"Madbomb" ... how did Jack know...?

There's a story about Jack Kirby.  During the 70's, he apparently worked sporadically on a novel entitled The Horde.  Not a whole lot is known about The Horde except that it involved a kind of modern ay Genghis Khan emerging from Asia and waging war against the world.  The story goes that Jack stopped working on The Horde because he was scaring himself.  He would read the morning paper, or watch the evening news, and see the fictional events he was describing coming to pass in the real world.

Others have noted that Kirby's 70's work has turned out to be surprisingly prescient.  Maybe this isn't really so surprising - Jack was an unusually forward-thinking guy who believed in technology - and the human heart - and believed they would guide us, hopefully, into a positive future.

That kind of prescience isn't the result of magic.  Merely logic + imagination.  But, having said that, picking up "Madbomb" in late August 2019, I find myself in the midst of a story that's prescient in some very disturbing ways.  And it's scaring the hell out of me.

"Madbomb" ran in Captain America (and the Falcon) issues 193-200, roughly October 1975 to May 1976, beginning on the eve of the Bicentennial (anyone else out there remember that?).  It was the first new work Kirby had done for Marvel in 5 years.  Although he was welcomed back as a hero, many didn't like Kirby's new stories, or his more extreme art style.  I've written about this elsewhere.  Another grump some fans had was that Kirby pretty much did away with any continuity with Steve Englehart's long run on Captain America.   Englehart's run had been marked by some decidedly subversive themes, with Cap even abandoning the Captain America identity for a time, due to his disgust with Nixon-era America.

Kirby's take on Cap was different.  This Captain America would never turn his back on the patriotic symbols that defined him.  That might have seemed corny in 1975-1976.  But the truth is, what Kirby was up to may have been a lot more subversive than anything Englehart had ever imagined.

"Madbomb" starts with Cap and the Falcon being caught in a riot in the streets of New York.  This leads to a briefing by no less than then-Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger(!).  It seems this riot was set off by a curious bit of technology called a "madbomb" - a device that blankets an area with sonic waves, causing anyone in range to turn into a homicidal maniac.  SHIELD has discovered that whoever is using these weapons has developed one large enough to blanket the entire US.  Dispatched to some remote region of the country, where several SHIELD agents have disappeared, Cap and the Falc find themselves captured by something called The Royalist Forces of America, and forced to participate in brutal gladiatorial games.

The Royalists are a cabal of fabulously wealthy men planning to unravel American democracy, and replace it with an aristocracy - "men born to be served, who live(d) above the common rabble!"led by a grump named Taurey (in case we missed the joke, his partner is named "Heshin").

The gladiatorial games are witnessed by an unruly mob, completely in thrall to a simulated image of a non-existent leader who exhorts them into a frenzy.  They also encounter the selfish, ruthless, and stupid daughter of a Royalist leader, Cheer Chadwick, who provides some exceedingly grim comic relief.

Landing in the midst of all of this is possibly the strangest Kirby story ever published.  "Captain America's Love Affair" is such a bizarre detour it stands out as odd even in the often odd world of Jack Kirby.  It's also one of the best Kirby comics ever published.

Having rounded up the rank-and-file of the Royalists, Cap, Falc, SHIELD and the US army are still searching for the full-size madbomb.  And they've found a clue in the actions of Mason Harding, a brilliant scientist who's been missing for two years, but now seems to be making appearances at an isolated mansion on the east coast.  On a spying mission, Cap discovers the reason for Harding's visits: his daughter Carol, recovering from an unnamed illness, is convalescing at the mansion, where she's kept largely under wraps.  Figuring the most humane way to keep her safe while SHIELD raids the house, he arranges a rendezvous with her on the beach.  This quiet and thoughtful interlude alternates with scenes of solid Kirby panel-busting action as Falcon and SHIELD tear the place apart, leading to Harding's capture and confession (Harding has been blackmailed into developing the madbomb) and, of course, a final confrontation with Taurey and the Royalist leaders.

"Madbomb" has the usual Kirby problems - stilted dialog, corny monologues by Cap and the Falcon (his attempt to write hip lingo for the Falcon is particularly awkward), odd and not always logical plotting.  And when I first re-read it a couple decades ago, I found the notion of the Royalists a bit silly.  Why would anyone want to re-install a European style, 18th century model aristocracy?  Besides, plutocrats have been gaming the American system since Day 1.

To sit here in 2019 and read the "Madbomb" stories, while watching on the news as our own US president, and allies in congress, openly flaunt not only social norms but the very laws that have held our fragile system together all these years... it's well-nigh impossible not to see the shadow of Trump and his hideous children, the Koch brothers attempts to bankroll a system that guarantees only more wealth and privilege for people like themselves, aided and abetted by the Mitch McConnells, Paul Ryans, and Mitt Romneys and all the other 1% clowns, willfully tossing aside the very laws and values their alleged patriotism is supposes to support. It's hard not to see the image of the Trump offspring in Cheer Chadwick, or the fired-up "crowds" at Trump rallies in the chaotic audience of at the Royalists gladiatorial games.

Kirby grew up poor in Jewish ghetto.  A member of "the greatest generation", he served as a scout in WWII.  In later years, he spoke proudly of Leon Klinghoffer, a childhood friend, who stood up to terrorists in the Achille Lauro incident in 1985 (and died for it).  He believed in those values that Cap was supposed to symbolize.  And he understood how easily they could be taken away.  Re-reading "Madbomb" today, I don't find it silly.  I find it all too prescient.

When Gods Walk the Earth

The Eternals was the last major series that Jack Kirby created for Marvel.  It made its debut in the spring/summer of 1976.  And I vividly remember pulling issue 7 off the racks at a local 7-11, and realizing "hey - this is the guy that used to draw The Fantastic Four!"

You must know - in the 70's, we were UFO-crazy. Reports of UFO sightings and encounters made the regular evening news - no lie!  Documentaries aired in Prime Time.  And UFO-related plots turned up on nearly every show - from the sitcoms to the cop shows.  At decades end, there was even a series inspired by the files of Project Blue Book, the U.S. Govs official UFO investigation department, entitled Project: UFO. UFO books poured off the shelves - my local library - which was quite small - must have had a new one at least every month!

Into this fray also came one Erich Von Daniken, a Swiss author of a best-selling book entitled Chariots of the Gods. Chariots put forth the proposition that archaeology and mythology revealed that man had come into contact with extraterrestrials in ancient times, and that they may have imparted technology and wisdom, as well as being the inspiration for gods, heroes, and demons of folklore.  Von Daniken was widely attacked and is pretty much discredited these days - though I should note the criticism actually had less to do with the basic concept of extraterrestrials visiting earth in ancient times - even uber-skeptic Carl Sagan considered that within the realm of possibility - but with sloppy research and blatantly false claims.  Nevertheless, the book (and a cheapo documentary film based on it) were widely popular in the Disco Decade.

Jack Kirby was always interested in UFOs (a friend of mine once spent an evening talking with him about them at a convention), and a voracious sci-fi reader.  Take Von Daniken and a healthy dose of Arthur C. Clarke's classic Childhood's End, and you've got the basis for The Eternals.

The Eternals tells the story of a revelation.  Somewhere in Central America, Dr. Daniel Damian, his daughter Margo, and a mysterious, studly young fellow named Ike Harris locate an ancient, secret temple full of artifacts Damian believes are proof of extraterrestrial contact in ancient times.  An important discovery - but something is amiss.  That something in particular is Ike, who seems way too familiar with the place, the artifacts, and a number of other things.  He also seems to have a purpose in being there - one to which the Damian's research is incidental.

Things start to get really weird when Ike begins to explain that man was not only visited by an alien race - he was, in fact, created by one.  Man - and his cousins.  It seems, millennia ago, a powerful and unbelievably advanced race known as The Celestials dropped in, performed genetic experiments on the primates of Olde Earth, and produced not one, but three races - man, The Eternals - a race of beings who looked like men, but were gifted with immortality, near-indestructibility, and what we might term as super powers, and The Deviants - warty, reptilian humanoids who once dominated the earth but were driven below the ocean depths when they had the nerve to try and attack The Celestials.  The Eternals inspired the tales of heroes and gods of our mythology.  The Deviants - the demons, devils and monsters.

The Damians are pretty much ready to write Ike off as a nutcase - when they are suddenly attacked by a force of Deviants, led by a general named Kro.  The Deviants are there to stop Ike - whose real name is "Ikaris", from starting a beacon which will welcome a Celestial ship back to earth.  This doesn't work out for the Deviants - as Ikaris starts the beacon and fights with his superpowers - the fracas interrupted when the Celestial ship prepares to land right there before the ruin.  It seems the Celestials revisit their experiments every multi-thousand years or so.  This visit is to be a fateful one.  The Celestials are here to make a 50-year survey of the world the species they've sired has created.  If they like what they see, they will deem the experiment a success and move on.  If not - earth and everything on it is toast.

This became the canvas the story would be painted on.  The Deviants, seeking vengeance, hoped to drive The Celestials off.  The Eternals pondered how, exactly, to engage with them (this pondering, ultimately, took the form of something called The Uni-Mind; a kind of ceremony in which hundreds of Eternals essentially transformed themselves into a single entity - a giant floating brain that drifted around in space for awhile.  Seriously.  Only Kirby could have pulled this off).  And mankind - well, mankind stood around and watched in bewilderment. 

The Eternals was nothing if not controversial.  Hapless nerd Marvel-philes groused continually about how  Etermals could fit into the existing Marvel Universe, in which the Greek and Norse gods had already been established as being entirely real.  Though it was clear Kirby had no interest in continuity with said Universe (references to the FF and The Inhumans, for example, were treated as references to fictional characters), the Powers That Be insisted that The Eternals was taking place in the same milieu as the rest of the Marvel titles. It's easy enough today to shake one's head at why this was so damn important to the fans, but even moreso, it's hard to say with Marvel editorial didn't simply concede that this was a free-standing story with a free-standing setting, and not part of their regular "universe".  Stubbornness?  Shortsightedness? Regardless, the controversy raged across the letters page throughout the title's run.

The Eternals ran for 19 issues; about 2 years.  Kirby partisans (and know that I am, most assuredly, a Kirby partisan) blanch at the thought, but conspiracy theories to the contrary, the likely story is it just didn't catch on.  None of Kirby's 70's series really did.  At 19 issues, The Eternals did a little better than most.

There are many possible reasons.  The Eternals was not a superhero book - though it resembled one.  It would be better characterized as a science-fiction title.  Those looking for standard superhero action would have been disappointed. This was clearly Kirby's intent.  In issue 4, Ikaris flies into action against a Deviant invasion of NYC - and is almost immediately taken out.  It's the diplomatic intervention of Eternals Sersi, Makkari and Thena - and the NYPD - that ultimately ends the Deviant attack.  

Like the Fourth World titles, it was something of an extended novel - a tale told in monthly chapters. In this, Kirby was way ahead of his time - the only contemporary project would have been Jack Katz's First Kingdom title. Perhaps Kirby might have been better off trying to produce these sagas privately than through the Marvel/DC grist mill. As an extended tale without the simple frames of reference of the superheroes, it wasn't something you could easily drop into the middle of.



Again, like the Fourth World, The Eternals was not flawless.  Kirby's dialog was stilted and odd, out step with the verbal style of the times, and lacking Stan Lee's sometimes purple and corny but nonetheless more naturalistic ear.  Some readers couldn't and still can't stand it.  His art, too, looked different. Without the leavening of Joe Sinnot or Vince Colleta's inks, which tended to pretty things up and smooth out the rougher edges, the Mike Royer-inked pages of The Eternals et al gave us Kirby unfettered.  For some, it was too stylized, too strong.  The dynamism was unquestionable, but Kirby's big square hands and homely faces were not what Marvel-ites expected, or were used to.  To those who knew Kirby's art from the mid-60's, he seemed to have changed.  Those who'd cut their teeth on Neal Adams and Jim Steranko wondered what all the fuss was about. 

Yet focusing on these ignores the many strengths.  Aside from concept, the characterization was some of the strongest of any Kirby solo title.  While the human characters were little more than passive bystanders (its worth noting that, out of a large cast, only three of the characters were humans), several strong personalities emerged from The Eternals - especially the women - the powerful and noble Thena, and the playful and frequently cruel Sersi stand out.  Likewise, there was the tricksterish Sprite, and the tragic and mysterious "hero" of issue # 13.  Possibly the strongest and most complex was the Deviant general, Kro.  Essentially a villain, yet Kro was driven by ambition, and capable of a certain flawed nobility and even love.  In issue 8, "The City of the Toads", Thena, for whom Kro clearly has a major, and not entirely unrequited, crush, accompanies him to the Deviant city of Lemuria.  There she is witness to the genocidal cleansing of mutated Deviants, accidents of birth even more monstrous than the already gloopy Deviant breed, and the gladiatorial games used to eliminate the stronger mutants.  Disgusted, Thena takes her leave, accompanied by two of the gladiatorial "mutates" - The Reject, who's mutation is that he looks like a handsome human, and Karkas, who looks something like a swollen carrot with legs and a gash of a mouth.  But the studly Reject is, in fact, a brutal killing machine, whereas Karkas is an articulate and sensitive soul.  The two of them argued constantly.  Finally, there were The Celestials themselves - towering giants who looked as much like colossi in ornamental armor as they did robots.  Never given a word or thought balloon, they remained a complete mystery, both beautiful and terrible.

Editorial pressures got the better of the series in its last days.   Forced to introduce some element of Marvel continuity - The Hulk made an appearance in the next two issues.  Sort of.  In actual point of fact, it wasn't really The Hulk, but rather a super-powered android built by a pair of Hulk-loving college students (again, The Hulk was treated as a seemingly fictional character).  This was the nadir of the series.  Things picked up a bit with the next stories, including a powerful mutant Deviant in NYC, and a duel between Ikaris' and his Loki-like cousin Druig that felt like a throwback to late-period Thor.  The Celestials, once the real center of the book, seemed to fade to the back almost entirely, and The Eternals finally became a superhero series after all.

With The Eternals laid to rest, Kirby finished out his contract with the strange but interesting Devil Dinosaur and the odd superhero Mister Machine, before moving on to animation and his even odder work at Pacific.  He would never attempt anything this ambitious again.
















Re-reading The Eternals today, I find it a bit of a shame he never got to continue.  Kirby 
was way ahead of his time in his attempt to create a long-form comics novel - such a project is commonplace today.  Conceptually, he was dealing with issues such as the origins of man and myths, man's place in the universe, and man's future - and suggesting there might not be much future for humankind, and earth.  To an kid of 11 (my age when I first read the early issues), this was heady stuff.  To a middle-aged dude with an arsenal of knowledge behind him unavailable in my youth - it's still heady stuff.  Announcing his return to Marvel in 1976, Kirby had promised that whatever he did would "electrocute you in the mind".  Still in his prime, as an artist, creator, and storyteller Kirby kept his promise. This was the kind of wild innovation that had marked the explosion of creativity that had been the Marvel Age of the 60's.  But the Marvel-philes of the day just wanted him back drawing the FF and Thor.  With Stan writing.  They didn't know what they had.

The World's Greatest (?) Comic Magazine ...?

You see, there was this old cardboard box, that was stored up in the loft of our house.  And every summer it would get taken down, and I would be allowed to get into it.  And what it was, was a treasure trove.  A box of silver age comics.

Now, for those of you who don't know, the "silver age" covers the years from the late 50's to early 70's or so.  Basically the second coming of superheroes, beginning with The Flash being reborn in Showcase comics in `56, the rise (and fall) of the "Batman" TV series, and the birth of Marvel comics as titan of the industry.

Most of these comics, and there might have been a hundred, maybe a couple hundred, dated c. 1966-1968 - the years of my brother's childhood, and zenith of his comic book-buying days, obviously.  The overwhelming majority were DC's - Superman, Batman, the Legion Of Superheroes, the Justice League, The Flash, Green Lantern.  A scattering of other, lesser lights (Metamorpho!).  There were a bunch of Gold Keys (Turok Son Of Stone!), some Dells and Charltons.

And these...

My god - just look at them!

To my tiny little mind (I must have been around 6 or 7), even then, it was obvious that these were something special.  Compared to the staid, dull, and often jokey covers of the DC titles, these nearly exploded with action, violence, and menace. The flaming figures flying around in the foreground (while that arm guy reaches out for them, intervening) ... and who's that orange, rocky-looking creature standing in the lower left, looking alarmed? That hairy beast blasting some kind of power at the poor sucker hanging onto the rock (with an arm that wraps around it, no less), and the mysterious figure emerging from the left..And #70 there - a cover I found both exhiairating and terrifying - that huge, green, semi-faceless figure, looking out of the night, over the bodies of three (unconscious? dead?) figures, and the terrified woman in the foreground... no, there was NOTHING like these.

The interiors delivered the goods, too.  The stories were confusing, exciting, and full of life.  I would soon find out that the fellow with the elastic arms was Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic; that the blonde was his wife, Sue, also known as The Invisible Girl.  The young guy who could turn into a flaming figure was her brother, Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch.  And the pile of orange rocks?  Well he was called The Thing, or to his friends (and that became just about everyone who read the mag) Ben.

The FF's story has been told (in various versions) many times before.  The truth may be lost to history, but this much we do know: c. 1959-1960, DC, then-reigning champeen of the comic book world, had hit paydirt by reviving several 1940's era superheroes, with newer, sprightlier costumes, backstories, origins, and identities, and then combining them with their existing successes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, in a team book called The Justice League of America.  Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, sensing profit, gave the go-ahead, or green light, to a Marvel superhero team book.  This was a big step, since Marvel hadn't published any superhero books since the early 1950's, and was currently engaged in mostly cowboys and goody sci-fi comics full of absurd monsters.  Head writer Stan Lee and main artistic workhorse Jack Kirby, in some combination, cooked up The Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four was probably the most ground-breaking comic book of the 1960's, at least till the undergrounds came along.  It's the foundation of Marvel's whole milieu and practically everything that Marvel is, was, or will be flows from there.   That being said, by today's standards, the stories are often ludicrous, the artwork, despite being from Jack Kirby, the Michelangelo of comics,  rushed and crude looking.  To anyone brought up on the slick, adult-aimed comics of the 90's on, it's probably hard to see what the fuss is all about.  To get the FF now, you have to have context. 

In those days, before they too got Marvel-ized, Superman and Batman and all of the Justice League were a bunch of square stiffs, painfully dull and boy-scoutish.  (The Flash did at least seem to have a sense of humor).  The FF, on the other hand, were a different story.  Reed Richards was a stuffed-shirt scientist, albeit from the beginning an effective leader who had the despicable virtue of being 100% right all the time.  Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch was an-all-too-typical teenager - obnoxious, self-centered, emotionally unstable and headstrong.  Sue Storm was your basic helpless female (they later powered her up, but she remained a background member through most of the 60's and 70's).  And then there was Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, a lumpy humanoid monster. In the earliest issues, Ben was morose and misanthropic, with a hard-on against the human race and especially Johnny, who pissed him off no end.  For a brief time, he was positively disturbing, full of the implied threat that he might one day turn on his teammates.  While he soon mellowed into a big-hearted wiseacre, he retained an element of tragedy and suppressed rage that stayed with the character from then on.  These were anything but typical superheroes.

They shattered every cliche and trope they could find.   They had no secret identities and initially eschewed even costumes (they adopted uniforms early on, but were still often seen in action in street clothes).  Their names and their headquarters were well known to the public at large.  After the first year or so, they rarely referred to each other by their superhero names.  Reed and Sue were an actual item, not an interminable coy flirtation - but, in the first few years, Sue would be torn between Reed and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, a revived anti-hero from the 1940's who was, in the beginning, the FF's arch-foe.  Ben would soon be paired off with a delicate, blind sculptress named Alicia.

I should digress and mention the FF's rogue's gallery - in point of fact, it wasn't terribly impressive. Most of their recurring baddies were second-stringers.  However, the Skrulls, a race of green BEMs who appeared as early as issue 2, have remained a menace in the Marvel U ever since.  Initially merely a failed (and illogical) invading force, they were eventually revealed to be a warlike galactic empire.  More importantly, the Skrulls had the interesting ability of shape-changing, and could assume the appearance of any human or animal they chose.

Dr. Doom, arch-foe of the FF and foe in general of the entire Marvel scene

And then, most importantly, there was Doctor Doom, aka Victor von Doom, half mad scientist, half medieval sorcerer, with a touch of Josef Stalin thrown in for good measure. Doom, forever bent by his rivalry with Reed Richards, would return again and again in increasingly potent stories, becoming not only the FF's arch-foe, but soon tangling with every other hero in the Marvel pond.  He was eventually revealed to be the monarch of the Eastern European postage-stamp nation Latveria, and an ally of NATO (he kept the Soviets at bay, via his own nuclear arsenal PLUS armies of androids, and numerous other goodies). He lurks in the background of the entire Marvel line, a dark menacing shadow, to this day.

The theme of the FF, it has been said, was family.  And that's how they functioned - not as a team of professional heroes but as a family (which, technically, they were eventually) who incidentally had superpowers and saved the world.  They rubbed each others' nerves and bickered and fought constantly.  They were regularly depicted engaging in domestic activities (eating, shopping, going out on the town or on vacations, etc) and, in time, most of their adventures began with them going about mundane day-to-day business, interrupted when latest menace arrived.

Lee and Kirby tore up the superhero rulebook issue after issue.  Nonetheless, again, out of context, this may not mean much.  The stories remained entertaining but crude and absurd for most of the first two years.  Then something began to stir.  In issue 25, an epic battle between Ben and The Hulk ended with Ben beaten down to the ground, hauling himself up for another, likely futile, try.  The story spread into the next issue with a disastrous "collaboration" with the newly-minted Avengers.  The stories began to take on a more sophisticated emotional tone, and more complex characterization and storylines over the next year.

By late `65, Kirby, who had been gradually decreasing his workload (at one point he was drawing probably 90% of Marvel's titles) and increasing the detail and quality of his work, began to take over more and more of the plotting and stories (though Lee continued to hold the byline and take the credit).   Kirby's drawing, even at its roughest, had always resonated with energy and power, but now that ante would be upped more and more, and with the addition (finally) of a sympathetic inker in Joe Sinnott, it became a thing of beauty - vast expanses of cosmic vistas, outrageous technology, beautiful characters and action that seemed to practically explode off the page.

The stories, too, gained both in sophistication (Reed and Sue married, and eventually she became pregnant and gave birth to a son), and complexity. With Kirby at the helm and soon pared down to three titles (FF, Thor and Captain America), the book exploded with mind-blowing concepts: godlike alien beings; a secret race of super-powered mutations, and the advanced alien race who had created them in prehistoric times; s hidden African kingdom, on the surface a backwater, but, in fact, a repository of off-the-charts technology; an entire anti-matter universe.   In that period (roughly issue 39 til Kirby's departure after issue 102), it really was something special (and let it be noted here that Kirby was doing equally mind-blowing things with Thor, and that Captain America wasn't far behind). Storylines routinely stretched across 4 issues or more, while equally exciting subplots might carry through a dozen issues, as Kirby's imagination stretched the form to its limits.  The FF became less a superhero comic and more a science-fiction title, concerned with exploration and discovery.

As the decade came to a close, Kirby, fed up with Stan, Goodman, and Marvel in general, began keeping his best ideas to himself.  His artwork remained stunning, possibly even better than before, and the stories remained exciting and entertaining, but the edge was missing.  He stopped bringing in new characters and concepts, and largely worked in well-trod territory (though sometimes still quite successfully - even lesser Kirby packs a mighty punch).  With 102, Kirby left the company.  The FF would never really recover.  The title mostly tread water for a decade until John Byrne managed to breathe a little life into it (mostly by bringing back in Kirby-like elements that had fallen by the wayside), but even his (acclaimed, overrated, but still worthwhile) run never scaled the heights of the series heyday.  For me, the FF begins and ends with those 102 issues.  It would be unfair and wrong to say there was never another good FF story, post-Kirby.  But it would be fair and honest to say, Kirby's run on the FF is something the like of which we will never see again.

This being the internet and dorks love lists, here are my Top Ten FF stories from the One True Era.  Note these stories are based on their own merit and their ability to push my buttons, without regard for their "importance" to the Marvel milieu, and ranked in order of affection and perceived excellence...

"The Hulk vs The Thing"/"The Avengers Take Over" Issues 25-26, April-May 1964

Picking up a story from the then-fledgling Avengers title, an enraged Hulk makes his way to NYC in search of his old team-mates and sidekick Rick Jones, intent on tearing the town up until he finds them.  With the Avengers looking for the Hulk in the Southwest, the FF are left to intervene.  Problem: Reed's exposed himself to dangerous viruses in an experiment and is incapacitated.  After Greenskin makes short work of the Torch, its up to Ben to hold the fort.  The two beasts battle across page after page - maybe the most epic fight ever seen in comicsdom and that's saying a lot.  It finally ends with Ben beaten to the ground.  But, in a great moment, he forces himself to his feet, vowing to fight on till the end.  This was grand melodrama and the point where Stan's writing and Jack's plotting turned from mere comic-book stories to phenomenal comic-book stories.

In the second half, the Avengers show up.  Rather than a fruitful collaboration, things quickly disintegrate into a comedy of errors as the two teams dick-wave and step on each other at every turn.

Having managed to screw everything up, the FF and The Avengers bicker about placing the blame

"And A Blind Man Shall Lead Them"/"The Battle of the Baxter Building" Issues 39-40, June-July 1965

Having survived an atomic explosion set off by enemies The Frightful Four, the FF find themselves without their powers.  Bad timing. As they try to replicate their former abilities, a particularly-enraged Doctor Doom invades their HQ and begins attacking the now-powerless FF with their own weapons and equipment.  Aided by then-newcomer Daredevil, they play cat-and-mouse across NYC before returning to reclaim their powers and confront Doom.  Doom was never more unhinged, esp. in his brutal hand-to-hand with Daredevil, and Ben's unwanted transformation back to Thing-hood leads to the most punishing beat-down Doom would ever receive at the hands of his arch-enemies, not to mention melodrama even grander than in the Hulk story, and a downbeat ending that must have dropped kids' jaws back in the day.

"This Man, This Monster" Issue 51, June 1966

Coming down off watching the world get saved in the celebrated "Galactus" storyline, a morose Ben wanders the streets late at night, in the rain.  Taken in by a mysterious stranger, who turns out to be yet another mad inventor, who this time manages to transform himself into the Thing, at the expense of leaving Ben back as plain old Ben Grimm again.  Infiltrating the FF with the intent of bringing down Reed, whom he considers a rival, the nameless mad inventor learns something about his nemesis, and himself.  In a title known for its epic, multi-issue storylines, here's one single-issue tale that showed us comics could be not only exciting, but moving as well.






















"His Mission: Destroy the Fantastic Four"/"By Ben Betrayed"/"When Fall the Mighty"/"...And So it Ends"   November 1967-February 1968

The Mad Thinker turns up in disguise to assist Reed in a plan to turn Ben human again once and for all.  Instead, he sabotages the treatment, turning Ben into a raging maniac hellbent on killing Reed and the rest of the FF.  Ben is depicted as genuinely and scarily homicidal in these issues, with a penultimate climax which appears to leave 3/4 of the FF as corpses.  The wrap-up is a non-stop slugfest between the revived FF and The Thinker's truly frightening android.  This was scary, intense stuff as a kid, and even Ben's sudden return to normal in the last issue doesn't quite take the unsettling taste out one's mouth.

Ben moves in for the kill at the climax of issue 70

"The Black Panther!"/"The Way It Began!" July-August 1966

Now, I did say these stories were chosen and ranked for their merit, not their "importance", didn't I?  Well, here we have a case where the two happily go hand-in-hand.  Kirby and Lee may have created T'Challa, the Black Panther, for marketing reasons, but who cares?  Instead of producing a token black superhero, they gave us one of the coolest heroes in the whole Marvel galaxy who just happens to be black - but not incidentally so.  His African heritage is, in fact, a defining feature.  And while his origin may be loaded with pulp jungle adventure ("I read all the Bomba the Jungle Boy books awready" gripes Ben, growing bored with T'Challa's tale), it's still grand jungle adventure.  Throw in the hidden kingdom of Wakanda, a technological mecca hidden beneath the veneer of a poor, ultra-tradition-bound African kingdom, one of Kirby's greatest and most enduring creations.  The Panther's been one of my top favorite super-heroes since I was about 7 years old, and his intro vindicates that all the way.

"The Name is Doom"/"Within This Tortured Land"/"The Victims"/"The Power and the Pride" issues 84-87  March-June 1969

En route back from another encounter with The Inhumans (see next entry), the FF are press-ganged by S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel's super-CIA, to infiltrate Latveria, in order to investigate evidence of a sophisticated android army Doom is developing. They find themselves held captive in a storybook European hamelt, stripped of their powers via hypnosis and mind control, and ultimately made lab rats in an apocalyptic test of Doom's new toys.  the final issue of the story promises "the most off-beat ending of the year", and for once, Stan was as good as his word, delivering, instead of the expected action-packed blow-out, a long dying fall of a climax that ends on an ambiguous note.  Kirby was watching Patrick McGoohan's late 60's cult-favorite, The Prisoner, and drew on it both for plot and setting, but also a series of  references any Village devotee will pick up.  Doom is depicted at his most menacing, a murderous devil hiding (barely) behind the mask of a benevolent dictator.  

Doc Doom gives Sue and Crystal a real surprise.  Ya think George Lucas might've had this issue?

"The Gentleman's Name is Gorgon"/"Among Us Hide The Inhumans"/"Those Who Would Destroy Us"/ "Beware the Hidden Land"/"The Coming of Galactus"  Issues 44-48, November 1965-March 1966

Although the celebrated "Galactus" storyline, which picks up right where this one ends, gets all the attention, this run, which introduced The Inhumans, a super-powered hidden race that have lived among us in secret since prehistoric times (The Inhumans would remain a major part of the FF storyline for the rest of Kirby's run).  This was where Kirby's imagination went off the charts.  Its also the beginning of Joe Sinnott's run as inker, which caused a quantum leap in the artwork (Kirby had been burdened with inappropriate inkers through most of his run to this date).  Johnny meets his love interest Crystal, only to lose her when the Inhumans are sealed behind an impenetrable barrier, shutting them off from the world.  High melodrama and even higher sci-fi mind-fucking.  This is how I remember the FF best.

"The Origin of Doctor Doom" Annual #2, September 1964

Though Doom had been kicking around for a couple years by this time, and the basics of his origin (disfigured in an accident involving black magic and quantum physics, now with a hard-on for the world and Reed Richards in particular), this was the first time his backstory had been dealt with.  Stan once said he was aiming for the feel of some 1930's period classic film.  He got it.  Gypsies, sorcery, mad science - an origin tale worthy of Marvel's greatest baddie.

"The Sentry Sinister" issue 64, July 1967

Ben, Reed and Sue take off for a much-needed vacation, and choose a deserted South Pacific island. Their destination just happens to be the exact spot where an archaeologist and his guide have unearthed the hidden outpost of the Kree, an alien race who settled Earth in prehistoric times.  They've also unearthed a Kree sentry, a gigantic android guard determined to protect the outpost.  Here's a story that anticipates themes Kirby would explore throughout the next 15 years, in titles such as The Eternals, and the Kree would go on to form a bedrock of the Marvel Universe.  Meantime, it's top-notch Kirby-Sinnott thrills, with a surprising, odd, even poignant (?) ending.

"The Torch That Was", Annual #4, November 1966 

The Mad Thinker revives the android Human Torch of Marvel's 40's, and sends him off to take out Johnny Storm.  A sentimental fave to be sure, but it was my first favorite comic, introduced me to the FF in one fell swoop, and is loaded with stunning Kirby-Sinnott art.

"What Lurks Behind the Beehive?"/"When Opens the Cocoon" issues 66-67 September-October 1967

Ben's beloved Alicia is spirited away by a mysterious figure who can walk through walls.  While Reed tries to solve the mystery, Alicia finds herself a "guest" in a remote technological complex called "The Beehive", where a team of renegade scientists are attempting to create a new life form, one meant to dominate mankind and protect him from his worst instincts. Ben, Reed and Johnny (Sue was mostly sitting adventures out during this period, being as she was preggers) arrive to save the day, but the super-heroics are an afterthought compared to Kirby's flights of imagination, Alicia's quest to learn the nature of the Hive's offspring, and the final revelation of what they've created.  The FF as sci-fi comic.

"Enter ... Doctor Doom"/"The Dismal Dregs of Defeat"/"Doomsday"/"The Peril and the Power"  Issues 57-60 December 1966-March 1967

The most spectacular of the FF's run-ins with Dr. Doom.  This time, Doom has stolen the Silver Surfer's seemingly unlimited "cosmic power", and is flying around the world, laying waste to anything that takes his fancy, toying with the FF.  After managing to (barely) avoid being wiped out several times, Reed finally finds the trick to outwit Doom.  Barely.  Again, this is mostly a showcase for over-the-top action and glorious Kirby-Sinnott art.  Isn't that enough?  Anyhoo, for good measure Kirby throws in The Watcher, the Panther (again) and finally wraps up the Inhumans subplot that's been running since issue 49.

"Prisoners of Kuurgo, Master of Planet X" issue 7 October 1962

Okay, this isn't one of the best FF stories ever done by a long shot.  And if I'm dipping back to the series first few years, there's any number of other choices I could have made, all of them more "important" in the development of the Marvel milieu. But I wanted to cram at least one early issue on here, and it's my list.  "Kuurgo" was the first early FF I encountered, and while it was clearly cruder and rougher (and sillier) than the late-60's gems, it had and still has for me a raw power that practically leaps off the page.  Add to this a story that practically vibrates with the same mood as the 50's era sci-fi epics I watched religiously on Saturday afternoons throughout my youth.

The Torch flies out of control in issue 7