Marvel 1974 Week--Fantastic Four #153!!

As many of you may know, the Fantastic Four is my favoritist comic book. It was the one that got me hooked on this absurd hobby, it's the one I buy through thick and (all too often) thin, it's the one that always ends up at the bottom of my pile the week it comes out each month (saving the best for last).

So, when confronted with a story that's chock full of muddled gender politics, nonsense science, questionable art, and probably the most risible ending imaginable...well, it's the FF, so I gotta love it anyway. But man, is it tough.

The FF's foe this issue is a comic character who is extremely macho, and has a nuclear power punch. Why, obviously, it's:

No such luck friends:

See, he's from a barbaric male-dominated society, so he's named "Mahkizmo." Get it? GET IT?!? Oh, Gerry Conway, you idjit.

Let's jump straight in, shall we??

Uh-oh, we're in the third part of a three-parter. I guess I'd better recap a bit for you:

After 2 years, we finally get an origin for Thundra: She's from an alternate future, where women have risen to rule the post-apocalyptic remains of Earth, called Femizonia. However, there's also an separate but equal alternate future world where men savagely rule the roost, called Machus. (Remember, pre-Star Wars, all pop culture futures of the 1970s were either sterile utopias that were really rotten at the core, or post-apocalyptic wastelands ruled by a group who obscenely exaggerate the traits of some present-day group).

For some never-explained-anywhere reason, those two Earths are drifting together, and beginning to merge. So, the queen of Femezonia has a brainstorm, and sends Thundra back in time to the 20th century, to beat the crap out of the strongest male of the era. That, they figure, will dispirit all men and embolden all women, so the future that is Machus will never come to pass, thereby saving the Femizons.

But the leader of Machus, Mahkizmo (chortle) followed Thundra back (OK, he missed by a couple of years) to prevent her plan. He captures her, beats the stuffing out of the FF with his amazing (but again, completely unexplained) ability to generate internal "nuclear power" for punching and hitting and general mayhem. Reed jiggers Doctor Doom's time machine to follow, but they get captured and caged--except for Medusa, who takes the time machine and flees.
Phew...who created this mess, anyway??

In fairness, we can't blame Tony Isabella. As mentioned the other day, Gerry Conway and Len Wein "swapped" writing duties on the FF and Marvel Team-Up. Conway dropped the FF like a hot potato, not bothering to finish the 3-parter after having written the first two chapters. And Wein wasn't ready yet (and wouldn't be...his "run" consisted one and a half issues), so Tony Isabella, the Tony Bedard of his day, stepped in to pinch-hit and finish the story. His bad luck. (The credits don't list Conway as plotter or co-plotter, so it's unclear how much of this particular chapter is Conway's doing and how much Isabella's)

Rich Buckler? I never really liked his FF work. It always seemed as if he was trying to slavishly imitate Kirby (perhaps by editorial decree?) but didn't have the chops--at least at this stage of his career--to pull it off. So we got lots of stiff figures, odd anatomy, graceless poses, and poorly portrayed action, with none of The King's fluidity or dynamism. Long-time FF inker Joe Sinnott usually managed to smooth things out and make it somewhat more presentable...but it frequently was pretty rough. (In fairness, I should acknowledge that coming between John Buscema's run and George Perez's was a task that would make many an artist look not-so-good by comparison...)

OK, back to our story. Reed, Johnny and Ben are trapped in a "stasis cage," and they can't get out!


But wait--Reed uses some (gasp) actual science to think their way out of the trap!!

Sadly, they're immediately recaptured, and brought before Mahkizmo in UNNECESSARY SPLASH PAGE #1:

Interesting how they've "stagnated mentally" but have all of this super-science that's better than anything Reed has...hey, the post-apocalypse is just wacky like that, I guess!! Anyway, we now learn the real reason the FF can't beat this crumb-bum:


Ah, yes, a "domina ray." And of course he must have had a "portable version" with him when he kicked your butts back in the Baxter Building...nice way to immediately retcon a humiliating defeat, Ben.

So, they're sent to the arena, along with Thundra, doing their Reservoir Dogs walk along the way:

Because, you see, every post-apocalyptic nightmare world must have an arena where our hero(es) must fight lackeys/monsters. In this case, the monsters are a good excuse for Buckler to try to go as Kirby as possible.



They defeat the monsters, but that just means Mahkizmo himself will enter the ring, and put the beat-down on the domina ray controlled FF:

Which leads to UNNECESSARY SPLASH PAGE #2:

Fortunately, help arrives:


See, Medusa didn't run away--she ran for help, and is leading a screaming horde of femizons into battle!! And, provide a distraction so they can destroy the domina ray:



Mahkizmo decides to go nuclear, but Ben and Thundra wallop him simultaneously, right in the Kirby Dots:


Now get ready for the crappy pseudo-science, crappy pseudo-gender politics, deus ex machina of the decade. The double punch somehow causes Mahkizmo to explode...even though he's been punched several times before while going nuclear, to no ill effect. Then, the explosion of Mahkizmo has somehow forced the instantaneous complete merger of Machus and Femizonia (hey, since they never told us why they were merging to begin with, who's to say it couldn't happen. Right??):

Well, that can't be a good thing, can it?

Really?

Oh, you've got to be kidding me..."make love not war" is really how you end this?!? Everyone's forgotten their hatred...just because?This is how you end the ultimate battle of the sexes--by just declaring "everything magically got better?"

Even Reed can't explain this in a way that makes any sense:

Nice try, Reed...let the redhead take a stab at it:


"Natural forces?!?" Sounds more like the magical sorting hat...

Wait..wait...you mean that 1974 Earth was a "world where the sexes are equal by choice?" Medusa, I gotta agree with Ben here--"mumbo-jumbo" of the super jumbo variety.

And we end on a sit-com note:

Sigh...

I may have been lukewarm on Conway's Amazing Spider-Man run, but boy oh boy did I actively dislike his FF. And this issue, while he didn't actually script it, sums things up nicely: ridiculous premises that weren't thought out, resolved by even more ridiculous coincidences and flukes, and usually our heroes had little or nothing to do with defeating their enemies. And don't get me started on his Reed and Sue...

Fortunately, Roy was returning...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Speaking of Rich Buckler and post-apocalyptic futures:

Perhaps it was because he was more invested, having created Deathlok, and co-plotted all the issues, and even did some scripting himself, and occasionally inked himself--maybe that's why I generally liked his Deathlok work so much more than his FF stuff. In fact, I think it's overall the best work of his career.

Plus: post-apocalyptic future!! Cyborg!! Who has conversations with a computer in his head!! Who is the ultimate killing machine!! And he fights big-ass wolf-cyborg thingies!! I could never figure out why Deathlok wasn't more popular, because young snell thought he rocked pretty hard...Perhaps he was just a couple of decades ahead of his time.