At the end of 1982, when Fantastic Four artist/writer John Byrne had hit his stride with the book and introduced the team to the might of the Shi'ar warrior named Gladiator, another Byrne-produced story was published which presented the team in a new light*--one that saw their history develop very differently from what we know, and instead brought them together as a team which approached a crisis without the benefit of their fantastic abilities. A pity we can't say the same for the all-too-familiar threat which emerges from the depths of the Earth to menace them anew, for the first time.
*In case the FF masthead isn't enough to catch the eye of the comics browser, Byrne stacks the deck a bit by including an additional corner box so that the full super-powered team in all its glory stands out--and, while he's at it, also ensuring that the Nova blurb takes advantage of the double-feature aspect of the issue.
At the size of a regular (at the time) 20-page story which obviously focuses on the incursion of the Mole Man, the beginning of this new FF "origin" must of course first deal with why and how our four principals apparently avoided the chain of events which led to their exposure to cosmic rays--and while the segment perhaps spends too little time on this portion of the story which details the success of their rocket flight, it covers the bases well enough, while expanding the flight's mission substantially.
In the original story, it was clear that time was of the essence given the urgency that both the United States and an unnamed communist country felt to win the "space race"--so much so that Sue Storm, of all people, would stress the need for launching as soon as possible and ignoring what all of them appeared to acknowledge to be true about their ship's inability to protect them against cosmic ray exposure. Here, however, the concern is fiscal rather than foreign; their project has stalled, and there is worry about losing their funding if they aren't able to justify its continuation. Perhaps they finally realized that taking a little extra time to successfully bring this project to fruition was preferable to it all ending in disaster.
And so in the here and now, Reed's company continues to benefit from the generosity of the goverment, while Reed himself has become a trusted and valued consultant whose expertise is sought when nuclear plants across the world are disappearing beneath the surface without explanation. But even Reed is surprised to see which research installation has now been added to the list.
Continued »»»