They barely have time to put them on before MM shows up at the premiere of "The Monster from Mars", a televised event that Johnny is watching. The others kept their costumes permanently, but Ben would abandon his for a simple blue speedo next issue. Reed, the faithful fiancee, praises her work to the skies, but Ben hates his "fool outfit" and accompanying helmet. The FF fly the Fantasticar home despondent, fearing that MM "might be the one foe we could not defeat." Let me get this straight, they headed off an alien invasion last issue, but they're demoralized by the tricks of a stage magician? I bet the Avengers could take him.īut look, here's a kick ass diagram of the FF's headquarters, featuring our first glimpse of other gadgets like the Pogo Plane, their passenger missile, and the Fantasticopter.Īs if that wasn't enough, now we see the FF's new costumes, designed by the Invisible Girl. (Three? I thought the Thing was way stronger than this.) Then Ben's hardest blow fails to even faze MM. MM cuts a tree trunk in half with his finger, while Ben needs three blows to smash his. Always ready to fly into a sudden rage, The Thing threatens to pummel MM into submission but is convinced to merely accept MM's challenge of a test of strength. You can probably guess what's going to happen in the next 22 pages, can't you? MM points out the celebrities in the audience and mocks their puny powers. The Miracle Man is a stage magician and the FF are attending his show. The Miracle Man is probably the stupidest villain the FF ever faced, and this about a team who fought the Impossible Man and the Infant Terrible.
The costumes, the Fantasticar, and the building (later named the Baxter Building) would become permanent fixtures in the book.Īll well and good, but what about this issue's villain? You know he must suck ass if he doesn't even make it onto the cover. The cover also promised a look at the FF's "skyscraper hide-out", though I wonder how well one "hides out" if your "secret" HQ is a huge building in the middle of the city. As the cover bragged, they acquired new costumes, the familiar blue tights with the '4' logo, as well as the Fantasticar. The FF were becoming slightly more conventional. The Human Torch is drawn on the cover with two left hands, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the quality of what's inside the book. The cover screams "The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World!", a slogan, with some slight changes, which would appear on the cover for many years.