Fantastic Four #48-50

 Fantastic Four #48-50

Originally released in 1966

Written by Stan Lee

Art by Jack Kirby

Unlike the other comics that I've posted about here, this is one that I've read before, but I felt like re-reading it.  Arguably the magnum opus of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby when they were working as a team, these three issues give audiences a taste of how vast the Marvel universe truly is by introducing Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer.  Despite being released almost sixty years ago, it still holds up extremely well, to the point where I wound up taking far more screenshots (32 in all) than I could possibly fit into this one article.

Before we can reach that story, however, we start off with the conclusion of the previous issue's storyline, which fully introduced the Inhumans.  Maximus, brother of the Inhuman's king Black Bolt, tried to set off a doomsday device, and when that failed, he sealed off the Inhuman city of Attilan from the outside world out of sheer spite.  This separates Johnny Storm from Crystal, the Inhuman girl who he had fallen madly in love with.  The two are so in love that they're willing to be trapped or even die together, but they met each other a few hours ago at best, so it feels odd that they're willing to go to such lengths and give such dramatic speeches when they barely even know each other.

We get brief glimpses of the Silver Surfer, and hints of the power that he and Galactus have, before the Fantastic Four return to New York City, where the sky has burst into flame.  This happens only briefly, but it serves to highlight the mentality of New York's citizens in the Marvel universe - they immediately assume that the Human Torch is responsible and attack him with bricks and fire hoses.

Ben leaps in to help the Human Torch, and to make amends for separating Johnny and Crystal in the first place. (since he knows he'd react the same or worse if that had happened to him and his girlfriend, the blind sculptor Alicia Masters)  It leads to some comedic relief, like the mental image of the Thing's Aunt Petunia, who's been described as a sweet old lady like Spider-Man's Aunt May, bellowing out "it's clobberin' time", or a random New Yorker thinking that the Thing is a phony and ineffectually trying to beat him up.

Reed tries desperately to figure out what's going on, having grown a beard in the last few hours, only for the Watcher to arrive and explain that he put up the fire as a barrier to hide the Earth from the Silver Surfer.  This proves to be fruitless, as the Surfer sees through the ruse and flies through it, discovering Earth and sending a message to his master...

...Galactus: Christmas Edition!  It took a few issues for them to really get Galactus's design down.  He switches over to his more familiar purple colour set in the next issue, but he's also not wearing pants.  There's debate over who contributed what to the Fantastic Four, and how much of the writing was Stan Lee's compared to how much of it was Jack Kirby's, but having read some of Kirby's solo works, Galactus and the Silver Surfer seem to be Kirby's babies.  They give grand speeches about the value and worth, or lack thereof, of human life and human achievements that wouldn't be out of place in something like the New Gods.

The Watcher's design isn't consistent, but it seems fitting to his character, like he's trying to come across as human but he doesn't quite have it down just yet.  In the middle of all of this, the Silver Surfer arrives at the home of Alicia Masters, who can't see the Silver Surfer, but knows from speaking to him and touching his face that he's a noble person.  The Surfer had never gotten personally involved with the people who lived on the worlds that Galactus consumed, but once he takes time to speak with Alicia and take a close look at humanity, he regains a sense of compassion and a desire to help.

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four can do nothing to stop Galactus, with Galactus putting a barrier around the Baxter Building to prevent others from interfering as he constructs his machine that will turn Earth into energy that he can consume.  The Watcher steps in, sending Johnny Storm to Galactus's massive world-ship to find something that can force Galactus away from Earth.  The narration really helps to establish Galactus as being something unknowable, with his home existing in a realm outside of time and space.  Even with how much Marvel's cosmic entities have expanded over the years, to the point where Galactus can seem to be on the lower end of the scale, the description helps to put things into perspective about how far Galactus is from our own understanding.

On Earth, Galactus has become mildly annoyed by the efforts of the remaining Fantastic Four members to destroy his machine, and he calls forth the Punisher to stop them.  This is not Frank Castle, but a robot summoned by Galactus, though they have similar bad attitudes.  Even a minion of Galactus is enough to delay the Fantastic Four long enough for him to finish his machine, and all seems lost...

...when the Silver Surfer arrives, prepared to defend this world that he's found an appreciation for from his former master.  It's clear that the Surfer feels conflicted about all of this, viewing Galactus as a kindred spirit since they both travel the cosmos, but his talk with Alicia convinced him to no longer stand aside and let worlds be destroyed.

The Silver Surfer can't hope to defeat Galactus, but he delays Galactus long enough for Johnny to arrive from Galactus's dimension with the Ultimate Nullifier.  The Ultimate Nullifier is something of a deus ex machina, serving as a way to resolve the threat of Galactus when nothing else can do so, and its presence on Galactus's ship raises all sorts of questions. (such as, if he's concerned about it being used, then why did he leave it on his ship seemingly unguarded?), but whereas Silver Surfer learned about humanity's beauty, Galacus saw that humanity can be downright crazy at times, willing to risk the annihilation of the entire universe if the alternative is that we no longer exist.

With a speech on humanity's potential for great good or great evil in the universe, Galactus leaves Earth, though not before banishing Silver Surfer to remain on Earth for his defiance.  Things go back to normal soon afterwards - Johnny starts going to college, the people of New York City don't seem too concerned about being moments away from the destruction of the world, and life goes on. (the Daily Bugle dismisses Galactus as being a hoax, which makes me wonder if J. Jonah Jameson somehow found a way to blame Spider-Man for all of this)

I'm hoping that the upcoming Marvel Studios movie for the Fantastic Four will lean into the comic book weirdness of this series rather than shying away from it like the 20th Century Fox movies did. (where Galactus was a giant space cloud)  This trio of issues has more than earned its reputation as a classic, and I'd say that it's a must-read for Marvel fans - 'nuff said.