The Fourth Member--Does Whatever A Fourth Member Can

Well, following their debacle of re-enlisting Medusa despite the fact that everyone on Earth knew that she was a good guy now, the Frightful Four had laid low for a while.

But no longer!! In Marvel Team-Up #2 (1972), the remaining three losers have decided that it's time to strike!!

Of course, they have set their sights a little bit lower. Instead of crushing the Fantastic Four, the Wizard's group for the first time had a different goal: to break into the Baxter Building when most of the FF was away, siphon a bunch of energy from the Negative Zone, and...well, do something evil with it, I guess.

Now, I'll have to confess--I don't own this issue. I read it, many moons ago, from a friend's collection. And as much as I love you guys, I'm not going to go spend $15 just so I can reprint pictures and do a detailed re-cap of what was a fairly crappy story. Instead, let me refer you to this quite complete recap, while I make some observations about how this story fits into the Frightful Four Saga.

• OK, so the first person the Frightful Four ever recruited ended up a good guy who betrayed them. Really, is the next logical step to brainwash a hero into being your fourth member? There's no shortage of "worthy" villains out there in 1972 (although maybe none were as incompetent as this trio...). The Wizard already tried this tactic, back in the Frightful Four trilogy in FF #41-43, when he used his Id machine to brainwash the Thing. How'd that work out, Wiz??

• That being said, taking control of Spider-Man was a good tactic to gain entrance to the Baxter Building. And it led to the Torch getting taken out like a sucker early. But...the entire "recruitment" of Spider-Man takes place off panel!! We don't see how the Four capture Webhead, we don't see how they convert him, and we never get so much as a single word of explanation. Spider-Man just shows up as a bad guy outta nowhere. Pretty poor storytelling by Gerry Conway and Ross Andru...

• It's also unclear why the Wizard's brainwashing techniques are so poor this time. Earlier, he had the Thing completely converted to evil, and it took Reed several issues of a terribly dangerous procedure to cure him (barely). Now, I'll grant that Reed would have taken steps to make sure that the Id machine couldn't work against the FF again. But Spider-Man? Johnny Storm just Oprahs him into being good again: "Please, Spidey, don't be evil!" "OK. Thanks!!" So the lame set-up engenders the lame resolution.

• Really, the Wizard has got to stop putting himself in direct comparisons to Reed Richards. He claims to be the only other one in the world who could understand the Negative Zone tech as well as Reed...but in the simple act of draining power, he frees Annihilus. Oops. Fortunately, Spidey saves the day...by unplugging the machinery. Yup, one of Reed's super-duper scientific devices can be stopped just by pulling the plug from the wall. Sigh...

• After at least temporarily incapacitating all of the Fantastic Four in all of their previous appearances (and last time only three of them were enough), this time the Frightful Four can't handle Spider-Man and the Human Torch. That's not progress. guys.
  

So, the first appearance of the Four outside of the FF is pretty much an even bigger loserpalooza than all their other attempts. At least they weren't taken out by a giant, magical kitty cat this time. Don't worry, they'll be back before the year is out...with an actual new villain this time (uhhh....maybe sorta)!!

Hey, you know what would be really cool? A scene where the Wizard and Doctor Doom are in the same room, and the Wizard goes off on one of his "I'm Reed Richard's equal" rants, and Doom just pees himself laughing. And then kills the Wizard. That'd be cool.