Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey

S1E7: Fantastic Four #24-27 - Hulk vs The Thing, Avengers Team-Up, & Namor Kidnaps Sue

• Earth's Mightiest Nerds • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Send us a message through the Negative Zone

In this episode of Reading the Multiverse, I go over Fantastic Four #24-27, where we get a reality-warping alien baby causing havoc, the Hulk wages war on New York, the Avengers team-up and sort of collide with the Fantastic Four, and the love triangle between Namor, Sue, and Reed gets deeper.

Stories Covered In This Episode

Fantastic Four 24, The Infant Terrible!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by George Bell, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Fantastic Four 25, The Hulk vs The Thing, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by George Bell, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Fantastic Four 26, The Avengers Take Over!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by George Bell, and Lettered by Artie Simek

Fantastic Four 27, The Search for Sub-Mariner!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by George Bell, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Resources, Episodes, & Links Mentioned In This Episode:

Joe: What's going on Marvelites? Welcome to another episode of Reading the Multiverse, a Marvel Comics journey presented by Earth's Mightiest Nerds. I am your host, Joe, and if you're new here, we are reading one legendary Marvel Comics Run at a Time, and we are connecting that all to the MCU as we do it. We are currently reading the Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Uh, as we are getting into this, if you. Haven't listened to any of the previous episodes. One, go back and do that after you're done listening to this one or, uh, if there's anything that you missed, I will make sure that I try my best to explain it if it has any pertinent to the continuity of what we're reading here.

So, as usual, we have four issues on the docket today. And without further ado, let's get right into it From December of 1963. Fantastic. Four issue 24, the infant terrible. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby. Inked by George Bell and letter by Sam Rosen, and I'm not gonna lie, you're not missing much.

With this issue, it, it is not my favorite, but, eh, I'll let you be the judge of that. Although I just set the, set the tone real, not so great. Early on. Uh, the Fantastic four are out and about and they fly into a large glass milk bottle in the middle of Times Square while coming back from a photo shoot.

They quickly learned that a small green alien is the one who created this milk bottle. As well as the alien has this ability to project reality altering energies from its antennae. So as our heroes attempt to stop and capture the alien, it gets startled by some photographers and causes meteors to fall down to earth.

So while our heroes are preoccupied with this, I meteor shower, the alien wanders off. And that's actually where we get to the real villain of this issue. Big Joe. Big Joe. It is not me. Uh, he is basically just a mobster who finds out that this alien is out and about and he wants to track down this alien to help him do nefarious mobster things.

So Big Joe is apparently smarter than Reed Richards because Big Joe was able to figure out the, the alien is a baby and his, he has his goons, lure him with candy. Meanwhile, Reed could not figure out that this alien is a baby. I have no idea. Uh, what made Big Joe think that this alien is a baby, but he figured it out.

I gotta say though, it's hilarious as, uh, these, like mobster goons are going to lure, uh, this this baby alien because they have these enormous lollipops and like this enormous ice cream cone, but they're all like two out of the three of them or or three outta, the four of them are holding like Tommy guns and they're always pointing them at the alien.

And it's just like, it's just so ridiculous. And it's like. I just imagine like this Groucho Marx voice of like, eh, you don't, you don't do anything to us, or We're gonna blast you. See, but we got this candy for you. And anyway, back at the Baxter building, Reed as usual Catastrophizes, he always does that like almost every single issue in the past.

So far, they come across this new. Quote unquote villain. And it's always the the biggest and strongest thing that's going to take out the entire world and the Greatest enemy of the Fantastic Four yet. So he thinks that this alien is their biggest threat because why? He would think this. He thinks that this alien could bring the sun closer to earth, which would obviously cause lots of problems.

So now Reid sends Sue, Johnny and Ben to find out. To find the alien. While, of course, Reed stays back at the Baxter building to think great, great teamwork, Reed, good job. So as expected, big Joe has our baby baby alien doing some mobster things for him. But as any toddler would do, they don't fully comply.

That's when Sue, Ben and Johnny show up to fight off the mobsters. But the alien has made its way back to the city. And starts causing more chaos. And honestly, the most thrilling part of this entire issue for me, honestly, as because as the alien is causing chaos, a riot ensues, and everyone is running around.

And of course, Alicia, Ben's girlfriend is the one out in the crowd and doesn't know what's going on because thanks again to Stan Lee for letting us know this. Uh, she's blind. They always call her blind, Alicia, or they refer to, refer to her as Ben's blind friend, Alicia. Again, I get it. If you haven't read this, and I've said this before, if you've been listening, I get it.

If you haven't read any previous issue with a Fantastic four, that you would have no idea that Alicia is blind. But we gotta find a better way to say this. Like it's just every single time it's just like, here's blind Alicia. Like I think we can find a better way to describe. Describe this woman. Anyway, so in this, in this, uh, entire riot that it gets out, Alicia is tripped and people are running all around her, and she has of course no idea what's actually happening, but we get this dramatic closeup of her of asking where Ben is.

And it gets even more exciting from here because there's a runaway car, no one is driving it, but apparently it's run, it's a runaway car and it's going directly. Directly at Alicia Masters, who, again, is down on the ground, has no idea what's going on, and. We see the Fantastic car with, with Sue, Johnny and Ben right behind it.

And as the car approaches the fantastic car swoops in and Ben picks her up just before the car crushes her. And in the panel is so great as they pick her up. Like you just see Alicia's feet in the top right corner, just like hanging dangling there. It's so good. So while this is all happening, meanwhile, Reid sent out some signals to space and apparently, you know, just got lucky by contacting some aliens of the same race who happened to be around as the baby alien.

And it turns out the, the aliens that come down to, uh, like meet the signal that Reid sent out were the parents of this lost baby alien. They take him back into space and that is pretty much where our issue ends. Um. Again, not my most favorite issue again, and as I just said, the most exciting part were probably those like six or so panels of Alicia almost getting crushed by this runaway car.

It's so good. If you're not watching on YouTube, I highly, uh, if you're listening to this, I get it because you're doing this some other way. But if you have the opportunity, head over to YouTube and watch this. It's so good. Um, if not too, you can always join Earth's mightiest nerds discord. I can, uh, I'll try to remember to post some of these panels in there.

It's completely free to join. You just have to join the Earth's Mind Nerve Newsletter. I promise you, you will not get spammed. I am lucky if I send out one email a week, to be honest. So with that being said, it's, this wasn't my most favorite issue. It is, again, kind of silly and it wasn't like terrible, but like, again, not the best issue in my, in my opinion from what we've gotten so far.

But we do go from a greed alien to another green monster in this next issue from January of 1964. Fantastic. Four issue 25, the Hulk. Versus the thing written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by George Bell, and lettered by Sam Rosen. The Fantastic Four. Fought the Hulk, uh, before in a previous issue, issue 12, which we covered in episode three.

So go ahead and check that episode out if you want to hear that full story. But they fought the Hulk after Thunderbolt. Ross asked him for some help, um, in that issue. With that being said, in this issue, Reed comes down with some sickness and Johnny goes to get the doctor in the fantastic car, and while he's out and about, he notices the Hulk.

So in this, the Hulk also, earlier on in this issue, the Hulk is basically trying to get find the Avengers. Um, from my understanding, the Avengers kicked him out of the Avengers and that's why he's upset and he's trying to go find them, if I'm understanding correctly. I didn't read those issues. I did a little bit of research.

I'm pretty sure that's why he's so upset. So he's making his way across country and he lands in New York City again where Avengers Mansion. Mansion is. So Johnny sees the Hulk while he's out and about trying to go get this doctor for Reed. Um, and he ends up going to fight the Hulk, but this doesn't last long, so the rest of the team finds this out and sends the thing and Sue to help because again, Reid is sick.

And when he gets there, the Hulk takes Johnny on again, which causes pseudo faint, and Johnny passes out. So now it's completely up to the thing to fight the Hulk. And pretty much that's what the rest of this entire issue is. It's pretty much a. Fan, honestly, a fantastic, for a lack of better term, fantastic fight and action between the thing and the Hulk.

We really see how, um, the thing is always willing and able to get back up after he just keeps getting beat down by the Hulk, to be honest. Um, we really also get to see some awesome, uh, power displays put on by the whole, like he literally rips the bus, uh, rips a bus in half. He throws Ben to the top of a building.

Um. Later in the issue, we, the thing actually gets some help from the Yancy Street gang who, if you, uh, haven't been listening from what we know so far, the Yancy Street gang is basically always terrorizing Ben for some reason. We just don't know exactly what yet. Um, and we'll learn more about that as we go through more issues, but they.

Push a truck that takes the Fighting Hulk down and into the Hudson River. Um, and we basically end this issue with that at that moment. And Sue confesses how much she loves Reed, but at this moment he's in a coma. So I'm like, does this really count? Like if you're not saying it to his face, she's just so worried.

Of course, because we don't know what's gonna happen to Reid. Uh, it's honestly questionable at best. Um, and this has gotta be, the story ends. The issue ends like in the middle of the story, and as far as I'm concerned, we haven't had any of, this is the first time this is happening. Like we haven't had any issues where the story just ends in the middle of the story.

We've always had some sort of conclusion to the issue. Now the story may pick up again in the next issue we've had that happen, like with Dr. Doom, after he shrunk them down. In like Dooms Micro World, I forget the exact issue right now. Um, and then he sees them again in the next, in the next issue. But the, the, the story concluded, it just happened to be kind of ongoing.

This is the first time that we've had this happen. So we're gonna go right into issue 26 from February of 1964. Fantastic. Four issue 26, the Avengers Take Over. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by George Bell, and lettered by Artie Simon. Um, so Reid, Sue and Johnny are all pretty much incapacitated at this time, and the thing in the Hulk are still going at it, right?

We last saw them get pushed into, uh, the Hudson River. But we just continue to get more and more fighting between the thing and the Hulk. And again, we get to see even more great displays of the Hulk. We get to see his signature thunderclap, which, uh, is awesomely illustrated by Jack Kirby. Um, we also, the Army finally gets involved now.

And they shoot an artillery shell from a tank. The Hulk literally catches it with his hands and then throws it into the air for to explode. Again, just like really cool imagination of what the Hulk can actually do and just how strong he is. Um, so at one point, as the thing is down, the Hulk escapes and tries to get to Aven Avengers mansion, which he eventually does and is faced with the Avengers and Rick Jones.

Now, if you don't know, we met Rick Jones again back in issue 12. Um, which we did in episode three. Rick Jones is basically the Hulk, or Bruce banners, I should say. Um, assistant friend, sidekick for a lack of a better term. Um, he knows that Bruce Banner is the Hulk. Um, so with that being said, once the Hulk kind of shows himself and the Avengers are like, well, Rick suggests that, oh, let's talk it out.

But of course the Hulk being Hulk is like, nah, we're gonna fight. So a fight breaks out between him and the Avengers. Obviously the Hulk is outnumbered. He grabs Rick Jones and escapes. Meanwhile, Sue Reed and Johnny are apparently good to go now. They found, they found some sort of, uh, antidote for Reed to get better and they go after the Hulk where they are met with the Avengers now because again, the Avengers are looking for the Hulk and the Fantastic Four and they realize that they all, they need to work together, but they kind of.

Quarrel between each other of like, who's going to do what and whatnot. And so it's more of a fight between the Avengers and um, and the Fantastic four than anything else. Ultimately they sort it all out and they kind of worked together again, sort of while fighting The Hulk at the top of a new, of this new building construction.

What ultimately though, takes the Hulk out is the wasp brings a bunch of ants and they make Hulk super itchy. And while he's trying to get that to stop, of course he's like itching and moving all over. His mouth happens to be open. Rick Jones is the top of this building. I don't know how he got there, but he did.

Um, and he has this, uh, little pill capsule, which is gamma ray treated, and, and they said it's emergency, an emergency pill, and I'm assuming it, it turns the Hulk back into Bruce. And so not only does, Rick doesn't just like gently place it into the Hulk's mouth, no, he tosses it. He says, I hope I don't miss and tosses it into the air to try to get into the Hulk's mouth.

I think it would just be a little bit easier to just put it right in there, Rick. Eventually the Hulk right after that gets down off of the building, runs into the river and we see him come back out and he is turned back into Bruce Banner. That is essentially where the issue ends. Uh, he doesn't look so great.

So I guess we're kind of left wondering if Bruce kind of drowns or not. Um, that is the real question, I guess, is if, if he drowns or not. Obviously we know that that's not the case. Um, as the Hulk. It continues on much, much longer. The issue also ends with like. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four saying like, oh, this was great to work with each other.

It was really good to finally meet and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's very interesting of like how that works. I think the coolest part of these two issues, one kind of what I already mentioned, this was like the first time a story has stopped, like right in the middle and they continued it in the next issue, like leaving a true cliffhanger of like, you need to know what happens next.

Obviously this was, I believe, I'm pretty sure it's the first Avengers crossover with the Fantastic Four. So fun to see. There's a ton of action, tons of fighting. Great to see the thing and the hu kind of go against each other. I think. Uh, in issue 25, there was a mess up by Stan Lee. I did a little bit of research.

Stan called Bruce Bob, and I believe this is later fixed in some sort of issue. I'm not sure which one, but, uh, we learned, I guess, that. Bruce, it's Bruce Robert Banner eventually to, to Mess, to uh, fix his mess up. Um, but also if you listen to episode three where we covered issue 12, where we first saw the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, I thought it was really interesting where Bruce had a lot of control over his, his abilities to switch to and from the Hulk, which we know now is way different.

Um. Where Bruce doesn't have control over his anger issues and can turn into the whole just kind of willy-nilly for a lack of a better term. Um, and this is where we kind of see, not necessarily this issue I did against some research in some of the Avengers issues. I didn't read them, but. Now we kind of see that Bruce doesn't have the ability to just go freely between the Hulk and his normal self, Bruce.

Um, so it's kind of cool to see how they're kind of transitioning that kind of thing that we know so much about The Hulk of what makes Bruce and the Hulk. Part of his whole kind of shtick, um, is that, um, and we didn't see that in issue 12, so I thought that was kind of cool to see. So going from, from that, we're going back to a classic villain of the Fantastic four with issue 27.

So from March of 1964, fantastic four issue 27, the Search for Submariner, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by George Bell, and lettered by Sam Rosen. And I gotta say, this issue opens up on a different take of events where Reed is testing this thought projection device. And while that sounds normal, he's thinking of Sue and she's in this one piece bathing suit.

Like finally Reed, you are finally like thinking about Sue, which is something we don't normally see now. However, I do have to say what's weird is that the rest of the team is seeing Reed's thoughts being projected, like they're literally watching Reed. Look or like think about Sue. So we have Sue Benjani C Reed thinking about Sue.

I don't think that that's what you should be thinking about as you're testing this, as the rest of the team can, um, see what's happening. So anyway, after that I actually kind of talk about that. But Sue. Declines to have her thoughts projected, and Reid then tells Johnny and then she kind of goes off. But then Reid tells Johnny and Ben that he plans on going out to buy a ring for Sue, which is also kind of interesting because we were told that Sue was Reid's fiance back in issue one.

So did they just agree without a ring or what happened? I think they kind of forgot about that, and that's kind of a continuity error, but. Reed isn't the only one thinking about Sue because that's where our story takes us to the depths of the ocean. And we see Namor watching Sue on a little TV wishing that she would be his bride.

He tells his remaining citizens or army folks that he wants to make sue his bride so he's ready to go to the surface world and do that. And they're like, nah, bro. We don't trust the surface world, people we're gonna leave you. And honestly, I thought all of his folks left him after annual one as he returned to an empty kingdom.

So I don't know what happened as these, these people came back. Um, we covered that in episode five. If you wanna hear that story, uh, go back to episode five and listen to that. So Namor takes things into his own hands and disguises himself. And I gotta say, this is a very interesting disguise. I think we need to see more namor in this disguise.

It's like a green suit jacket and a pants. He's got this like flat brimmed bowler hat and sneaks into the Baxter building and takes out the thing in Johnny. And also I need to mention, we the Fantastic Four needs to get some better. Some better security. This is like the second time that I can remember that Namor has just like, easily gotten into the Baxter building.

Like the first time the window was open, he literally told them that. He's like, I just came in through an open, an open window. Uh, Spider-Man easily got in, in, in also annual number one, like, we need some better security. Fantastic. Four. How are people, how are these villains able to just get right into the Baxter building?

Come on. Um, so after taking out the thing and Johnny Namor then approaches Sue and asks her to be his bride, but she refuses. So he does what any normal person does. He gases her and takes her prisoner. I, I'm just kidding. That is not normal. I'm not sure how Namor thinks this is going to win over the heart of the woman he loves.

Also, I'm assuming that anyone listening to this would not. Uh, like do those kinds of things, but honestly, guys or other guys, gals, it doesn't matter if a woman says no or someone you're approaching says no, let's just accept the no and just leave them alone. Like, come on. Let's, let's be, okay, let's not drug, drug these potential partners and then take them prisoners.

That's not what we want to do. So Reed comes back with a ring and Ben and Johnny are sulking that Sue has been taken. And I kind of find it weird that they're just like sitting there sulking and they're like kind of nervous to tell Reed that Sue's been taken. Like, why didn't they use the Ftaa Flare?

Any other issue there? Anyone? Everyone's like ready to use the Ftaa flare to like get someone to come over somewhere and they decided not to. Um, so after they tell Reid that Na Moore has taken, Sue Reed becomes furious and goes out on his own to find her. So that leaves Johnny and Ben by themselves and they're like, we don't know what to do, how to find or help, what's going on?

So they contact Dr. Strange. This is the first appearance that we're getting of Dr. Strange. In a Fantastic four comic and I did some research and it is the first, I think it's the first crossover for Dr. Strange. So this is the first time Dr. Strange has been in any other, any other issue. Um, so he goes in his, uh, ectoplasmic form to the ocean and finds Sue and Namor, but at the same time, Reed shows up and battles namor, but at the same time, his troops come back, who apparently left him earlier on.

In the issue and they were like, oh, we can't continue using the name Submariner or be submariners if, if we're not part of the kingdom. I don't know why they just didn't call themselves something else. Anyway, they see that, uh, Reid is there and they're like, oh, we're gonna help name more because we hate surface surface world.

People at this time, strange teleports, Johnny and Ben to Nam Moore's Kingdom, and they're all able to free sue and take on Namor and his troops. Now there's a good bit of action that ensues, um, after freeing Sue. But also as they're freeing Sue and some stuff is happening, Sue tells Johnny that she hopes nothing bad happens to Reid or Namor, and I'm just like this lady, oh my God.

Sue, please. We're so conflicted. Let's just choose someone. She literally cannot decide what she likes or who she likes. Like, come on, Sue, we can figure this out. Anyway, our team is about to get obliterated by a cannon, uh, from Namor and his troops, but Sue is protecting them with her force field and tells Namor that she loves Reid and that Reid is the only man for her and nothing.

Can ever change that. So with Namor down with a Broken heart, Dr. Strange Teleports the team into Reed's Submarine, where the team then asked Sue about what she said, loving Reed, just a few moments ago. But she said she doesn't wanna talk about it. Although we do get a thought bubble of her saying, of course she loves.

Read, but this leaves Reed, honestly, you gotta check this out with just a floating head behind. I kid you not a like typical car steering wheel of course in a, in a submarine. That makes sense. Just a floating reed head and, and his hands on a steering wheel. And he's thinking, of course, if she truly, uh, meant what she said or only said it to stop the fighting, which I'm assuming is going to make him doubt proposing.

To sue. Uh, this was, uh, another decent issue in my opinion. It obviously just a standalone issue from what we know right now. Um, it was cool to see Dr. Strange brought in, although even though he played. Somewhat of a big role to like find Naor, although Reed was there. Um, he helped Ben and Johnny and it wasn't like super pivotal, although he did transport them out or like teleport them out into the submarine.

Either way, it was cool to see Dr. Strange in this and see how he could be used. It wasn't like the biggest use or the best use, um, anyway. I think the better, the bigger and better part was we continued to deepen. The love triangle between Reed Sue and Namor. I mean, at this point, Reid just needs to show how much he loves Sue because he never does it.

Sue honestly just needs to choose between Reed, Reed and Namor. And Namor needs to stop. Drugging gassing and taking Sue as prisoner to try to win her over because I don't think that's gonna work. I just don't think it's gonna work. Uh, next episode though is going to be a really good one. We get a crossover with the X-Men.

Uh, we meet Diablo, a new villain that we haven't seen just yet, and we get Fantastic four Annual two, which is going to cover a deeper origin of Dr. Doom. Probably also, honestly, one of a legendary. Dr. Doom story. So make sure wherever you're listening to this or watching you hit, follow, subscribe, do all those things.

If you have some thoughts about this episode or anything else, uh, if you're listening, there is a, a link in the show notes that you can text me. You can text me. It will go legitimately to me. Um, and, and we'll talk about it on the show. Um, if you're watching on YouTube. Co, you know, put something down in the comments, let me know.

Um, other than that, if you want to take it, uh, I mentioned this earlier, if you wanna take it a step further, there is a link on the screen if you're watching on YouTube or in the show notes, uh, to join the Earth's Mindy Nerds Discord. We can talk about the podcast, the show, all this fantastic four stuff, even more.

It has a, a huge group. I shouldn't say huge, but a, a fairly large amount of people are in this, uh, group and we just talk all about nerdy stuff, all kinds of fun stuff, completely free to join. All you have to do is join the earth's mightiest nerds, discord, uh, Earth's Mightiest Nerds newsletter. And again, I promise I won't spam you.

You're lucky if I get one email out a week. Um, but yeah, until then. Until the next episode, Excelsior.

Head Shot

Joe

Host