FANTASTIC FOUR: THEIR FIRST STORIES FROM THE 1960s

This weekend’s escapist and light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the early stories about the Fantastic Four in the 1960s.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR – There can be no over-stating the importance of the Fantastic Four to Marvel Comics and by extension to much of pop culture the last several years regarding superhero movies and television programs. Though the Fantastic Four are now considered as dull as any b&w sitcom family of long ago, the team’s success convinced Marvel the market was right to recommit to superhero comic books.

          As Timely Comics in 1939 and throughout the 1940s Marvel had participated in the massive superhero boom of the era. Many of their signature characters were introduced, like Captain America, Sub-Mariner, and many, many others.

        As Atlas Comics in the 1950s Marvel abandoned superhero stories as that market had dropped out. They briefly revived some of their Golden Age characters and tried launching new ones, but sales were poor enough to get canceled, so they focused on monster and sci-fi comic books instead.

        As Marvel Comics in 1961 the company decided to dabble in superhero comic books again, with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two veteran comic book hands since the 1940s, putting together a brand-new team of superheroes. That team was, of course, the Fantastic Four.

        The first issue was scheduled to hit the stands late in the year, but June of 1961 was when the bulk of the work was done and the approach finalized. The vaunted “616 Universe” was established, based on 61 as in the calendar year, and 6 as in the month of June. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #1 (November 1961)

Title: The Fantastic Four

Villains: The Moleman and his kaiju monsters

Synopsis: Reed Richards, a brilliant scientist who had served in the OSS during World War Two, can’t convince the U.S. government that his experimental spacecraft can enable America to land on the moon before the Soviet Union does. 

Impatient, he forms a crew out of his girlfriend Sue Storm and her teenage brother Johnny, then goads his test pilot friend Ben Grimm into piloting the experimental vessel. The secret launch goes well, but the spacecraft gets bombarded by cosmic rays which cause a crash-landing, following which the quartet realize the rays have given them superpowers.

Reed invents costumes made of “unstable molecules” so that their outfits will work with their body’s powers. Mr. Fantastic’s (Reed’s) will stretch with him, Invisible Woman’s (Sue’s) will turn invisible with her, the Thing’s (Ben’s) will (sometimes) expand or contract with his changes, and the Human Torch’s (Johnny’s) will burn with him rather than burn up.

NOTE: Already Marvel was making a nod to their Golden Age creations by naming Johnny’s character after their 1939 superhero the original Human Torch. (Who was an android despite his name.) 

Time passes, and one day a villain called the Mole Man starts attacking major cities alongside gigantic subterranean monsters under his control. The Fantastic Four thwart his invasion of New York City, then trace the Mole Man to his secret lair called Monster Island. 

Our heroes learn the villain’s origin – he was an ugly, squat little man who grew tired of being an outcast so he exiled himself underground. Eventually he discovered the Inner Earth territories, and trained the gargantuan creatures he found there.

The story ends with the Fantastic Four defeating the Mole Man and his beasts and causing Monster Island to sink beneath the waves. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #2 (January 1962)

Title: The Skrulls from Outer Space

Villains: The Skrulls

Synopsis: The Skrulls, an alien race from the Andromeda Galaxy, want to take over the Earth and add it to their many other conquests. They realize that the Fantastic Four pose a major obstacle, so they use their Skrull shape-shifting abilities and advanced technology to frame the superteam for assorted crimes and acts of destruction.

The real Fantastic Four become fugitives and stay on the run while smoking out the four Skrull impersonators. The team defeats the impostors and drives off the Skrull mothership in orbit around the Earth.

The Fantastic Four capture three of the super-powered Skrulls who masqueraded as them, but the fourth manages to escape. He is not heard from again until years later during the original Kree-Skrull War (1971-1972) in the pages of The Avengers.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #3 (March 1962)

Title: The Menace of the Miracle Man

Villain: Miracle Man

Synopsis: A master magician calling himself Miracle Man becomes a media sensation, like David Copperfield, Doug Henning and countless other magicians in real life. Meanwhile, Reed Richards has used his vast wealth to buy the top five floors of New York City’s Baxter Building to use as the headquarters for the Fantastic Four and for Mr. Fantastic’s many ongoing experiments.

Mr. F has also invented the first Fantasticar for the team to use. When the quartet attend a stage performance of Miracle Man, he calls them out, claiming to be more powerful.

The next day, the supervillain uses his seeming powers to alter reality while robbing a jewelry store and then stealing a top secret atomic tank from the U.S. military. The government authorizes the Fantastic Four to stop the villain.

After running rings around our heroes during their first few battles, Miracle Man is defeated when Mr. Fantastic realizes that the villain is really just a massively powerful illusionist and hypnotist. His powers don’t really affect reality, he can just make it seem like they do.

Miracle Man is defeated and sent to prison, but returns years later to separately take on the Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider and the Defenders.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #4 (May 1962)

Title: The Coming of the Sub-Mariner

Villains: Sub-Mariner and his giant sea creature 

Synopsis: The Human Torch discovers a seemingly drunk and homeless man whom he feels resembles the Sub-Mariner. When he shaves the amnesiac man’s beard and mustache he realizes he is right and the man really is the long-lost and presumed dead Prince Namor of Atlantis … the Sub-Mariner.

NOTE: Marvel was already reintroducing another of their Golden Age superheroes – their oldest character Sub-Mariner from 1939. Namor often had a love-hate relationship with the surface world, but in the 1940s his weakness for blondes allowed New Yorker Betty Dean to persuade him to fight the Axis Nations. 

Back to the story, the Human Torch’s powers remind Sub-Mariner of his wartime ally the original Human Torch and when Johnny Storm drops him in the ocean the shock revives even more of his memories. He heads for Atlantis but finds the main settlement has been abandoned due to pollution and nuclear waste from the surface world.

His hostility toward the surface nations rekindled, Namor uses the Horn of Proteus to summon an enormous sea monster that the media calls Giganto. He leads the creature in a revenge assault on New York City.

The Fantastic Four fight and kill Giganto and then take on the Sub-Mariner. This leads to Namor meeting Invisible Woman. Just like the Sub-Mariner’s attraction to Betty Dean calmed him down during his first attack on New York in the Golden Age, his attraction to Sue Storm does the same here.

Namor asks Invisible Woman to become his bride to secure peace between him and the surface world. Sue, intrigued by the mystique of this World War Two hero and monarch of a legendary kingdom, considers the offer. (I guess she’s ignoring his fishy smell and the fact that he lives among fish waste.)

She agrees, but her angry brother the Human Torch manages to drive off the Sub-Mariner who vows to strike again.

NOTE: Marvel’s explanation for why the Sub-Mariner was still in the prime of youth after all this time was that he was the mutant offspring of sailor Leonard McKenzie and an Atlantean Princess around 1920. His Atlantean side gives him an incredibly long lifespan.

        When Marvel incorporated Captain America into their modern-day continuity they would say he was frozen in suspended animation for several years (now decades) and that’s why he was still young.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #5 (July 1962)

Title: Prisoners of Doctor Doom

Villain: Dr. Doom

Synopsis: At the Baxter Building, the Human Torch cruelly taunts the Thing that he resembles the monster called the Hulk who has run amok in the American southwest. (Hulk #1 was published in May 1962).

Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman break up the resulting fight between the two. Suddenly, their power and backup generators are knocked out and a high-tech netting of some sort isolates the top five floors from the rest of the Baxter Building.

Over a loudspeaker, the Fantastic Four hear demands issued by a voice that Reed recognizes as that of an old college acquaintance – Victor Von Doom, now a PhD. Dr. Doom threatens to start killing unless the Fantastic Four surrender to him and enter his massive airship. 

To save any innocent bystanders from harm, our heroes do so. They meet the armored Dr. Doom, who explains that his experiment which went awry and caused his expulsion long ago left his face scarred, so he now hides it behind a steel mask.   

NOTE: The old pulp magazine villain Steel Mask, a foe of G-8 and His Battle Aces, wore such a mask to hide his hideously scarred face beginning in 1937, so though Dr. Doom did indeed come before Darth Vader, Steel Mask came before Dr. Doom. 

Victor blames Reed for causing the experiment to misfire, but all Reed did was try to warn Doom that his calculations were wrong. Reed was right, but rather than admit that, the crazed Victor Von Doom has always maintained that Reed sabotaged his college experiment. 

Dr. Doom imprisons Invisible Woman in a separate cell from the others and threatens to kill her unless Mr. Fantastic, the Thing and the Human Torch let him send them back in time via his time machine. Legend holds that the lost Treasure of Blackbeard has mystical properties that will let Doom conquer the world.

The three superheroes are sent back to the age of piracy, acquire Blackbeard’s treasure and return to the present. Dr. Doom, unsurprisingly, decides to kill them all. The Invisible Woman frees herself and saves her teammates.

The quartet battle Dr. Doom, whose high-tech armor lets him hold his own. When the fight turns against him, he flees by way of his armor’s rockets and the Human Torch is unable to keep up with him. Debuting in August 1962 was Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 and Thor in Journey Into Mystery #83

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #6 (September 1962)

Title: The Deadly Duo

Villains: Dr. Doom and the Sub-Mariner

Synopsis: This story picks up an unknown amount of time after the previous issue. A worldwide search by the Fantastic Four has failed to locate Dr. Doom. We readers are shown that Victor has made contact with the Sub-Mariner.

Because Namor’s complete memories have not yet come back to him, he still has not located his people and is assuming they may all be lost forever. Dr. Doom uses that to egg him on to an alliance against the surface world, beginning with destroying their mutual foes the Fantastic Four.

The Sub-Mariner agrees, with one condition – that Invisible Woman be kept alive so that she can become his bride. Doom is free to kill the other three team members. Victor agrees to those terms.

At the Baxter Building, the Human Torch has discovered his sister Sue mooning over an old World War Two photo of the then-heroic Sub-Mariner. He calls her out for still being genuinely attracted to Namor despite dating Reed.

A bitter argument among the team members is interrupted by the arrival of the Sub-Mariner, who breaks in through a window. While Subby fights the Thing, Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman tries to play peacemaker.

While that battle is keeping the Fantastic Four occupied, Dr. Doom uses the distraction as planned to set up his latest trap – an anti-gravity magnetic bubble. Returning to one of his combined air and space vessels, Victor activates the bubble, which traps the Fantastic Four AND Sub-Mariner in the Baxter Building as the entire skyscraper is towed along behind Dr. Doom’s flying craft.

Doom broadcasts taunts to his victims in the Baxter Building, and even tells Namor he was a fool to trust him. He considers the Sub-Mariner another potential obstacle to global conquest and so he will send him and the Fantastic Four (and the rest of the people in the Baxter Building) toward the sun where they will all be destroyed.

By now in the vacuum of space, the Fantastic Four try and fail to reach Doom’s ship. Sub-Mariner is able to survive in space long enough to reach Victor’s vessel. He breaks in, defeats Dr. Doom in combat and knocks him out of the spacecraft.

Doom’s momentum and a passing meteor carry him off into space. Namor, who was experienced at piloting Atlantean vessels, pilots Doom’s ship back to Earth, with the Baxter Building still enveloped in the anti-gravity/ magnetic bubble.

Sub-Mariner restores the building to its normal location (but pipes and power cables will need reconnected among other work). He then remotely summons the device from the Baxter Building basement and destroys both it and Dr. Doom’s vessel.

NOTE: September of 1962 saw the debut of Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish #35.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #7 (October 1962)

Title: Kurrgo, Master of Planet X

Villains: Kurrgo and his huge robot

Synopsis: The vaguely humanoid Kurrgo is the ruler of his race on Planet X, an additional but unproven planet in our solar system which has an odd orbit. It was basically Marvel’s version of the often-theorized additional planet, like Nibiru or other names.

Kurrgo’s scientists have warned him that a massive asteroid will soon collide with Planet X (Xanth), completely destroying it. The Xanthians only have two spaceships at present, and they are nowhere near enough to evacuate the entire population in the short time before the collision. 

Having been monitoring the Fantastic Four’s activities on Earth, Kurrgo, though a despot, wants to have our heroes come to his people’s aid. He and his huge, Gort-like robot fly to Earth in a spaceship.

In a scenario no doubt meant to invoke memories of the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, Kurrgo and his robot land on our planet. Using Xanthian technology, they employ an emotion-altering ray that causes the entire human race to hate the Fantastic Four to the point of wanting to kill them.

Kurrgo promises to reverse the ray’s effects if our heroes come to Planet X and save its people. The team agrees and they are flown to Xanth, while the world is freed from the hate-ray and wonders why everybody turned against the Fantastic Four, however briefly.

Our heroes fight Kurrgo’s robot to a draw, but Mr. Fantastic agrees to help the Xanthians. Using Planet X technology combined with his own genius, Reed uses the shrinking serum and Pym Particles that Ant-Man has given him as part of a research exchange, Mr. F comes up with a solution.

The serum, Pym Particles, Planet X tech and Reed’s genius enable him to physically shrink down the Xanthians so that their entire population can fit in one of the two spaceships they have. The other one will take the Fantastic Four back to Earth.

The F.F. depart for our planet, the Xanthians fly off to find a new homeworld, and Kurrgo misses the ship carrying his subjects because he lingered to obtain a method of continuing to rule over them as a dictator on their new world.

Our heroes return to the Baxter Building, where they store the Planet X spaceship, though multiple errors – including by Marvel’s own writers – often resulted in it being called “a Skrull spaceship” instead. Kurrgo and his robot turn up alive years down the road.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #8 (November 1962)

Title: The Puppet Master

Villain: The Puppet Master

Synopsis: A creepy, criminally insane man calling himself the Puppet Master uses special clay to mold puppets of real people. He has discovered that he can mentally control those people through his puppets.

NOTE: Though the Puppet Master’s special clay was at first called “radioactive clay”, over the decades it was changed instead to “mystical clay” which came from Wundagore Mountain, the original base of the High Evolutionary and the central locale of the ancient demon Ch’thon, who compiled The Darkhold.

When the Puppet Master uses a clay puppet of one of his enemies to try to make the man jump to his death from the Brooklyn Bridge, the Human Torch saves him. The Puppet Master vows revenge on the entire team.

As the story unfolds, the villain uses his clay puppetry to enthrall the Thing into fighting his teammates, plus uses a clay puppet of a prison warden to enable a massive jailbreak from an upstate New York prison to provide him with an army of criminals.

Our heroes defeat the army of prisoners and Puppet Master, who is sent to an insane asylum. Meanwhile, the villain’s stepdaughter, blind sculptress Alicia Masters, falls in love with the Thing, beginning their decades-long romance.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #9 (December 1962)

Title: The End of the Fantastic Four

Villain: Sub-Mariner

Synopsis: Ben and Alicia’s unlikely romance continues, providing the Thing with some comfort as we learn that the Fantastic Four Incorporated spent so much on pro bono work and charitable donations that they have been driven to bankruptcy.

The team is forced to sell off all their assets in order to pay creditors. The top floors of the Baxter Building are sold off, as are Mr. Fantastic’s existing inventions and research, largely to the U.S. government.

The Sub-Mariner decides to strike at his foes while they are at their lowest. Since his last encounter with the Fantastic Four, he has been acquiring vast wealth from valuables that he recovered from countless shipwrecks on the ocean floor.

He converted that into currency and, under his legal name of Namor McKenzie, bought a Hollywood movie studio and other California real estate. He has his front people sign a contract with the cash-poor Fantastic Four – the film company, called SM Studios (no comment), will pay Fantastic Four Incorporated a fortune to make a movie starring them. The team will also get a cut of the gross income.

On the day our heroes show up for filming, the Sub-Mariner reveals himself to be the real owner of the studio. He convinces the Fantastic Four that he is genuinely trying to help them resume operations with the money to be had from a film about them.

In reality, he uses a cyclops-monster to try to kill Mr. Fantastic, a tribe of African mutants with fireproof skin to kill the Human Torch and will kill the Thing himself in combat. The three heroes defeat Namor’s minions and unite against the Sub-Mariner.

Invisible Woman intervenes to stop the fighting. In a silly bit, she convinces her teammates and Sub-Mariner to make peace and go through with an actual movie to make Fantastic Four Incorporated solvent once more. They do so and the Fantastic Four movie is a massive hit. (This IS fiction!)

The group moves back into the Baxter Building and goes back to business as usual. Namor and Sue still have a thing for each other despite her romance with Reed. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #10 (January 1963)

Title: The Return of Dr. Doom

Villain: Dr. Doom

Synopsis: The Thing and Alicia Masters enthusiastically show off her sculptures of the Fantastic Four and their assorted foes. Ben’s teammates are impressed.

Soon, we see that Reed has dived heavily into merchandising to keep Fantastic Four Incorporated flush with money. They have licensed comic books to churn out child-friendly versions of their adventures, plus action figures, t-shirts, sheets, lunch boxes, you name it. (This enabled guest spots by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, in the spirit of Stan Lee’s 1940s cameo in All Winners Comics.)   

Dr. Doom uses a fake business meeting to abduct Mr. Fantastic and imprison him in his lair. Victor reveals to Reed that he survived their last battle by eventually being rescued by a space craft piloted by an alien race called the Ovoids.

Doom forced the aliens to show him how some of their technology worked, especially methods of transferring minds from one body to another. The intimidating Victor then forced the Ovoids to return him to Earth.

Dr. Doom uses the pirated Ovoid tech to switch his mind into Mr. Fantastic’s body and Reed’s mind into his armored body. Doom in Reed’s body then convinces the rest of the Fantastic Four that he is working on ways of improving all their powers and to enable the Thing to turn back and forth to his human form at will.

In truth, Victor is secretly creating a means of shrinking Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing down into the Microverse/ Quantum Realm. Meanwhile, Reed in Dr. Doom’s body escapes the death trap in which Victor left him.

At first, Sue, Ben and Johnny refuse to believe the apparent Dr. Doom that he is really Reed, but just as Victor in Mr. Fantastic’s body is about to subject the willing F.F. members to the ray that they think will improve their powers, the doubting Human Torch bluffs Doom into confirming the accusation about the mind-switch.

Conveniently, exposure undoes the mind-switch and the restored Mr. Fantastic leads his teammates in battle with Dr. Doom. At length, the battle causes Doom to be hit with the ray he intended to shrink the Fantastic Four, and he himself gets shrunk down to subatomic levels.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #11 (February 1963)

NOTE: I am just skipping over this idiotic issue because it introduced the inane alien figure called the Impossible Man, whom I consider to be the Jar Jar Binks of the Marvel Universe. Too stupid a story to be worth describing. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #12 (March 1963)

Title: The Incredible Hulk

Villain: The Wrecker (NOT the Thor villain) 

NOTE: This Hulk tale takes place between the 5th and 6th issues of his own series.

Synopsis: General “Thunderbolt” Ross visits the Fantastic Four at their Baxter Building headquarters to request their help in dealing with the Hulk. He shows the team footage of the Hulk’s rampages and then shows footage of assorted Top Secret defense projects which have been trashed in recent weeks.

Ross blames the Hulk but in reality a Soviet Agent called the Wrecker has been responsible for the sabotage. The Fantastic Four accompany Ross back to his base where the general shrugs off Bruce Banner and Rick Jones’ theory that another figure they nicknamed the Wrecker is behind the sabotage, NOT the Hulk.

The Fantastic Four coordinate plans with Ross’s troops for a combined effort against the Hulk, while the Human Torch and Rick Jones learn that one of the scientists on base, Karl Kort, is a Communist.

While the FF guard and/or participate in tests of new weaponry to safeguard it from the Hulk, the Wrecker kidnaps Rick Jones before he can confirm he is a Soviet Agent. Banner becomes the Hulk and – through misunderstandings – clashes with the Fantastic Four members in caverns around the area.

The destructive battle unearths the Wrecker’s robotic vehicles that he has been using to destroy Top Secret weapons. The Hulk and FF work together to defeat the Soviet Agent and his high-tech weapons, including an atomic gun.

The Wrecker is captured and the FF prepare to return to New York. Hulk becomes Bruce Banner again and thanks the team for their help protecting the base.

NOTE: Iron Man debuted this same month in Tales of Suspense #39.   

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #13 (April 1963)

Title: The Red Ghost and His Super-Apes

Villains: The Red Ghost, Mikhlo, Piotr and Igor

Synopsis: A Soviet scientist named Ivan Kragoff plans to gain superpowers for himself and his three trained astronaut apes by flying into a stream of cosmic rays like the kind that spawned the Fantastic Four. The attempt succeeds and the U.S.S.R. now has its own four superbeings – the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes (Mikhlo, Piotr and Igor). 

The Fantastic Four announce another planned attempt to reach the moon, so with the Space Race still going on, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes try to beat the F.F. to the moon in their own spaceship. The Fantastic Four lands first and discovers the ruins of the Blue City, which has its own atmosphere and gravity.

NOTE: Though the origin of this Blue City was long a mystery, during the Celestial Madonna Saga over at The Avengers it was learned that the city was built by the Kree alien race in the ancient past using Skrullian technology. Years later, it was also the site of the clash between the X-Men and the Shi’ar Imperial Guard in the finale of the Dark Phoenix Saga. 

The Red Ghost and his three super-apes land and their own exploration leads them to the ruined city in the Blue Area of the moon. The Fantastic Four and their Soviet counterparts fight it out but are interrupted by a being called Uatu the Watcher, making his first ever appearance.

The Watcher informs both groups about how he and his race have taken a vow of non-interference and simply chronicle the unfolding history of intelligent races throughout the universe. He then lets both teams resume fighting so he may see which of their home nations is superior. (Hey, it was the Cold War Era.)   

The Fantastic Four win, and since they are the first Earthlings to reach the moon, the Watcher pledges eternal friendship with them. The Red Ghost, meanwhile, seems about to be killed from a mutiny by his maltreated super-apes.

The Watcher sends our heroes back to Earth in their spaceship. Naturally, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes survive and face the F.F. again down the road. 

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #14 (May 1963)

Title: The Merciless Puppet Master

Villains: The Puppet Master and the Sub-Mariner

Synopsis: The Fantastic Four are being celebrated and honored all over America thanks to them making the U.S. the first on the moon PLUS defeating their superpowered Soviet rivals in battle. (The Watcher remains unrevealed to Earth people.) 

After a brief period of treatment, the Puppet Master is released. (That sounds like New York, alright.) He sets about plotting revenge against our heroes. He uses his clay to make a Sub-Mariner puppet and takes control of Namor’s mind to use him against the Fantastic Four.

As the F.F. settle back into their daily routine, Reed is upset to catch Sue using their satellite equipment to watch the Sub-Mariner and his activities beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Once again, their relationship’s future is in doubt.

Namor, under the Puppet Master’s control, covertly arranges a meeting with Invisible Woman at seaside. He abducts her and imprisons her in the still-empty Atlantean city where the Sub-Mariner has been living. 

The Puppet Master then has Namor challenge Mr. Fantastic, the Thing and the Human Torch to come free Sue. Puppet Master takes a submarine to watch the fight, which he is sure will end in the deaths of the Fantastic Four, since the battle will be in Namor’s home element. 

In a submarine and underwater breathing gear of their own, the F.F. invade Namor’s deserted city and fight him, while the Thing slips away to free Invisible Woman. All four team members now stand united against the Sub-Mariner, who, faced with the possibility of harming Sue Storm, resists the Puppet Master’s control so forcefully he causes the villain’s puppet of him to explode.

The Puppet Master seems to die in his own submarine (but doesn’t of course), and since Sub-Mariner wasn’t responsible for his actions, he and the Fantastic Four part with the same air of unresolved tension as before.

NOTE: This same month saw Nick Fury debut in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #15 (June 1963)

Title: The Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android

Villains: The Mad Thinker and his Android

Synopsis: The Mayor of New York City calls in the Fantastic Four to ask them to investigate the incredible spike in organized crime activity. The crime wave is being run by a man called the Mad Thinker.

NOTE: This is the first appearance of the Mad Thinker, who is master of android technology and especially a master planner, calculating abstract concepts to account for all manner of unpredictables. I like to describe him like a Mentat from Dune. (And remember, Dune was serialized in 1962 before being collected as a novel in 1965.)

With his share of the criminal proceeds from all of the capers he masterminded, the Mad Thinker decides to move on to conquering the world. When he learns the Fantastic Four are on his trail he decides he will need to kill them sooner or later to achieve his goals.

After arranging long-term distractions to lure our heroes away from the Baxter Building, the Mad Thinker leads an army of criminals as they seize the top five floors of the building. The Thinker helps himself to Reed’s research data while his underlings steal regular valuables.

The Fantastic Four eventually return to their headquarters only to be blocked by a crystal force field. A hologram of the Mad Thinker challenges them to try retaking the building. The team penetrates the force field, and charge the top five floors, where they defeat the gangsters who have armed themselves with Reed’s high-tech weaponry.

Next, the Fantastic Four fight and defeat the Mad Thinker and his huge Android, which he made from material within the Baxter Building itself. The F.F. turn the villain over to the cops. NOTE: Ant-Man gives Janet Van Dyne her powers to fight at his side as the Wasp in Tales to Astonish #44 this same month.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #16 (July 1963)

Title: The Micro-World of Dr. Doom

Villain: Dr. Doom

Synopsis: At the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four members experience a few incidents of momentarily shrinking down to insect size before growing back to normal. Those incidents are accompanied by disembodied voices promising even more such treatment.

Mr. Fantastic calls in Ant-Man, an expert on the physics of size-changing. Ant-Man provides the F.F. with some of his Pym Particles and the serum which serves as a delivery mechanism. The quartet shrink themselves down to get to the bottom of things.

Down in the sub-atomic Microverse/ Quantum Realm, our heroes find themselves on a planet now ruled by Dr. Doom. He conquered the planet after accidentally shrinking himself down back in Fantastic Four #10.

During the resulting battle between Victor and the F.F. Dr. Doom uses knockout gas to render the team unconscious and imprisons them alongside the rightful king and his daughter the princess of the planet – called Sub-Atomica by Victor.

After enough time goes by that Ant-Man fears for the Fantastic Four’s safety, he shrinks himself down enough to enter the Microverse/ Quantum Realm so he can search for them. Once he arrives on Sub-Atomica, Ant-Man overcomes some guards but is defeated and brought before Victor.

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four have used material from their cell walls to make an escape device. They join Ant-Man in fighting Dr. Doom and his troops. When Victor eventually considers the battle as good as lost, he returns himself to normal size, thus escaping the Microverse/ Quantum Realm.

Ant-Man does the same for himself and the F.F. but when they once again appear in Reed’s laboratory they find that Dr. Doom has slipped away and is long gone.

NOTE:  Dr. Strange debuted in Strange Tales #110 this same month.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #17 (August 1963)

Title: In the Clutches of Dr. Doom

Villain: Dr. Doom

Synopsis: Some time after the previous issue, Dr. Doom sends squads of androids to attack the individual Fantastic Four members as they go about their everyday lives.

Invisible Woman is at a photo shoot, Mr. Fantastic was attending a science lecture by a colleague, and the Thing & Human Torch were on a double date, Ben with Alicia Masters (at right) and Johnny with his latest girlfriend.

Though our heroes survive the attacks, Dr. Doom recognizes the Thing’s date as famous sculptress Alicia Masters. He abducts her and holds her in his latest flying fortress. Dr. Doom demands that the Fantastic Four cease opposing him or he’ll kill Alicia. Naturally, the F.F. refuse, invade Doom’s sky vessel, free Alicia and seemingly cause Doom’s death in the final battle.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #18 (September 1963)

Title: A Skrull Walks Among Us

Villain: Super-Skrull

Synopsis: An unknown amount of time after the previous issue, the Skrull Emperor Dorrek has had his scientists perfect a new Skrull agent to do what the initial Skrull invasion of Earth failed to accomplish – kill the Fantastic Four.

Just as the four leaders of the previous Skrull attack in Fantastic Four #2 each had the power of one member of the F.F. the Super-Skrull possessed the powers of all four members himself. He also retained his Skrull shape-shifting abilities.

Super-Skrull lands in New York City in a spaceship, causing a panic. He announces his identity and that he will kill the Fantastic Four before conquering the Earth for the Skrull Empire. (At the time the F.F. were Marvel’s only superteam. The Avengers and X-Men coincidentally debuted later this same month.)

The Fantastic Four arrive on the scene and after a destructive battle Super-Skrull forces them to retreat. Mr. Fantastic works in his lab and discovers that Super-Skrull is powered by Skrull technology beaming cosmic rays to the villain’s body.

During their next clash with the invading alien, Reed manages to block the transmission of cosmic rays to Super-Skrull and the Fantastic Four easily subdue him and imprison him. This villain later impersonated Sue and Johnny’s father Franklin Richards and played a major role in the Kree-Skrull War over at the Avengers.   

NOTE: The X-Men would debut in X-Men #1 in September 1963 as would The Avengers in Avengers #1.  The Avengers would find Captain America and thaw him out in March 1964 (Avengers #4). Daredevil would not debut until April 1964 in Daredevil #1.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE FANTASTIC FOUR’S FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH THE INHUMANS, THE SILVER SURFER AND GALACTUS CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE WEDDING OF MR. FANTASTIC AND INVISIBLE WOMAN, DURING WHICH DR. DOOM AND OTHER VILLAINS ATTACK THEM CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE FANTASTIC FOUR #150, WHEN REED AND SUE’S SON FRANKLIN WAS FINALLY CURED, CLICK HERE.

FOR THE FANTASTIC FOUR’S ADVENTURES WITH THUNDRA CLICK HERE.