Fantastic Four #9

The end of the Fantastic Four

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers

Villains: none

Guest Appearances: Namor

So, What Happens?

Namor watches a news broadcast about the FF’s bankruptcy and sees a chance to act. Reed has apparently blown all of their money and the team now has to sell off all of its equipment to cover its debts.

The only way out seems to be an offer from Hollywood to star in a movie and they set off across country by hitch hiking.

In Hollywood their benefactor turns out to be Namor who promises them millions for taking part in a globetrotting adventure movie.

While Namor woos Sue in fancy restaurants the other members of the team are taken to exotic locations for their scenes. Reed is in the Mediterranean and finds himself facing an immortal Cyclops who had been hanging around since the days of Odysseus. Reed forms himself into a trip wire and sends the giant into a pit before escaping.

Johnny finds himself facing an African tribe who have discovered a potion that makes them fireproof. After a few false starts he manages to deal with them by erupting a volcano that covers their village with lava.

Ben faces Namor himself on a Californian beach. While the Thing gives a good account of himself the seawater gives Namor a boost and an unexpected bolt of lightning temporarily robs Ben of his powers. Namor knocks him out and then goes to find Sue.

He informs Sue that her teammates are beaten and that she should now marry him.

When she isn’t at all interested Namor turns on her too and has managed to subdue her by the time the male heroes arrive. Sue stops them attacking Namor but still refuses to go with him. Instead he sticks to his word and gives them the proceeds of the movie while he returns to the sea.

So is it any good?:

It’s a cool cover with a fairly silly story tied around it. The fact that the FF were bankrupted has been referred to quite a lot over the years but doesn’t actually make much sense in this story and is over and done with and not mentioned at all by the next issue.

The idea of someone like Reed just blowing it all on a few bad share picks shows just how far away from the thinking 82 steps in advance super genius he still was at this point. Or rather how the writers were still willing to have anything happen to setup a few cool visuals later in the story.

The visuals are in fact great throughout, probably the strong point of an issue that seemed designed to place each team member into danger with ever more extraordinary foes. As stupid as it is the scene of the team hitchhiking is particularly cool.

Alicia has immediately become part of the supporting cast with her room full of puppets to remind the reader of her villainous step-father.

She is already having a softening effect on the Thing, turning around his latest tantrum and sending him back to the team to face their problems together. Another piece of the jigsaw is now in place even if we are still a long way away from the finished FF article.

The Sue/Namor plotline has run through all of the Atlantean’s appearances to date. Here Sue again suggests that she is very interested in Namor merely put off by his methods and the way he treats her friends.

In fact we have seen far more interest in Namor from Sue than we have in Reed. If anything Ben is the character who has shown the second most interest in Sue so far (which makes Alicia’s resemblance to Sue all the more odd). Namor is very much the anti-hero here with the chapters featuring Ben and Sue shown as much from his side as from theirs.

He remains somewhat sympathetic, not a villain but someone who has fairly reasonable aims but is unable to actually approach them using methods that would satisfactorily solve them. He does actually rescue the FF from their bankruptcy that Reed had caused. In some ways he seems more competent than Reed here but is still hampered by his alien autocratic nature.

A fun oddity but not a great issue.

Are there any goofy moments?

Namor’s movie mogul outfit is great.

As are his scenes with Sue where he explains he had attacked all her friends out of love for her.

Some of the Human Torch in darkest Africa stuff is both corny and very unlikely to appear in quite the same way in any modern flash backs. It’s more than a little racist and Johnny seems to think it’s fine to cause a volcanic eruption that destroys the homes of an entire tribe that he could have just flown away from.

A lightning bolt is the latest in a long line of things that can turn the Thing back to Ben Grimm at a vital moment.

Trivia:

While in Hollywood the team encounter Alfred Hitchcock, Dean Martin, Jackie Gleason, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and a few other people who would probably have been recognisable in 1962.

Namor has the power to locate the Invisible Girl. Not sure how often that has been used as it would presumably have been quite useful in any number of later stories. The idea that he had access to all the ocean’s treasures and could use that money to set up companies on the surface was key in John Byrne’s Namor series.

This story is obviously the result of Stan reading fan-mail talking about ‘realism’ being a big difference between Marvel Comics and the competition. While everyone is freaking out about their financial situation Reed finds the time to pick up a comic book and point out that stuff like this never happens to any of the other heroes on the market.

Is it a landmark?:

Not really.