The Quality of Fantastic Four is Really Slipping
After reaching a new peak in issues numbered in the late 30s, the quality of Fantastic Four seems to have dropped to a real low by issue #41.
A disgruntled Ben Grimm leaves the Fantastic Four. He jumps in the back of a pickup truck without the driver noticing. Hours later in rural New Jersey, the pickup hits a bump tossing the sleeping Thing out on the ground in front of an old house which just so happens to be the base of Frightful Four. Using his anti-gravity power, Wizard lifts the still sleeping Thing into the house where he performs an experiment on him to make him "evil" (seriously, it's one thing for a character like Loki to consider himself evil, but human villains generally shouldn't be saying 'we are evil and so we are going to make him EVIL, so he will be one of us!)
When he comes to, he's the perfect evil stooge for the Frightful Four, which is lucky for them because the Fantastic Four have been going door-to-door looking for him, and just then they get to "the last house they haven't tried", the old house that the Frightful Four live in. And boy do the Frightful Four need the Thing's help, because even when Invisible Girl is trapped in Medusa's hair, she easily shrugs it off with her force field (maybe she started it at the microscopic level and expanded it outward? Wow is she powerful), nor can an explosive device by Trapster defeat the nigh-invincible Sue Storm... yet all it takes is a verbal threat from the brainwashed Thing that he's going to punch her force field for Sue to faint, thus allowing her to be captured.
In addition to all that ridiculousness, Ben Grimm's eyes are colored orange to match his body, instead of the blue they're supposed to be; and the letters column continues to be filled with heaping praise from sycophants punctuated by an ongoing discussion of Communism.
Can we get a little editorial control here?