BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #201

So this next week was the moment it all hit home–when FANTASTIC FOUR #201 turned up on the spinner rack at my local 7-11 and I had to face the fact that I had indeed missed the double-sized anniversary issue of my favorite series, the culmination to a year-long story arc and a book that I had been salivating in anticipation of for weeks. In retrospect, it’s easy to see what the disconnect was: my 7-11 had stopped carrying oversized comics of any sort. It didn’t stock any Annuals, for example. FANTASTIC FOUR #200 was the first in-line title to increase its price and page count in this manner, and so because of that, it was likely left off of the manifest of books my outlet would get. (Alternately, it’s possible that both it and UNCANNY X-MEN #115, the other issue that I inexplicably missed, were packaged together and that box was waylaid somewhere along the line.) Anyway, it made getting this issue a bitter pill for al that it was still my favorite book.

And of course, because the issue picks up on the aftermath of the prior events, I felt the absence more pronouncedly. The book was produced by the same creative team who had generated twice as many pages the month before, which is no doubt why Keith Pollard pulled back to only doing breakdowns for this issue. Joe Sinnott was more than capable of completing that artwork without it losing a step. And writer Marv Wolfman would continue to grow in esteem in my eyes–this wouldn’t entirely crystalize until he migrated to DC about a year later, but he was growing into my favorite contemporary writer on the scene.

This was something of a regrouping issue, after the cast had been apart for so long. Leaving Latveria behind in the hands of the rightful Prince Zorba (who would later become a tyrant in a John Byrne follow-up story), the FF fly back to Manhattan, landing on the roof of their old home the Baxter Building, as only it has the reinforced structure to allow their Pogo Plane to alight properly. There, they run into their old landlord Collins, who was a recurring comedic foil in the strip along the lines of J. Jonah Jameson. Unable to rent their old space to anybody else because all of the prospective tenants are afraid they’ll be attacked by the FF’s enemies, Collins offers it back to them–after Ben negotiates a reduced rate. So the family begins to move back in, recalling all of their packed-away equipment from SHIELD, who have had it in mothballs since the team broke up.

This allows Wolfman and Pollard to do an updated full page cut-away of the Baxter Building headquarters in the manner of the ones that Lee and Kirby had produced in Annuals of the past. It even includes the seldom-used Fantasti-Copter. In any event, as the heroes begin to settle in, each one finds themselves attacked by some bit of their own tech gone terribly wrong. Reed is assaulted by a microbe grown to colossal size, Ben’s exercise equipment goes haywire, imperiling him, Sue is assaulted by the building’s defense systems, and Johnny is doused in flame-retardant foam and propelled through the window. So this isn’t a warm homecoming.

Fortunately, the Human Torch is able to reignite his flame before he hits the street below, and upon returning t the building, is thereafter able to burn away the gravity grapplers that are pulling the Thing apart. The pair then find Sue where she’d been knocked down by a jetstream of water. Reed contacts the trio by radio, telling them that the only solution to their current woes is to shut down their central computer power core. But first they’ll have to get there, and it’s guarded by security devices as well. Understanding the situation, the three heroes head out to make their way to the Core.

The Torch figures that the best method of attack is head on, and so he through an access shaft to the floor containing the power core–only to be felled by jets of anesthetic gas. This leaves matters in the hands of the Thing and the Invisible Girl. Despite Ben’s minimal protests, Sue insists on being lowered down into the shaft so that she can disarm the core. This process is made more difficult by the building’s defenses: Sue is attacked by lasers and sonics in the shaft while Ben is jumped by a collection of robots that make him lose his grip on Sue’s line. Fortunately, she’s able to break her fall with her force-field and make it into the power core room.

And that’s about it! Having made her way into the room, Sue is able to disarm the power core and the attacking devices all shut down. In the aftermath, Reed isn’t yet certain what or who might be behind this attack on their person, but that would be a problem for another issue. But for now, the quartet toasts their return as a team and a family, and the issue closes out. Not a bad story–but not the climax that issue #200 promised, and so my frustration boiled over into my appreciation for this book. It wasn’t the issue’s fault, it simply wasn’t and couldn’t be the thing that I had been waiting for for so long. I wouldn’t actually get to read a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #200 for at least nine or ten months, and I wouldn’t own one until a bit after that. And its absence in my run always felt–and still feels, despite having been filled long ago–like a cavity that caused discomfort whenever probed.