Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey

S1E17: Fantastic Four #60-63 - Reed Gets Sucked Into The Negative Zone & Dr. Doom Goes Power Cosmic

• Earth's Mightiest Nerds • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Send Joe a message through the Negative Zone

In this episode of Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey, I finish out the Dr. Doom Power Cosmic arc, Reed gets sucked into the real Negative Zone, and we have a new villain, Blastaar, from the Negative Zone.

Stories Covered In This Episode

Fantastic Four 60, The Peril and the Power!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Fantastic Four 61, Where Stalks the Sandman?, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Fantastic Four 62, ...And One Shall Save Him!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, Colored by Stan Goldberg, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Fantastic Four 63, Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, and Lettered by Sam Rosen

Resources, Episodes, & Links Mentioned In This Episode:

S1E17: Fantastic Four #60-63 - Reed Gets Sucked Into The Negative Zone & Dr. Doom Goes Power Cosmic

SPEAKER_01

What's going on, Marvelights? Welcome to Reading the Multiverse, a Marvel Comics journey presented by Earth's Mightiest Nerds. And I am your host, Joe, and welcome to the podcast. If you're listening to this the day that it drops, it is Memorial Day in the United States at least. So happy Memorial Day. It is Monday, May 25th, 2026. Welcome to the end of May. How did that even happen? Anyway, if you are new here, we are reading one legendary Marvel Comics run at a time. And for the most part, I'm reading these issues for the first time. So I'm giving my thoughts and kind of first reactions along with synopses of each issue that we go through. And we are running through the Fantastic Four, the original run, the thing that started the entire Marvel Universe as we know it, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. We are more than halfway through. But before we get into the the issues in the whole episode, we got two weeks in a row here, folks. Let's let's go after taking two and a half months off. I gotta say, that's that's uh congratulations, is in order at this point. Um, man. And as you will imagine, it was almost it almost didn't happen again because um I'll let you know why. Because I won freelance for myself, so I'm in charge of how much money I decide to make. Uh I have two little kids, one is almost four and one is one. And uh we are currently attempting to try and sell our house and buy another one. So we are currently in the phase of like prepping our house to get ready to sell, so it's not actively listed, but we're doing all the little finishing touches, trying to get some little odds and ends done that we've been meaning to get done for some time now, and it is just it is a lot. And uh obviously, as you would imagine with two little kids, it is even more so. People were have multiple people have told me that selling a house is like a full-time job, um, and having two little kids at the same time is makes that nearly impossible. Uh so here we are. Uh, I had mentioned that too, by the way, in the Earth's Mightiest Nerds Discord. It is completely free to join. Uh, the reason why I mentioned that is because I was not able to run this month's comic book club, just because I've just been inundated, obviously. Um either way, that is my suggestions uh little through line slash ad for you to join. It's completely free. There's a bunch of other nerdy people in there. We mainly talk about Marvel stuff, but there's everything else: Star Wars, DC, other nerdy things, just TV shows, pop culture, all those things. It's completely free to join. All you have to do is join the Earth's Mightiest Nerds dis uh uh sorry, not Discord newsletter. And I promise you, I will not spam you. Uh, my goal of writing weekly uh has not happened because um obviously all the things that I've said, and I probably haven't emailed in like two months. I'm trying to be better about that, but here we are. I promise you will not be spammed. All right, without further ado,

Fantastic Four 60 - The Peril and the Power!

SPEAKER_01

let's hop into the episode from December of 1966, Fantastic Four, issue 60, The Peril and the Power, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, and lettered by Sam Rosen. So if you haven't listened to the previous episode, I highly suggest you do that. But to catch you up, Dr. Doom stole the Silver Surfer's powers and has him as a prisoner, and Doom has pretty much been taunting the Fantastic Four and the world with his new powers. So we start our issue with Ben telling Reed he's going to go take care of Doom himself, which causes Reed and him to fight, but it doesn't last very long because then Wyatt Wingfoot steps in and he tells everyone that Johnny is gonna go ahead and fight Doom all by himself. Unfortunately for Johnny, he does go ahead and do that, but the fight doesn't last very long. Um, and basically Doom sweeps him up in a whirlwind. So while that's happening, uh Reed, Sue, and Ben are able to catch up with Doom, all thanks to the Black Panther, who has gifted them a ship. But once again, Doom crushes that pretty quickly with a tree. So Roo uh Roo, Reed and Sue. I'm reading my notes and uh I combined Reed and Sue into Roo. Uh so while Reed and Sue escape for some time, Doom and Ben duke it out, particularly because Doom wants to get revenge against Ben, because uh back in issue 40, Ben ruined Dr. Doom's hands, and uh that's that's exactly why. Um, if you want to check that issue out, we covered that back in episode 11. So Reed and Sue then meet up with Johnny as they escaped Doom, and then they all meet up with Ben and then continue to fight against Doom, but they just can't beat him. That's when uh Reed made this invention in the last issue. Um it comes flying in, it's much bigger now at this point, all thanks to the army, and it starts to weaken Doom. So he goes flying after it, but Doom eventually can't go any further because of the barrier that Galactus placed around Earth to keep the silver surfer there. So therefore, right, basically it is applying to the cosmic, the power cosmic, essentially the powers that Doom stole are what is the is what Galactus is stopping. Um, so with that being said, we then kind of see this like explosion as Doom, I guess, quote unquote, hits the barrier that he didn't know was there. So we're assuming that Doom either like exploded or died. Obviously, uh, we know that doesn't happen, but it's just kind of left open-ended. So our issue ends, but we do have this final panel where we see the surfboard heading back to Doom's castle. Now, in this issue, I did skip over a couple of things. We did get a little preview, not a preview, but a little a little slip snippet of the watcher. Um, the watcher once again is he is watching and he is deciding to quite possibly intervene, but then something happens somewhere else. I believe if I remember correctly, another life form is like being made. And he's like, Oh, I gotta go, I gotta go take care of this first or watch it or something along those lines. So he doesn't intervene. And he even once again says that he's not supposed to intervene, but he really wants to. And I'm like, that's all you do, man, is you don't follow your rules. You just intervene. I don't get it. Um, the other thing I I wanted to mention is that we have a huge theme in this issue of xenophobia. Um, one, for anyone who's always said that Marvel has, or well, for anyone who is recently saying that Marvel's gone woke, they've always been woke, folks. I mean, we're talking about xenophobia back in what year is this? What what did I say? 1966, folks. 1966. So basically, it in this issue, again, Silver Surfer is a prisoner of Dr. Doom, and Doom has some guards looking over him. Doom's guard is basically beating him up because he's not a human. He's like just taking care of him because he's different, basically, right? And then we also have the inhumans at this point. They have recently escaped their uh their barrier, um, and they landed somewhere, and some locals see Karnak chop a tree in half with his hand and crystal lights of fire, and they're like, oh, we have to attack them because they are different than us. Um, unfortunately, well, fortunately for the inhumans, that plan is foiled because Medusa, Gorgon, Triton, and Blackbolt pretty much take care of them pretty easily. Uh, overall, though, I really like this arc. Um, obviously, we're closing out this Doctor Doom, stealing the power cosmic arc. I thought it was pretty cool to see that obviously Doom has always been kind of, I don't want to say unstoppable because his plans have been foiled before, but at this point, he's finally been unstoppable. I definitely didn't think that uh this was going to happen, like with him basically running into the Galactus barrier and whatnot. And it's kind of different than what Reed said before, because in the previous issue, Reed said that his ultimate goal was to make Doctor Doom angry, uh, which is what he explained to Ben, not that the thing was going to weaken his powers because that was only temporary. And then in this issue, Reed is like, I knew that this was going to happen, that you know, he wasn't gonna get very far because of Galactus's kind of barrier that he put up for the Silver Surfer.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm like, is that really what you thought was gonna happen, Reed? I don't I don't know. I don't know if that was what was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think you knew that, Reed. I don't think you did.

Fantastic Four 61 - Where Stalks the Sandman?

SPEAKER_01

Anyway, overall, pretty good issue. I really enjoyed the arc overall. Um, that is finally over. As we head into the next issue, from January of 1967, Fantastic Four 61, Where Stalks the Sandman, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, colored by Stan Goldberg, and lettered by Sam Rosen. We got a colored attribution, which we haven't had in a while. Our issue starts out with Reed, Ben, and Sue at the Baxter building, and of course, Reed's inventions are going crazy. Um, they're obviously having a hard time stopping everything because everything's legitimately going nuts. Um, I'm not surprised though, like this is not surprising that Reed would potentially give his inventions some sort of sentient life, although I don't think we've like made it that far in terms of like inventions and things in the Marvel universe, in terms of like giving inventions sentient life, like kind of AI-ish, I guess. Um, eventually, though, within all of this, Sue gets knocked out, and according to Reed, someone broke into the lab and rigged all the equipment. And I mean, again, we haven't seen anyone read, so I mean, this could still be your fault. That's all I'm gonna say. Um, I'm not surprised of who it was, though, because on the cover we have the sandman, and that's exactly who it is. So, with that being said, though, we then get taken to Lot Veria, where once again the Silver Surfer is locked up, and he's we're still dealing with those xenophobic guards. And we see the surfboard makes its way back to the silver surfer, which is where we ended, obviously, last issue. So he gets his power back, he destroys the jail, and I'm assuming the guards who are beating him up as well, because he he, you know, they deserve that. Good for him. And there's even a panel that I love. He's just like standing proudly holding his surfboard, and he's like, I have learned a tragic lesson. He learned I have learned that man is steeped in evil, tainted with treachery. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, Norrin. I couldn't agree with you more. So we go back to Reed, Ben, and Sue, and they are searching everywhere. And again, a bunch of sand comes down to drown them. Ben is able to break free. We see the sandman, and he's got this new outfit. He doesn't have his like typical striped green shirt on. He's got a green like power outfit. I don't know how else to describe it. Kind of is like electro-ish, but not. It's it's it's green, dark and light green. He has a mask that covers just like his eyes, like a uh a cow, maybe. Is that what that is? A cow? I don't know. And he's got a primarily white belt. When did this change happen? It must have happened in another issue because for this to just like randomly appear is interesting. Um, I'm very questionable on the white belt. Like, bro, we're this is after Labor Day, and we haven't hit Memorial Day yet, although today is. So all I'm gonna say is, what are you doing? What are you doing here, Sandman? That's who is your designer? So Sandman wallops Ben and he lands against the space-time generator lever. And if he moves, it could destroy the whole city. Of course it could. We always have to have end of the world situations in the Fantastic Four. Uh, but before we go any further, once again, we go back to the Inhumans. We see Crystal, she is dying to see Johnny. Blackbolt gives her permission to go see Johnny, and um he she transports to a football game. Well, at that football game, obviously they were uh back at like where they go to school, Johnny and Wyatt. Uh Wyatt runs into Crystal, and although he's never met her, he knows exactly what she looks like, all thanks to Johnny, because you know he described her to him. And I mean, that had to be painstaking for Wyatt because all Johnny could think about or talk about was probably Crystal for like the past 10 issues. So Godspeed, Wyatt, for being able to deal with that. You're such a good friend. Um, unfortunately, though, Johnny is not there. He went to the Baxter building to help his family fight off the Sandman. Now, we're talking about this uh machine generating negative energy, and eventually Reed opens the door, the the thing that Ben was stuck against. So it starts to suck in the Sandman, but he's able to escape somehow. However, Reed gets sucked in and the door closes behind him, and we end our issue with Reed being stuck in the negative zone. Now, I gotta say, the the negative zone, this thing, we've kind of seen it here and there in in previous issues, um, but we haven't necessarily called it the negative zone, which was kind of confusing because the inhumans for like the past like 10 to 15 issues have been stuck in their great refuge, which is their home, the great refuge, and they were stuck behind a barrier that Maximus, Black Bolt's brother, put up, and they called that the negative zone. How that naturally transitioned to this is interesting. Um, because I don't think it's ever really been called the negative zone before this. Maybe it has. I don't remember it, but it hasn't been referenced very much. If anything, the negative zone has been referenced into the Inhuman's barrier. Okay, so with that being said though, Reed is now there. I gotta say, this was a pretty good issue. It I felt like it went back and forth uh between all of the plot lines well, um, and it didn't really stick on something for too long, in my opinion. Um, but

Fantastic Four 62 - ...And One Shall Save Him!

SPEAKER_01

yeah, the next issue, I in my opinion, gets even better. So, from February of 1967, Fantastic Four, issue 62, and one shall save him. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, colored by Stan Goldberg, and lettered by Sam Rosen. So we open up our issue with Reed floating in the negative zone being pulled to his death. Ben, Johnny, and Sue are freaking out, which is rightfully so. Ben and Johnny want to do absolutely everything at this point to save Reed. And honestly, I gotta say, um, this is the first time that I've seen all of them this worried. Generally, one of them is like, eh, it's not such a big deal, we'll take care of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of them at this point seemed so worried, and I don't think I've ever, as I'm reading this and thus far in this Fantastic Four kind of run by Lee and Kirby, I don't think I've ever felt this situation be as dire as this one. Um, and I I like that. I I think that's uh really a great thing that Stan and Jack have really been building up to. Um, and honestly, the fact that they're so worried and they're doing all of the things possible to save Reed, this is the first time, honestly, to me, that they felt like a family. Now, obviously there are other times where they needed to save someone and whatnot, but I think because the situation isn't as dire and everyone's kind of like freaking out, this is the first time again where I feel like they felt like a family. Because previously they just kind of I don't know, they just haven't. And you know, they're being known for being this, you know, Marvel's first family, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, it doesn't, they don't really give a family vibe, but this is the first time that I'm feeling it. So Crystal shows up. Um, of course, Johnny is distraught and explains the situation to Crystal, and she's like, Why are we worried? We have Lockjaw. Um, so before we go anywhere with that situation, though, we're taken to the negative zone where we see these two other people in this spaceship appear. I'm assuming they kind of like teleported there, and they're dropping off this big prisoner. And when they do, he they kind of release him from the ship. He gets stuck to the backside of a meteor or a rock for a lack of a better term. And Reed is on the other side, hanging out on this rock. And there's a really great splash page. Again, I'll put this in the Discord, another plug for you to join, again, completely free. Of Reed kind of holding on to the one side of this meteor rock thing, and the the prisoner that is stuck on the other side. Um, it's it again kind of looks like space. And if you've seen any of like Jack Kirby's space drawings, you know that he is just a master at that. It's so good. And we even have, I wanted to mention we have some nice words from Stan Lee kind of going through Reed's kind of like talking to himself, and he's going through his potentially obviously last thoughts because Reed is getting pulled towards like this thing where he's gonna, I guess, disintegrate or explode. I don't know. Um, but he's saying his last thoughts, and he's saying to himself, he's like, the best thing we can do as humans is to try to leave the world a better place than what we came into. Once again, Stan Lee coming in with the words here. Um, so from there, we then see the inhumans thwart this atomic attack on um some island where they're you know kind of living now, just off of Europe. Crystal returns, and what's funny though is like she needs she's like, I need to tell you something very it's dire. We need to do it right now. But there's like all this other dialogue happening, and then Gorgon is like, uh, Black Bolt is ready. Let's say it now because it's it's he's ready. Black Bolt is ready. He assumed the position, the the the stance of full attention, which by the way, he has a he has assumed other stances, and they kind of said that in previous issues, and it's always the same stance. So he's got one stance, folks. He's got one stance to make sure that he he he lets you know that he's ready. Um, but that goes back to again being like, well, let's say it, Crystal. I'm like, bro, everyone else is talking. Stan Lee can't can't shut his mouth sometimes, though, when he's writing these this dialogue. So we head back to the Baxter building. Ben cannot stand that he is unable to help Reed, so he destroys the viewer into the negative zone. Classic, classic Ben, just letting his anger get the best of him. And Crystal shows up and she brings Triton with her. Um Triton is going to go into the negative zone. He goes to rescue Reed. Um, and as he goes, Reed sees him and he's like, No, go back, don't save me. And Triton's like, I'm already here, just give me your hand, basically. And Reed's like, oh, okay. I'm like, Reed, it's okay to have help. It's okay, Reed. You don't have to be the person who always like saves the day or sacrifices themselves. I realize like he didn't want Triton to also die, but like Triton assumed the risk. He knew he was already there. Just like, let's just try it, Reed. Anyway, as he grabs Reed and they're you know going back to the portal, the prisoner wakes up and frees himself of like his straitjacket thing, and we learn he has a name which is Blastar. And he's this like bluish, purplish-looking gorilla ape thing, and he can propel himself via thrusters in his fingertips. So Reed and Triton Reed and Triton make it back safely, and this is kind of as full circle because Reed saved Triton back in issue 47, which is kind of cool to see. Um, but little does everyone know Blastar followed them and snuck in. Um he scales the Baxter building and has a small little fight with the Sandman, but then they decide that they are going to partner up. I really, really like this issue. Once again, I think it really goes to the fact that uh the situation felt dire based on everyone's kind of you know what they were feeling and what they were saying. And it really felt like to me, this was the first time that the Fantastic Four was a family. Uh I will say though that the inhuman fight on their their island, whatever, wherever they are, was unnecessary. It took up five pages in I don't know how many pages this was. It was probably it had to be between 20 and 22. But it took up five pages and was completely unnecessary, in my opinion. Um, and I did like though the inclusion of this like prisoner at the beginning, and he got like dropped off, and like we didn't know anything else about them. We knew that he was sitting there, and now we know more about him by the end, which I didn't know what was gonna like transpire of this. Um, but we know obviously he's going to be a problem in the next issue.

Fantastic Four 63 - Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst!

SPEAKER_01

So, with that being said, from March of 1967, Fantastic Four, issue 63, Blastar, The Living Bomb Burst, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, and lettered by Sam Rosen. No, no color attribution on this one. Sorry, whoever did it. Uh, we literally pick up where we just left off at the Baxter building. Johnny and Crystal left to go somewhere, uh, but Blastar has caused the roof to collapse in. So Reed gets hurt checking out what happened. He sticks his head up and he gets hurt. And then Triton goes up to see what's going on. And all we get from this is basically that this fight that he has with Blastar is that we now know Blastar can shoot blasts from his fingertips, which we knew already from last issue, and apparently didn't know how to fist fight, but thanks to Triton, he now does. Also, he and Sandman, even though they are a team of sorts, Blastar does not like being the second in command. So just keep that in mind. So Blastar and Sandman are then walking around New York City, and the cops try to stop them, but of course, that doesn't work out. So as this is happening, though, Johnny kind of sees like everyone's looking, he comes flying in. Sandman sees that Blastar is so powerful, though, as he's like fighting Johnny, and he's like, Blastar may come after me next. So Sandman exerts some power to show Blastar like what he can do, but again, Blastar doesn't like that. He gets angry. Now Ben shows up, he kind of takes on uh Sandman and Blastar, but Sandman escapes and it's just Blastar. This kind of goes, everyone then shows up, this kind of goes back and forth, everyone's fighting, uh, and everyone kind of takes their turn. Uh Ben, however, gets taken away from the Sandman, gets brought to basically the ocean and almost drowns, but he's able to survive while the Sandman dissipates into the ocean, so he's gone for a little bit. Uh meanwhile, Blaster, every time he feels like he's ready to take on another human, though, he's like, I'm gonna take you down. And then he's like, Oh, they have powers. I can't believe that. How did a human, how is this human have powers? I'm like, obviously, you gotta let's let's kind of assume this at this point here, Blastar. Apparently, though, Reed created this helmet, which can be put on Blastar's head to reduce pressure buildup in his body, which will stop his powers. I don't I don't have any clue of how this works, but it's comics, so I'll just accept it as it is. That's okay. So they're able to stop Blastar and they bring him back to the Baxter building so they can send him back into the negative zone. This was an okay issue. Definitely a drop off after the last one, that's for sure. I thought Blastar maybe would have stayed around longer. Maybe we'll see him again eventually at some point. Um but basically it was kind of boring. Like Blastar is just like we learned that he can shoot blasts from his fingers. He doesn't like being told what to do, and he assumed every human was normal, and every time he decided to fight someone, um, he realized that they weren't normal. That was basically the issue. Um, so that was it. That was it. Those are the four issues for this episode. Thank you so much for being here. Once again, make sure you check out Earth's Mightiest Nerds Discord. All you have to do is sign up for the Earth's Mightiest Nerds newsletter. It's totally free. I promise I will not spam you. Uh next episode, we are gonna have, I don't know all of the things we're gonna do, but we get uh kind of the Fantastic Four going a little bit of a vacation, and that's about it. That's all I got for you. That's as far as I made it so far. Um, but yeah, make sure you subscribe, follow, rate, and review the show, and I will see you in the next episode. And until then, excelsier.

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