal the Earth from the herald of Galactus. When the flames caused too much panic he switched to the rocks.

Meanwhile, the Silver Surfer is not fooled. He penetrates the orbiting stones of no mass and enters Earth’s atmosphere. After determining that this planet is ideal for Galactus to feed upon, he lands on the Baxter Building roof and shoots a cosmic ray blast out into space to summon Galactus.

The Thing attacks the Silver Surfer but is unable to hurt him and the Surfer winds up elsewhere in New York City. The fearful Watcher – who was violating his race’s vow to merely observe and record events by trying to hide Earth – does away with the sky stones since Galactus has already been summoned.   

Galactus, piloting one of his interstellar vessels, arrives on Earth and lands on the Baxter Building roof, from where the energy burst summoning him originated. As the Fantastic Four look on in awe, the giant figure of Galactus emerges from his vessel and declares “My journey is ended! This planet shall sustain me until it has been drained of all elemental life! So speaks Galactus!”   

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #49 (April 1966)

Title: If This Be Doomsday

Villains: Galactus and the Silver Surfer

Synopsis: Galactus confronts the Watcher and threatens him not to interfere, saying all other Watchers he has encountered uphold their vows and merely observe as he feeds upon inhabited planets. The Watcher acknowledges that even his power is nothing compared to that of Galactus and says he will simply observe. 

Galactus erects a force field around the Baxter Building to prevent any other superteams or armies from trying to interfere as he assembles his machinery which will convert everything on Earth into energy for him to feed on. Last of all, he will feed on the Earth’s core itself, then depart, leaving just some random space debris where a planet used to be.

The Fantastic Four try over and over again to stop – or at least slow down – Galactus as he constructs his device. The world-devourer effortlessly defeats all their efforts and coldly goes about his business.

Across town, through a comic book coincidence, the Silver Surfer has met Alicia Masters, the blind sculptress who is the girlfriend of the Thing. Unable to see what the alien looks like, Alicia dismisses his calm description of what his master Galactus will do to the Earth.

She says that she can tell in his voice that he is not truly that callous to the obliteration of an entire planet. While they listen to news reports about the events at the Baxter Building, which is now surrounded by the media, the Surfer and Alicia exchange arguments about the value of beings who are “inferior” to Galactus and himself. 

Back with our heroes, after their latest failed attack on Galactus and his weaponry, the Watcher covertly tells them he is willing to violate his vow in order to help save the world. He uses his own race’s technology on the Human Torch, making him temporarily capable of interstellar flight and utilizing stargates.

He telepathically guides the Torch through assorted menaces in deep space that are capable of destroying entire planets or solar systems. While this plan continues, we cut back to Alicia’s apartment.

Through combined passion and anger, Alica manages to rekindle the Silver Surfer’s lost nobility, from before he became the servitor of a monster like Galactus. The anguished and conflicted alien nearly snuffs out Alicia’s life but stays his hand and instead caresses her face.

NOTE: In the future, Marvel will retcon these moments by telling readers that Alicia began to remind the Surfer of Shalla-Bal, his long-lost love back on his home planet of Zenn-La where he was known as Norrin Radd.

At length, he praises Alicia’s tenderness and compassion and resolves to himself that any race which can spawn beings like Alicia is worth saving. “Perhaps for the first time within memory… I have found something… something worth protecting!” and he flies off to contront Galactus in a desperate attempt to save the Earth.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #50 (May 1966)

Title: The Startling Saga of the Silver Surfer

Villain: Galactus

Synopsis: The Silver Surfer arrives at the Baxter Building, effortlessly passing through the force field that Galactus has surrounding the skyscraper. The Surfer tries to talk his master into sparing Earth and moving on to an uninhabited planet.

After exhausting all the arguments that Alicia Masters used on him, the Silver Surfer has no choice but to use his own Power Cosmic, granted him by Galactus himself, against his master. The Surfer is powerful enough to actually put up a half-decent fight against Galactus, but in the end even he proves unable to defeat the world-devourer.

However, the battle between Galactus and his herald has bought enough time for the Watcher to guide the Human Torch to the enormous space station base used by Galactus, situated multiple galaxies away. The Watcher had the Torch enter the unoccupied space station and steal the Ultimate Nullifier, literally a universe-destroying weapon of unknown origin.

Johnny returns to Earth via Uatu’s technology and gives the Watcher the weapon, then collapses in exhaustion, his mind unable to retain the unearthly sights he had seen on his quest. Uatu the Watcher instructs Mr. Fantastic how to use the Ultimate Nullifier to threaten Galactus without activating it.

Reed interrupts the ongoing clash between the world-devourer and the Silver Surfer by brandishing the Ultimate Nullifier. Galactus panics, recognizing the device and realizing the Fantastic Four and the Watcher somehow managed to steal it from his own base. 

If activated, the weapon will destroy the entire universe, and even if Galactus winds up being powerful enough to survive, there will be no more planets for him to feed upon, and he will starve. Our heroes give Galactus an ultimatum – leave and promise to never again try to feed on the Earth or else they will use the Ultimate Nullifier in the ultimate case of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Galactus agrees, but only if the Ultimate Nullifier is given back to him. That is done, but before leaving, Galactus banishes the Silver Surfer to Earth, the planet he betrayed him to preserve.

EPILOGUE: As life returns to normal all around the world in the days ahead, the Human Torch begins his first day at Metro College, where he meets Native American Wyatt Wingfoot, who will be a recurring character in Marvel Comics.   

NOTE: Many Silver Surfer stories in the decades ahead will deal with his attempts to break free of Galactus’ barrier keeping him confined to Earth.   

FOR THE SILVER SURFER AS A MEMBER OF THE DEFENDERS CLICK HERE.