Lo, There Shall Be a Really Pat, Long Overdue Ending!
The battle between the Fantastic Four and the Frightful Four has dragged on for three issues, which is at least two too many, and comes to a pretty unsatisfying conclusion in this issue.
Frankly it seems like Lee and Kirby are just going through the motions here. The villains get the drop on the heroes because they just do, the heroes turn the tables because they just do.
The Fantastic Four get away from the Frightful Four with the Thing. There is a brief cameo by Doctor Doom to plug the upcoming Fantastic Four Annual #2, and then the Frightful Four show up at the Baxter Building. In the final battle, the Wizard has Johnny attached (by magnetism, of course) to a giant anti-grav disc, but we're never told why he can't just flame on and escape. This would give the Frightful Four the upper hand, except that Reed has calculated that in exactly seven seconds, the Thing will wake up and smash the Wizard's anti-grav controller before falling back into a coma. Then Mr. Fantastic grabs Trapster's paste gun away from him, and the Frightful Four are beaten!
What's that you say? That's just two of the four... what about Medusa and Sandman? Well, the Human Torch lets Medusa get away, and Sandman, well Sandman is just beaten, O.K., there's no reason for it, he could easily fight on or escape, Stan just decided to end the story here, so Sandman just walks to jail with the rest of them.
Disappointing.
Log in to comment