History of the Fantastic Four, 1961-1962

The following is a history of the Fantastic Four from 1961 to 1962, in which the team gained their powers and became the world's premier crimefighting force, facing early nemeses like Doctor Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner.

History

Origin

In late 1961, Reed Richards, a brilliant and ambitious scientist, prepared a flight into space in an attempt to defeat the U.S.S.R. in the ongoing Space Race on behalf of the United States. He enlisted Benjamin Grimm to pilot the spaceship, but Grimm was reluctant, citing the risks of cosmic rays in outer space. Richards' partner, Susan Storm, implored Grimm to step up, calling him a "coward." The prideful Grimm agreed, and Storm decided to come along on account of being Reed's partner, against Reed's wishes. This in turn prompted Sue's brother, Johnny Storm, to join them. As Grimm feared, the space flight was a disaster, as cosmic rays bombarded the insufficiently-shielded ship and caused it to crash back to Earth. The astronauts emerged from the ship not only unharmed, but with new, bizarre abilities. Sue found herself turning invisible; Ben's skin was replaced with thick, orange rock; Reed could stretch his body to inhuman lengths; and Johnny could instantly cover his body with flame. The four mutually decided to use their newfound powers to help mankind, calling themselves the Fantastic Four: Invisible Girl, The Thing, Mr. Fantastic, and Human Torch.

The newly formed Fantastic Four's first mission involved a mysterious case of atomic plants around the world sinking into the ground. Mr. Fantastic pinpointed the location equidistant to all of these plants, an island known as Monster Isle. There the four found a multitude of vicious monsters, controlled by a small man calling himself the Mole Man. Mole Man had been using a vast network of underground tunnels to destroy the world's power plants, with the aim to conquer the surface world with his creatures. Confronted by an army of monsters, the Fantastic Four escaped the island, with Human Torch using his flame powers to cause a massive cave-in, seemingly sealing Mole Man and his creatures below for good.

The Skrull invasion

Reports soon began to surface of the Fantastic Four committing dastardly crimes. The Fantastic Four, naturally not the real culprits, concluded that someone was impersonating them. On the run from federal authorities, the Four learned of a planned rocket test. Mr. Fantastic proposed sabotaging the test in the style of the impersonators in an attempt to draw them out of hiding. Human Torch executes this plan, and impersonators of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl appear to drive him to their hideout. There, Torch discovered that the culprits were aliens known as the Skrulls. He fired the Fantastic Four's signature flare gun to call for assistance, and the Four soon got the Skrulls under control. The aliens explained that their invasion force was waiting to attack in Earth's orbit, pending the Skrulls' removal of the Fantastic Four from prominence. The Four decided that the aliens' mothership had to be repelled, and boarded the ship disguised as Skrulls disguised as them. Mr. Fantastic convinced the Skrull leader that Earth was too dangerous to attack, and the ship promptly departed. The Four returned to Earth—as Thing briefly converted to his human form passing through the cosmic belt—and were immediately confronted by the police. Mr. Fantastic asked them to come to the Skrulls' hideout to explain. Upon their arrival, the shapeshifting Skrulls attacked them as all manner of monsters, but the Four quickly overcame them. One of the Skrulls escaped while his remaining comrades served as evidence of the Four's innocence, and Mr. Fantastic proposed an unusual way of dealing with them. The Skrulls were made to use their shapeshifting abilities to become cows, and Mr. Fantastic hypnotized them to make them forget their powers and prior existence.

The malicious Miracle Man

Spending a night out together at a magic show, the Four were exposed to the evening's entertainment, the Miracle Man. The magician demonstrated several seemingly impossible abilities and antagonized the Four in the audience. The following day, Miracle Man sent a note to the police declaring war on the human race, and used his powers to animate a gigantic statue of a monster and wreak havoc on the city. The Fantastic Four attempted to subdue him, but were twice defeated due to his seemingly-infinite power. Miracle Man also took Invisible Girl captive, and hypnotized her into luring her partners into a trap. The other three arrived and engaged in a final battle, during which Human Torch blazed so bright as to temporarily blind Miracle Man, incapacitating and defeating him. Mr. Fantastic deduced that Miracle Man was nothing but a hypnotist, and that all of his supposed miracles were the result of mass hypnosis on the public, making them believe that he was capable of anything. The flash effectively destroyed his hypnotic powers, leaving him helpless. During the Miracle Man adventure, tensions between Thing and Torch reached a fever pitch. The two had frequently come to blows since the Fantastic Four's formation, and when Torch's flash was essentially given credit for Miracle Man's defeat, Thing took great exception. Torch had had enough and flew off, leaving his future with the group in doubt.

The return of Namor

Following his departure from the Fantastic Four, Human Torch stumbled upon a disheveled, amnesiac man in a cheap, communal motel in The Bowery who turned out to be Namor the Sub-Mariner. Namor had fallen on hard times since his days of renown as an aquatic hero. Torch brought the Sub-Mariner back to the sea and regenerated his powers, eager to restore him to his heroic ways. Instead, Namor came to find that his former kingdom of Atlantis had been destroyed by humans' atomic tests. He vowed revenge, and declared his intentions to Torch. Reluctantly, Torch sent out a flare to signal his former partners, who had been frantically searching for him, and enlisted their help in defending humanity from the Sub-Mariner. Before long, the enormous sea monster Giganto, summoned by Namor, began to terrorize the city. The Four were able to defeat Giganto by way of Thing carrying a nuclear bomb strapped to his back into Giganto's stomach and escaping before it exploded. Namor sought to take Invisible Girl for his bride, but Torch repelled him with a huge tornado, sending him back to the sea.

The emergence of Doom

Shortly afterward, the Fantastic Four came into contact with the man who was to be their greatest nemesis, Doctor Doom. Doom, a former college schoolmate of Mr. Fantastic's, took Invisible Girl hostage to his castle and forced her teammates to use his time machine to travel back in time and steal the legendary pirate Blackbeard's treasure. They reluctantly agreed, disguising themselves as pirates when they arrived. The three were drugged while drinking in a tavern and enlisted on a pirate ship. Following a successful naval battle with another ship, Thing, whose disguise contained a black beard, was dubbed "Blackbeard." Mr. Fantastic concluded that Thing was in fact the Blackbeard, in an example of the bizarre effects of time travel.

Fantastic found the treasure Doom sought, but supposed that Doom's true desire must be some incredible power the treasure possessed. He instead filled the treasure chest with heavy chains, and after a tornado scattered the treasure into the sea, the team returned to the present. Believing he had succeeded, Doom explained that the treasure used to belong to the great wizard Merlin, who imbued it with the power of invincibility. However, Doom soon realized the Four's attempt at trickery, prompting Thing to attack him and discover that it was in fact a Doombot. Doom, along with the captive Invisible Girl, was in fact in another room entirely, and began mechanically draining the oxygen from the room. But Invisible Girl managed to short-circuit Doom's control panel, causing a small explosion, and escaped to free her teammates. The Four attempted to capture Doom, but he escaped by jetpack.

Doom and Namor unite

It would not be long before the Four encountered both Namor and Doom again. Human Torch discovered a hidden photograph belonging of Namor belonging to Invisible Girl, exposing her secret affection for the Sub-Mariner to the rest of the team. As if on cue, Namor himself suddenly appeared in the Four's headquarters. Namor had secretly planted a "grabber"—a small device with seemingly infinite magnetic power—and moments later, a plane piloted by Doctor Doom triggered that magnetic power, carrying the entire building into the sky. Doom aimed to steer the building, the Four and Namor in tow, directly into the sun. Powering himself in the building's water storage, Namor leapt from the building to Doom's jet, forcing Doom to retreat and leaving him floating off into space. Namor then used the jet to bring the building safely to its original location, and crashed the jet and the building's grabber into the ocean.

The peril of Planet X

The Four were honored in a special ceremony by congress in Washington, D.C. in recognition of their recent valor. However, in the middle of the ceremony, a bizarre vibration rang out, and the attendees of the ceremony began angrily rioting against the Four. The military soon joined in, but the Four narrowly escaped. As they did, they were chased by a spaceship that followed them to the roof of their headquarters. A robot emerged and explained that he had brought a message from Kurrgo of Planet X. It said that only Kurrgo could offer them asylum from the rioting humans, who even then were forming a lynch mob around their headquarters, in exchange for an unnamed condition. The Four reluctantly agreed and were brought to Planet X. Upon arrival, they met Kurrgo, who explained that Planet X was at risk of destruction from an asteroid collision in twenty-four hours. Mr. Fantastic proposed escaping by spaceship, but the Planet X people never cared for space travel, and only possessed two ships, compared to their population of five billion. Mr. Fantastic, with the help of his teammates, devised a "reducing gas" (apparently independent to but not unlike the work of Henry Pym) that would shrink anyone on contact by a thousandfold, allowing the planet's entire population to fit on a single spaceship. Fantastic also gave Kurrgo a vial supposedly containing an enlarging gas to return them to normal when they colonized a new planet. But as the planet began to crumble and the citizens of Planet X escaped, Kurrgo held firm to the large vial, intent on enlarging only himself when they reached a new planet so that he would be an unstoppable ruler of his people. The vial slowed him down to the point that he failed to reach the ship, perishing along with Planet X. As the Fantastic Four escaped to Earth on the ship that brought them in the first place, Mr. Fantastic explained that the supposed enlarging vial was empty, and he only used it to convince Kurrgo of his plan.

Alicia and the Puppet Master

Shortly after returning to Earth, the Fantastic Four found themselves antagonized by the Puppet Master. Puppet Master possessed the power to craft small figures of a given person and thereby control their every move. After Human Torch saved a man who was attempting to jump off of a bridge under Puppet Master's control, Puppet Master made a figure of the Thing. Thing mindlessly entered Puppet Master's home, followed silently by Invisible Girl; the two walked into a trap, as Puppet Master knocked out Invisible Girl with a room-full of ether. He proceeded to disguise his blind stepdaughter Alicia as Invisible Girl and send her and the controlled Thing back to the Four's headquarters. Upon arrival, Thing went on a rampage attacking Mr. Fantastic and Torch, but Fantastic guided him into an experimental potion he had been working on, transforming Thing into his flesh-and-blood Ben Grimm self again. This in turn negated Puppet Master's control, and Grimm embraced Alicia, feeling bad for her on account of her father's cruelty. The effects of the potion expired while Grimm held Alicia in his arms, and he began to believe that she liked him better as the Thing.

Invisible Girl managed to briefly escape from the Puppet Master's custody, long enough to use her flare gun to signal her teammates. The rest of the Four and Alicia arrived, but Puppet Master used a large puppet monstrosity to distract them long enough to escape on a flying puppet horse. Before his escape, Puppet Master had controlled the local prison's warden into freeing all of its prisoners, news of which was just starting to spread. The Four made haste to the prison, freeing the warden from his prisoner captors and quelling the disaster. The Four returned to the Puppet Master's apartment, where moments earlier he had fallen from the window after a struggle with Alicia.

Namor's Hollywood plot

The Fantastic Four soon found themselves in debt following a stock-market crash, along with the great deal of expenses they had otherwise accrued. Namor the Sub-Mariner learned of their hardships, and devised a scheme whereby they would be sent a letter offering them roles in a Hollywood film and one million dollars. The Four accepted in desperation, and arrived at a studio office occupied by Namor. Namor explained that he had heard of their financial troubles and claimed that his offer was sincere. The Four had little choice but to accept, and Namor arranged for each of the male members to shoot individual scenes. Naturally, it was all a ruse: each man found themselves in a trap. Mr. Fantastic was attacked by a cyclops on Hidden Isle, Human Torch by a tribe of flame-resistant Africans, and Thing by Namor himself. The former two thoroughly fended off their challengers, but a freak lightning strike caused Thing to transform into Ben Grimm and give Namor an easy victory. Namor then returned to his office where he had left Invisible Girl; he explained that he had done all this to prove his might over the Fantastic Four, and proposed to her. Sue took exception to his deception and engaged him in combat, but her teammates, including a reformed Thing, burst in soon after. Invisible Girl stopped them from ganging up on him, and instead insisted that Namor live up to his end of the film contract. Namor explained that the movie was real and that he would indeed give them their promised payment. He returned to the sea peacefully, and the film premiered weeks later to much fanfare.

See also

• History of the Fantastic Four, 1963
• Biography of the Human Torch, 1961-1963