Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey

S1E4: Fantastic Four #13-16 - Dr. Doom Is Back, Red Ghost, & The Mad Thinker

• Earth's Mightiest Nerds • Season 1 • Episode 4

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In this episode of Reading The Multiverse, I dive into Fantastic Four #13–16, where the team races the Red Ghost to the moon, encounters the Watcher for the very first time, gets pulled into Namor and the Puppet Master’s undersea mind-control drama, battles the Mad Thinker and his unpredictable Android, and faces Doctor Doom’s microscopic kingdom in one of the strangest early FF arcs yet.

Stories Covered In This Episode

"The Fantastic Four vs the Red Ghost and His Indescribable Super-Apes!" - Fantastic Four #13, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Steve Ditko, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Artie Simek

"The Merciless Puppet Master" Fantastic Four #14, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Steve Ditko, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Artie Simek

"The Fantastic Four Battle the Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android" Fantastic Four #15, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Dick Ayers, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Artie Simek

"The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!" Fantastic Four #16, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Dick Ayers, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Artie Simek

Resources, Episodes, & Links Mentioned In This Episode:

Joe: What's going on Marvelites? Welcome to Reading the Multiverse, a Marvel Comics journey presented by Earth's Mightiest Nerds. I am your host, Joe, and we are exploring Marvel Comics one era at a time, and making those connections to the MCU while we're doing it. We are on episode four. Thank you so much for being here.

We have four issues on the docket today of Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. And without further ado, let's get right into it. From January of 1963, fantastic four issue 13, the Fantastic Four versus the Red Ghost and his indescribable super Apes. Written by Stan Lee. Pencil by Jack Kirby, inked by Steve Ditko, colored by Stan Goldberg and lettered by Artie Simek.

The issue starts off with Reed's lab on fire and we later find out that he's been testing a new rocket fuel to power a rocket to get back to the moon, to once again help America win the space race. And I find that very, uh, again, interesting. We talked about this when they first went to the moon during issue one, or attempted to get to the moon, and basically, you know, when this was all written is the height of the Cold War.

So you're gonna see that really played up. In this specific issue. So that's when we depart New York City and we head behind the Iron Curtain where we see this balding older man who has been training a gorilla, a baboon, and an orangutan, and he's going to take them to the moon in the name of the Communist empire.

As noted by the title, this is the Red Ghost. His actual name is Ivan Krag Off, which we were supposed to see in the Fantastic four First Steps, but all of that was cut. We got a little bit of glimpses of like the apes of, of the Fantastic Four, fighting them towards the end of the movie. I really thought we were gonna see them, especially because John Malkovich, uh, it's assumed that he was playing Ivan Krag off, and we never got to actually see him at all in the movie.

Anyway, little do Both teams know that they launched their rockets at the same time in a race to the moon, but the Red Ghost ship is unshielded. In fact, it's transparent so that he and his apes all get hit with the cosmic rays to get even more powers than what the Fantastic four did. So while in space, the Fantastic Four actually see the Red Ghost ship and Johnny goes to take a look at it and finds out that they've been hit with the cosmic rays and all the apes have superpowers.

So actually the baboon turned into a shapeshifter and the orangutan turned into, uh, didn't turn into anything. He now controls magnetism and the gorilla has super strength. Everyone lands on the moon, and in particular the blue area of the moon where they discover the reubens of an ancient civilization and this modern house off in the distance.

So the team splits up, but that's when the thing is attacked by the Red Ghost and his super apes. The fight doesn't actually last too long because that is interrupted by the watcher, and this is the watcher's first appearance. Now, it doesn't actually say that it is the, the main watcher that we know as Tu.

I'm assuming it is, but it's never actually said, so it's hard to say, and especially knowing that I believe all the watchers look the same. Now, we also haven't gotten the watcher in live action per se, in the MCU, but we have seen him in various animated projects thus far. But we learned that the watcher and his people have been charged with watching over everything in the universe what a very good name to have, and their vow is to never interfere with what they're watching.

And you'll come to find out that the watcher is always interfering just as he is right now. He tells, uh, the thing and basically the Red Ghost and his apes that they need to go back to the dead city and fight it out between the two of them. Then out of nowhere, the watcher picks up both of the teams and puts them somewhere on the moon to fight the Red Ghost and his apes get the upper hand on the Fantastic four in the dead city and takes Sue as a hostage, but while trapped.

Sue learns that the Red Ghost has control over the apes by withholding food from them. So while the Red Ghost is then trying to lure Reed, Ben and Johnny into a trap, Sue sets the Apes free. When the Red Ghost decides to escape him to the watcher's home, but the watcher, of course catches him and throws him out where he is faced with the Fantastic Four, and Reed uses this paralysis gun that he put together to stun the Red Ghost.

The watcher then congratulates the Fantastic four on the wind, but as that happens, the gorilla grabs the paralysis ray and freeze the Red Ghost, but they chased after, oh, excuse me, they chased after him looking to get revenge. This was, again, honestly for me, a pretty big is issue We have, again, this is written at the height of the Cold War, so again, everything between.

Basically the US versus at the time, I believe the USSR is kind of played up a lot and it was a big deal of trying to see who would get into space first, right? And so to write this as the Fantastic four, being the first ones that landed on the moon was a big deal. Uh, we got two big first appearances, right?

The Red Ghost and the Watcher. That is a big one, the watcher in my mind. And like I said, the watcher has vowed to never interfere with anything, but they're always interfering with stuff. So. Our next issue picks right back up where this one left off with the Fantastic four flying back home from February of 1963.

Fantastic four issue 14, the Merciless puppet master, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby Inked by Steve Ditkocolored by Stan Goldberg and by Artie Simek. Our team lands their spaceship and they are bombarded with fans and people who just wanna take advantage of the fantastic Fours situation.

But back at the Baxter Tower, Reed catches Sue looking for namor with Reed's new roving I TV apparatus. This destroys Reed's self-confidence. Leaves him questioning their relationship. Now, back in issue four, Nam Moore and Sue had this like love at first sight thing, and Sue has been saying ever since then that Namor is not as bad as the other villains that they face.

So this has been kind of like eating at Reed and he hasn't really said anything about it. But he has finally approached, um, Sue about this for the most part. And, you know, again, she's kind of like, well, I don't know how I'm feeling about this relationship. And in issue one, we learned that Reed and Sue, um, are engaged to be married.

They, they said that Sue was Reed's fiance, but uh, we don't know where they stand on that. So that's where our story turns to a medical facility where someone is pla plotting revenge against the Fantastic Four. And we don't initially see who it is. But only a few panels later, it is the puppet master. Now, in episode two, we went over issue number eight, and that was the first appearance of the puppet master.

However, it has been presumed that he had died after tripping and falling out of a window. Uh, clearly he did not die so. The puppet master takes control of the submariner using his radioactive clay, which I also back, uh, mentioned back in episode two that there were some panels where he had this like radioactive suit on when he was like working with his clay and then some other ones where he wasn't.

So I was like, is it not safe? Is it safe? I don't understand what's happening. I think people had written in and kind of maybe asked questions about it, because in this one. Uh, that is basically, he's now wearing protective gear initially, and then it says specifically after the clay is cured and has some pain on it, he, uh, is pretty much okay to touch it because it then shows him without his kind of protective, radioactive stuff.

So good on Jack and, and Stan Lee for, for working on that. Anyway, with Namor under the puppet master's control, he reaches out to Sue, captures her, and brings her to the sea, and then Namor is forced to contact Reed, Ben and Johnny to tell them he's taken her hostage. That's when we see the puppet master in a tiny little submarine to watch the ensuing battle.

Before they go though, Reed of course, thinks he needs to give the police commissioner access to all of their stuff in case they don't survive, and Ben goes to go get Alicia and actually brings her along. To the undersea world against Namor. Why? I have no idea. Anyway, they make their way down to Nam Moore's throne room where Sue was held in this like glass looking sphere, which is being protected by a giant octopus.

A bunch of fighting then kind of ensues to which Namor is able to hold off our heroes with various different species of sea life. But the thing is able to get by and save Sioux releasing the octopus into the sea. If the puppet master retakes, control of namor, again, which I thought he was controlling him this entire time, and you'll understand why I say that in a second.

But namor then fires this like gas thing at the Fantastic Four. But Reed, of course, has this thing he put on their faces so that they don't aren't affected by it. So after all that. They go after Namor, but Sue once again stops them saying Namor is being controlled by something, but they're just not sure what it might be, and that's when we see the octopus that was released takes the submarine that the puppet master is in and starts to crush it.

Then Namor now under his own mental control, again, doesn't know why the Fantastic Four are there. Hence why I said I thought he was under control of the puppet master the entire time. And goes back to trying to find his people and releases the Fantastic Four. But we do have some more juicy goss.

Regarding the throuple of Reed Sue and Namor, because once Namor kind of regains mental capacity, he asks Sue if she's there to share his undersea domain, to which she says her loyalty lies with Reed, but, but her heart still has yet to make a choice. So what are we doing here, Sue? What are we doing?

Anyway, this was a wild issue. Um, if you have been following along listening, you know that I love the craziness and the kookiness of comics, especially these classic ones. But I will say this one does get dragged out a little bit with like the fish species. It just seems like Namor has a, a, a specific species of fish that can help him in every situation.

Um, and it's just kinda. It's just kind of silly. And again, I love that, but at the same time it's just like, okay, we get it. He's got another species of fish that he can use to fight against the Fantastic Four. Now, I will say one thing though about the puppet master is that even though he is super creepy.

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I, I really appreciate that. Going, going into, uh, an issue that doesn't involve the puppet master from March of 1963. Fantastic four issue 15, the Fantastic Four Battle the Mad Thinker and his awesome Android. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby. Inked by Dick Ayers, colored by Stan Goldberg and lettered by Artie Simek.

Reed summons his teammates to the Baxter building because he got a call from the police chief that top mobsters and gang leaders are in New York. That's when we see who's behind this, and it's the mad thinker and generally speaking. He's like almost always posed in that sitting position with his fist under, under his chin, like the thinking man statue, if you know what I'm talking about.

Like Al almost always in that position. Well, the Mad Thinker and his massive computers have been plotting to become the ruler of New York City and make it an independent nation with these gang leaders and gangs being his henchmen. They of course. The gang leaders and gangs don't believe that the mad thinker can beat the Fantastic four, but that's when he says, and I quote, the thinker, forgets nothing.

I never overlook any detail. I want you, uh, all to remember that for, you know, over the next three to four minutes as we finish this issue, that's when we see each member of the Fantastic Four being approached by different folks. For a new opportunity. Johnny's cousin Bones informs him that his what? A, what an interesting name.

I just had to stop there. That his circus, of course, he has a circus is failing and wants Johnny to be a new act to revive it. Reed is contacted by GE to be a head scientist. Sue is sought out by a Broadway executive to be in their show, and the thing is offered a wrestling career to make more money than he's making right now.

So all four, head back to the Baxter building and inform every each other of these new opportunities and that they wanna try them out. So they disband for a short time and quickly as they're leaving, they're in normal attire, by the way. And Sue was like, finally, at least I can dress the way I've always wanted to.

And I'm like, ma'am, you designed these fantastic four suits. Why didn't you design something that you wanted to wear? Anyway, that's just me being petty. Apparently all of that was known though, or set up by the mad thinker, and he also knew that a meteor would then strike New York's lower bay, causing the electricity to go out, allowing him and the mobsters to take over.

Baxter building. We go back to our heroes in their respective new opportunities and they're not really having the best time and they're honestly wondering what all of their teammates are doing. So they all go back to the Baxter building at the same time. What a coincidence. And say that they missed each other, but the building is covered in Crystal.

That's when the Mad Thinker projects his head on the outside, kinda like the wizard of. And our team breaks through the crystal without much problem and faces a bunch of different henchmen, all that happen to be geared with devices that Reed has invented. That's when they finally go up against the awesome Android who again was created from Reed's Notes.

And I gotta say this thing is kind of really ugly looking. Uh, he almost looks like without like the flower pedal looking stuff, like a dagor from Stranger Things, um. But I need to be like, Reed, what are you doing, man? What, what kinds of things are you inventing and what do you plan on doing with that, Reed, what?

What are you doing? We know Reed slips into some, some not so great stuff, so just saying this could be the start of that. Anyway, the lucky for our heroes, Reed put a spot right underneath its armpit that turns it off. And I'll just say that this, this, this awesome Android was ticklish basically. Now the Matt Thinker says he knew all of this would happen, and throughout the issue it's always pointed out by the way that he knew that this was going to happen in like down to the minute or however many seconds.

But he didn't think of one thing. And remember that quote that he said earlier? He always thinks of everything. He didn't think of the X factor. So with our heroes facing some sort of gun device designed by Reed at the hands of the Mad Thinker, it stops working, which is when Reed tells us that he wired a circuit for all of his devices to stop working at four o'clock every day, and their mailman presses a button to activate this circuit every day at four o'clock.

There's a lot of things that need to be happening for that. Also, at four o'clock, if Reed's like working on something, what happens? He just. Stops working anyway. The Mad Thinker is easily captured and then handed over to the police. This was one heck of an issue. Uh, the Mad Thinker clearly doesn't think about everything now.

At the end of the issue though, he does say that the next time he will take into the, uh, he will take the X Factor into account. So we'll see if that's true, if and when he does show up. Honestly, the Mad Thinker was a boring villain. A terrible villain. I did not like him. He's probably, he's probably down below.

Impossible man. Impossible man. Was very annoying. Uh, even though he wasn't really a villain, he was just kind of like here. The mad thinker I think we could do without him. I don't know what else to say. This wasn't my favorite issue, mainly because of the Mad Thinker. 'cause it just predicated on him being like, uh, clairvoyant and just uses computers to help him.

Just like, I just really think that right now, if he was around, he would like be friends with Sam Alt, Sam Altman and Peter Theo. Uh, that's all I know well, from one of the most boring villains to the best villain there is from April of 1963, fantastic four, issue 16, the Microworld of Dr. Doom, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, colored by Stan Goldberg and lettered by Artie Simek. Now, the last time that we saw Dr. Doom, this was in issue number 10, which we covered in last episode, episode three, but he was shrunken down to nothingness after he switched bodies with Reed Richards for that issue. So the human torch is returning to the Baxter building to find the rest of his team, uh, that they've shrunken down and he needs to save them as they're about to be swept up into an air event.

So right after saving them, they returned to normal size and they all happen to discuss that. They've all been shrunken down over the like last couple weeks, but no one has said anything to anyone else because they thought it would be weird. I mean, I think it's more weird that you didn't say anything, everyone.

So it is then Reed's thought to contact Antman to help them with their situation, which happened to happen via Ant being nearby, who then, you know, went through the network of ants and then. Hank Pym heard it, and then he came to visit the Fantastic Four. Once he's there and talks to them about their situation, he just says, you know what, here is some of my shrinking formula, and here is some of my enlarging formula.

Um, also, I need to let everyone know that when Ant Man left, Sue was like beyond enamored with him, and I'm just like, Sue, come on girl. Let's, let's pick a man. Let's pick one man. Or maybe not just be an independent lady for a little bit anyway. Over the next, uh, a little bit. They keep hearing warnings from a woman about Dr.

Doune, but they can't figure out where that voice is coming from. So Reed decides that they all need to shrink down in size to figure out where this is coming from, but also as they're like shrinking, they take, so they take, so they take some of the shrinking, uh, formula from Antman, and as they're shrinking, they're shrinking too fast apparently.

So Reed then has them use the enlarging formula to get bigger. And I'm like, why would you do that? You're gonna not have anything to give back anyway. Our team then finds himself in a microscopic world, subatomic. But of course, Dr. Doom is now in control of this realm, which his guards quickly apprehend the Fantastic four and doom, then makes them even smaller.

See, the using that enlarging stuff was a waste of time. Our team gets placed in a dungeon surrounded by acid, but they're joined by the king and princess of some automatica who doom also shrunk down so that he could obviously take over their realm. We also learned from the princess that Doom has made an alliance with the lizard men of talk, who of course aren't good guys.

I wonder if they have anything to do with TikTok in the future. I'm sorry. That is. And that's a terrible dad joke. So for whatever reason, ant man then returns to the Baxter building and realizes no one is there, but he sees his, his little vials of his formula that he gave them have been used. So he says, you know what, I'm gonna shrink down and investigate, but he just gets captured right away.

Anyway. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four have escaped their cells, surrounded by acid, restore themselves to normal microscopic size, fight off the guards, and then doom is like, you know what? I'm outta here, leaves via an escape hatch, and then returns back to earth. Our team, of course, then enlarges themselves and head back to Earth as well.

This was an okay issue. There's, uh. A lot of stuff happening in the beginning. That kind of wasn't much. I will talk about that though in a second. 'cause I didn't really cover it, but so like almost not, not much happened until like halfway through the issue. It was cool to see another like crossover with a major character being antman, although I don't understand why he came back to the Baxter building only to be like, oh, I'm gonna shrink down and then get captured.

And then didn't really do much otherwise. Seemed kind of pointless. Uh, but we did get a little bit more character development with Ben in kind of the, you know. First half of the issue that I didn't cover, we learned that he and Alicia. Love each other. Although they keep calling Alicia Ben's blind friend, which I don't, I don't get, why would you keep calling her that?

But Reed continues to also try and turn Ben back into human. Like he forces Ben to drink this new formula he made, which is preliminary. He says that it's not going to last for a while. He's just testing it and Ben doesn't wanna do it, which I think is a lot of growth for him because like for the first six to seven issues, all he did was complain about how he wasn't human anymore, which is rightfully so.

But all of that has now changed. Sense that he's learned that Alicia loves him for how he is. I also think that, like, this just shows how, how much guilt Reed feels for, you know, affecting his friends for the rest of their lives. Most specifically, Ben. Um. But also like Reed is just like very pushy with it and doesn't take Ben's wishes into account of being like, you know what?

I don't wanna keep doing this anymore. Just like, leave me alone. I've almost come to the grips with that. I'm like a rock man now. Um, so yeah, that, that was kind of some good character development in that. In that particular issue, uh, what, that was our four issues. What did you think of these issues? You can actually, if you're listening to this, you can send me a text, gimme your thoughts.

Uh, that link is down in the show notes wherever you're listening to this, uh, via podcast. If you're watching on YouTube. Leave your thoughts in the comments, that would be lovely. Next episode we have Dr. Doom again. We have a Return of the Aliens we met in issue two, and we have the first Fantastic four annual wherever you're listening to this via podcast.

Go ahead, rate and review the show. I would totally love that. Uh, if you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe, hit like down below. Um, and until our next episode. Excelsior,

we got, we, we got some really good one-liners in that last issue from Fantastic four issue 16. Uh, let me go over a few of them. Well. This is Ben. When Antman appears, well brush my teeth and call me Smiley. It's him, the son of a gun is really here. And then when the Fantastic four, like, uh, just waiting to be shrunken down again, we have Johnny, he's apparently at a picnic and they're roasting weenies.

And he says, here, I'll show you how to get those weenies grilled in record time. How's this? And then there's someone off the panel with just their text bubble that says, wow, wee.


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