During the 1960s, Marvel gave fans a wonderful treat every summer, as it published Annuals for its biggest titles - and filled them with amazing stories!
The first Fantastic Four annual featured Atlantis attacking New York City! The second annual gave us the origin of Doctor Doom! The third annual took us to Reed and Sue's wedding (and guest starred everyone)!
For the fourth annual (published in 1966), Lee, Kirby and Sinnott answered a question longtime fans had been asking since the team's first appearance: whatever happened to the Golden Age Human Torch?
Being an android, that character didn't age and couldn't really die, so he (it?) was revived by the Mad Thinker and forced to attack the modern, teenage hero carrying his name.
This isn't quite the classic readers might have expected - it ends abruptly and it's mostly given over to a knock-down, drag-out fight between the fiery heroes - but as always, no one choreographed a fight scene better than Kirby.
There's plenty of humor and pathos along the way, too - and this issue set the stage for several future adventures, including the birth of a certain android Avenger.
These annuals were such a treat! A new mind-blowing story and a couple of classic reprints (the Hulk vs the FF and the Avengers)!
And all for a quarter - what a bargain!
Grade: B+
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2 comments:
I loved this comic, too! I've read speculation that it was published to secure copyright or trademark or whatever to fend off an attempt by Torch creator Carl Burgos to reclaim ownership of the character.
Hoy
Hoy, I believe that may be true - that may explain the rushed feel of the book.
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