This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post will look at the time when the Inhuman named Crystal replaced Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four while she was pregnant.
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #81 (Dec 1968)
Title: Enter – The Exquisite Elemental
Villain: The Wizard
Synopsis: With Sue Storm-Richards (Invisible Woman) deep in her pregnancy, the Human Torch’s (Johnny Storm’s) longtime girlfriend Crystal of the Inhumans temporarily replaces her in the Fantastic Four. This marks the first time any team member has needed replaced.
The team’s old foe the Wizard invades the Baxter Building to keep his recently confiscated Power Gloves from being reverse engineered by the Fantastic Four.
(Our heroes took them after defeating the Wizard a few issues back.)
The battle leads all the way to the docks, where Crystal’s elemental powers prove her value to the team by being crucial to defeating and driving off the Wizard. Continue reading
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #158 (May 1975) 
The pair fight it out, fueled largely by their former romantic rivalry for Crystal. The Thing (Ben Grimm) and his girlfriend – the blind sculptress Alicia Masters – arrive back from a night at the Metropolitan Opera and the Thing joins the Human Torch in attacking Quicksilver. Mr. Fantastic calls a halt to the fighting and asks Quicksilver why he invaded the Baxter Building. 
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 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. 
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #44 (November 1965) 
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. 
ULTRON-7: HE’LL RULE THE WORLD 
He revives the heroes he had put into comas last time around – MANTIS, Iron Man, Medusa, Quicksilver and the Swordsman. Meanwhile the Thing rushes forward to attack Ultron-7 but is easily defeated as the villain reminds him that the Omega body now has all of HIS (Ultron’s) powers, not the lesser powers it used to have. 
AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 127 (September 1974) Bride and Doom
Synopsis: At Avengers Mansion the six current team members are at the dinner table for a turkey meal prepared by Jarvis, their butler. Suddenly, Gorgon, a member of the Inhumans (movie coming soon) and Lockjaw the car-sized teleporting dog appear in the room. 
Quicksilver, in spite of the hatred he and the Scarlet Witch had always endured for being mutants, harbored such intense bigotry over Wanda’s romance with the android Vision that he had cut off all ties with her months earlier. The Scarlet Witch is driven to tears at the realization that he didn’t even invite her to his upcoming wedding. 
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