1961 was an interesting year.  Eisenhower signed off and handed the reins to a young guy named Kennedy who got off to a flying start, establishing the Peace Corps and announcing that the United States intended to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.  He had to- on the other side of the Cold War, Khrushchev had recently detonated Tsar Bomba, a 50+ megaton monster that is still the largest bomb ever built, and welcomed the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, back to earth.  As a side earth-science project to offset the Soviet dominance overhead, Kennedy started throwing money at Project Mohole, an attempt to dig deeper into the earth’s surface than ever before, ideally through the crust entirely, to reach the mantle.

Elsewhere, a DC comics title called Justice League of America featuring the squeaky-clean adventures of a square-jawed group of spotless superheroes was selling like hotcakes.  A couple of guys named Lee and Kirby at a scruffy little publishing outfit named Atlas/Timely that put out monster mags for kids got the assignment to create a team book of their own.  Neither man claimed to remember clearly where the ideas they brought to the title came from; their accounts famously (and bitterly) disagreed with each other.  They agreed that their heroes would have “feet of clay”, the same foibles and problems as anyone else inside their costumes.  And they would be closer even than the JLA, an actual family.  But what to have them do?  Perhaps one or both thought what if there were already unimaginable denizens deep in the earth, and and perhaps heedless drilling into their homes and detonating ever-larger bombs there was making them angry…?  In that case it would sure be handy if a plucky American genius had tried to rashly jump to the head of the Space Race and he and his companions had returned sadder but wiser, charged with fantastic powers to save the day?

Over 60 years later, JLA stalwarts Batman and Superman have each already passed their 1000th-issue milestones, and plucky upstart Marvel’s flagship comic The Fantastic Four has just reached #700.

Creative Team:
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Iban Coello
Colorists: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: VCs Joe Caramagna
Cover: Alex Ross
Variant Covers: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Edgar Delgado; Greg Land & Frank d’Armata; Jack Kirby & Morry Hollowell; Rob Liefeld; Scott Koblish & Rachel Rosenberg; Walter Simonson

It’s just #7 by the count that started the run of Canadian writer Ryan (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) North.  North, who started with webcomics, is known primarily as a humor guy, and he has a naturally light touch.  He tones it down here, but this is still a relaxed issue as the FF regroup away from Manhattan in the comfy confines of the Thing’s oft-mentioned but never-before-sighted(?) Aunt Petunia’s country home.

North has a little linguistic fun as -something- slowly siphons away letters from the minds of our heroes, slowly and subtly leaving them unable to communicate or think effectively by the time the author of the piece reveals himself.  Alex Ross (and various alternates) cover aside, it may not be much of a spoiler to reveal that the malefactor leaves them with only 3/26 of the alphabet to work with by the time of their confrontation.  Specifically, D, O, M.  Hmmm.

This person has had a bit of history with the FF and the rest of the MU since ’61, and his main beef has often been that he just really doesn’t think much of the abilities of one Dr. Reed Richards.  Not impressed.  Scornful, even.  Contemptuous.  What ComicsOnline is trying to say is, he thinks Richards’ and the whole team’s supernym is totally inappropriate.  In this case, he is particularly hacked off about their handling of the crisis recapped in the summary, resulting as it did in the situation that his li’l pal Valeria will not be able to place her tiny hand in his gauntleted one and talk about things lesser minds just wouldn’t understand for a FULL YEAR.

Franklin?  Whatever.  The Thing’s kids?  Pssh.  But Val?  No. He swore to do right by her way back when after saving Richards bacon while he was failing to manage Dr. Sue’s trivial cosmic-pregnancy complications. Clearly, resolving this situation more satisfactorily is/would have been just what is needed to prove what a jerk Mr. “Fantastic” actually is yet again.  Fortunately, guess who tossed off a Time Machine as the merest trifling manifestation of their genius back in the day?

Yep.  To screw with Iron Man, ’twas.  Show who was the hardest-core metal-clad character back in the days of noble Camelot, when everyone who was anyone wore armor as a matter of course.  Shenanigans ensued.  Merlin, Excalibur, Morgan Le Fay.  The gang was all there.  Somehow, despite all odds, that idiot bungler Stark managed to swindle an escape from his carefully-plotted, ahem, doom in that instance as well, Richards-style.

Back to the matter at hand.  Reed (having regained his full selection of phonemes) pleads with this person not to screw the pooch on this one in a conversation that recalls their first exchange back in grad school when he tried to encourage the mystery villain not to blow his own face off rescuing his mother from the clutches of Mephisto.  That plot thread was since resolved with the help of one Dr. Strange (advanced degrees for all!), but Reed was basically right in that instance as well, which has a lot to do with certain long-standing grievances, which is why now the mystery villain waves goodbye with one gunmetal gray finger and vanishes into the recent past.

This is still only halfway through the double-sized centennial issue, and from here the story pivots interestingly away from the FF proper to really be the story of this green-cloaked fellow as he comes face-to-ruined-face with the fact that, mastery of science and sorcery he may be, absorb the power of a whole race of Beyonders he may do, and so forth, he just. Can’t. Stop. Tripping over his own dick.  Like, ever.  Written into the universe.  Which fact he ultimately deals with in his trademark indomitably ruthless way.  And the FF are a) destroyed or b) left to contemplate a few words of wisdom from Alicia before turning to the problem of the collateral damage that may destroy them anyway due to The Wrath of Petunia.  Buy the mag to find out.

Double-threat writer/artist Iban Coello holds down the visuals with some expressive (dig the facial expressions!) artwork, eventually getting a chance to take a pass at dozens of familiar characters, and lovingly rendering even Johnny’s truly heinous Sons of Anarchy ‘stache, which he should burn off immediately, if that is even possible.  Mr. Storm seems to be going through a rare dry spell at the moment and is succumbing to bachelor facial hair insanity.  Someone who loves or once claimed to love him must help.  Frankie Raye, Kourtney Keaton, Crystal of the Inhumans, Lyja the Skrull who pretended to be Alicia so he would marry her, Alicia herself, even DORRIE freaking EVANS from when his pal Spider Man was mooning over Betty Brant would all advise him away from his current lip direction in no uncertain terms, and many of them are not even human and some are blind.

Stick around for the post-credits stinger where Sam Jackson and Cobie Smulders agree that working for the CIA is lame and come up with yet another org title that will acronym down to- yeah, baby- S.H.I.E.L.D.  Stay tuned.

Rating:
ComicsOnline is mandated to give Fantastic Four #700 no less than 700 out of five stars for the latest check-in on decades of steady entertainment.  Now if only they could get a film adaptation right…

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