I always preferred buying original books to reprints, in part because many of the reprints of the times were cut down to fit shorter page counts. But this didn’t really become a major issue for me for another year or so yet. At the time that I made this post-grade-school-graduation trip to Bush’s Hobbies, I was much more interested in making my limited budget stretch as far as it could. So I wound up buying this issue of GIANT-SIZE FANTASTIC FOUR #5, which reprinted FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #5. I seem to recall that Bush had the Annual as well, but that it cost more. At this moment, i was mainly interested in reading the story (and buying other books that day) so I went with the cheaper option.
First things first: despite the credits listed on this splash page, this reprinted Annual story wasn’t inked by the great Joe Sinnott. Joe was intended to be the inker, but then something came up and Frank Giacoia had to step in and substitute for him–and the credit wound up never getting changed. Giacoia was possibly Kirby’s most faithful inker in the 1960s, accurately capturing a lot of what Kirby put down in his pencils, rather than slicking it up or modifying it to make it more commercially pleasing. But that meant that this story’s visuals had a bit of a sharper edge to them. As a kid, I was all-in on Sinnott’s work, and so found Giacoia to be not as appealing, though today I can see the strong merits in what he does here.
The story in this issue also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and while I’ve never done a full deep forensic analysis on it, I have the strong feeling that editor Lee changed the trajectory of Kirby’s tale partway through, as he occasionally did in those days. It’s possible that there were pages Kirby produced for this story that were discarded along the way, and the entire thing really doesn’t hold together all that well. But where it succeeds is in the power and imagination of Kirby’s visuals and the slickness of Lee’s dialogue. It introduces new villain Psycho-Man (whom Kirby named Psychon in his border notes, but Lee changed.) He’s a denizen of a microscopic universe who has come to conquer our macro world, and he’s armed with a device that can create powerful negative emotions in people: primarily Fear, Doubt and Hate. He’s also served by a trio of underlings, Live Wire, Ivan and Shell-Shock, who are human criminals who have fallen under his sway.
The big development in this story as far as the Fantastic Four are concerned is the revelation that Sue Richards is pregnant with the couple’s first child. This also serves as a pretext to keep them out of the action once things can get going. And it’s no wonder, as Kirby also involves both the Black Panther and the entire cast of the Inhumans in this adventure. As was more often the case than we today like to admit, there’s also some almost unforgivably coincidental plotting at work here: the Fantastic Four become aware of Psycho-Man’s existence and his plan to blanket the Earth with a larger version of his emotion-manipulating device when a necessary component is misdelivered to the sculpting studio of the Thing’s girlfriend Alicia Masters. In other words, a total fluke. Psycho-Man and his guys go to retrieve the misdelivered tech, crippling the Thing emotionally in the process. It’s a defeat that Ben won’t take lying down.
In the meantime, after an obligatory brawl so that everybody can show off their powers and prowess, the Black Panther and the Inhumans have joined forces to investigate Psycho-Man’s stronghold, which it turns out is just off of Panther Island where the Inhumans have set up temporary digs. Using Crystal’s teleporting dog Lockjaw, Ben, Johnny and triton join them–as does Crystal, at least when Kirby drew this page. But apparently, Jack forgot about Crystal in the back part of the story (possibly because elements of it were changed) so Stan had her taken out here, as you can see from the above panel reproduction. The big arrow caption in the final panel on this page was designed to help conceal the fact that one of those marching-forward figures had been eliminated.
From this point, the story becomes wall-to-wall action, pausing only for Psycho-Man to tell the assembled heroes the truth about himself: that he hails from Sub-Atomica and that the body he’s presenting to them is being driven by a microscopically small being. On the last page, for really no good reason at all apart from the fact that there aren’t any further pages, Psycho-Man drops over lifeless, defeated. It’s such a misfire of an ending that this too makes me wonder what Kirby might have had in mind at the outset. So this story was fun enough, but between the harsh inking and the nonsensical story, I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I usually did the FF’s assorted adventures.
While the blurb on the cover promised the Molecule Man, somebody changed their mind at some point along the way, and so the back portion of this GIANT-SIZE issue instead reprinted FANTASTIC FOUR #15, the first appearance of the Mad Thinker. As this was another early FF story that I hadn’t yet read, I didn’t mind the substitution, though like the lead adventure, I found this one just a little bit lacking. It was inked by Dick Ayers in a relatively crude fashion–Ayers could be hit-or-miss over Kirby, and this splash page, in particular the big FF faces, is a bit of a miss. The story involves the Mad Thinker, a criminal genius who creates precision plans, calculating a way in which to get all four of the FF members to move into other jobs so that he can take over the Baxter Building and swipe Mr Fantastic’s incredible technology, including the android that he’s been working on.
The Thinker’s plans are always foiled by an X-Factor, and here this is postman Willie Lumpkin ringing a particular bell in the Baxter Building lobby that functions as an emergency cut-off switch for all of Reed’s equipment. Which strikes me as a dangerous thing to leave around where any random child or pedestrian might push it out of curiosity, but hey, it gets the team out of this jam, so clearly Reed is smarter than I am. So the issue fielded two less-than-spectacular stories and wound up being a bit of a disappointment to me. Still, that’s how it goes sometimes.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I didn’t find the Psycho-Man story even slightly fun. He’s got the opposite of “screen presence” — so dull a character that blank pages would amuse me more.
I am always amused when artists draw the Mad Thinker posing like Rodin’s Thinker — it feels less like them joking with us and more like he’s preening for a non-existent camera. I agree this particular X-factor — not guessing Reed has a failsafe — is weak, though he had better ones in later stories.
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Both the Jack Kirby pencils and finished pages look good to me. Psycho-Man is another character I like, but was disappointed when he showed up in The Micronauts#16-17 ( April-May 1980 — un the cover he is wearing the armour seen in this reprint — beautiful covers by Michael Golden ) in his other unimpressive to me armour Kirby gave in his second FF appearance[ FF#76-77 ( July-August 1968 ) ]. FF#280-284 ( July-November 1985 — in FF#281 I don’t know then that Jack Kirby was who had Psycho-Man be small on Earth wearing a human size armour suit. I wonder why just him and the Micronauts characters but not Jarella and members of her race ). I like the Thinker too ( Just checked out his marvel.fandom.com ).
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Johnny Storm a Human Torch going to work for his cousin Bones’ circus[ FF#15 ( June 1963 ) ], was that a wink and a nod to Toro working for a circus in his first appearance [ The Human Torch#2 ( Fall 1940 ) ]? Granted Toro only burst into flames after the Original Human Torch showed up, but Toro would later come back to perform in torch form.
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I’m looking at Psycho-Man on marvel.fandom.com and he still doesn’t have a real name so why not give him the one Jack Kirby wanted to name him as his real name: Psychon? Once on Earth learning about all the words with psycho in it and its meaning he could have come up with his plan to attack humanity through their minds( Plus he could have come up with the Psycho-Man name then, otherwise it is one hell of a coincidence between his real name and his alias ( A coincidence done before with Blastaar and the human word blast ).
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Yeah, this is the Fantastic Four Annual that no one really wants to talk to at the reunions. Although the Psycho-Man is a terrific visual, his posse leaves much to be desired. Nor do all – or even half – the dots connect on the story. Still, we’re talking about Lee and Kirby so even an off day still qualifies as a “win.”
While I would have much preferred reprinting the Molecule Man story – loved his appearance in the 1967 Hanna Barbara cartoon – there is a dorky charm to the Mad Thinker tale.
Like Tom, as a kid, I was just thrilled to read two old comics that I’d never find any other way.
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Psychon isn’t the world’s greatest name, but it’s miles better than Psycho-Man.
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I said the character is a great visual – not the name. 🙂
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Psychoid-X?
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As this was my first FF exposure, it’s a sentimental favorite despite any flaws– and really, don’t most of the classic FF tales depend on the heavy hand of coincidence? Think of the opening scene of FF 37, where Kirby pretty much gives away the story’s ending, that Reed’s new “power-ray,” apparently meant for spaceship propulsion, can also be used to jazz up the powers of cosmic heroes. This sure does come in handy by the second half of the story, after all the Four lose their powers, right?
Fascinating to learn that Jack intended for Crystal to be in the final rumpus, but he, after so assiduously working Crystal into most of the later FF adventures, forgot to keep her in the mix. I have to say that though Crystal was a good character her powers were ill defined, and I can imagine Jack forgetting what she could do.
Even as a kid, though, I wondered why either Lee or Kirby had named one of the henchmen “Ivan.” Live-Wire and Shell-Shock were serviceable villain-names, but– “Ivan?” i think the other 2 got revived in TWO IN ONE, while Ivan slunk off into the limbo of the never revived.
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Live Wire and Shellshock both appear in Marvel Two-In-One#70 ( December 1980 ). Live Wire later ended up with the Circus of Crime. To bad they didn’t put Shellshock in the cowboy outfit too instead of that ugly ass outfit in MTIO ( or now like the video game Hitman character or The Spirit looking hitman the Bounty Hunter in the Brave and the Bold#101 ( April-May 1972 ) ). Maybe Ivan is still traumatized by what the Psycho-Man punished him. Shellshock’s gun reminds me of what I read about the Pre-Crisis Terra-Man’s guns in Who’s Who.
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I should have either checked my FF Index or marvel.fandom.com for the Psycho-Man’s first appearance cause it was the fourth henchman that was punished by Psycho-Man’s Control Box and went out a window ( So unless a hero was swinging, flying or leaping by he is probably dead ).
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Hi Tom, being the current Editor of the Fantastic Four book is surely the best job in the world. Are there any other characters or books you’d like to work on?
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In late 1965-966 Goodman wanted to have Cap, Iron Man and Hulk graduate to their own books and then introduce new characters into open slots in the existing split books. This is why we get a spate of new characters during that time in the FF: Inhumans, Wyatt, Silver Surfer, Black Panther. However, these expansion plans were shelved because Goodman couldn’t get the restrictive distribution deal cancelled in 1966.
My feeling is that this “Divide and Conquer” story was conceived earlier and intended for a new Inhumans feature and a new T’Challa feature, but when those was put on hold, the FF pregnancy subplot and some other pages were added and it was reconfigured for the 1967 FF Annual #5. This could explain why it was Giacoia and not the FF’s regular inker Sinnott on the inks here; perhaps Giacoia was assigned to, or had even already started the assignment, before the decision was made to use this in the Annual.
The original FF Annual #5 cover with its white background is so beautifully graphic; I love all those characters trying to get to Psycho-Man, it’s dazzling and dizzying The colors here on the reprint cover don’t have the same effect IMO.
-Shar
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