Appearing in ""The Fantastic Four Battle the Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android""
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Mad Thinker ⏵ (First appearance)
- Awesome Android ⏵ (First appearance)
- Various gangsters
- Blackie Skarr (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- Yancy Street Gang (First full appearance)
- F.B.I.
- Bones 'n Bailey Circus
- Pierre (Sue's hairdresser) (First appearance)
- Peggy (Johnny's date) (First appearance)
- General Electronics
- Van Dorn (First appearance)
- Cartright (First appearance)
- Roger (First appearance)
- Higgens (a driver) (First appearance)
- Fatal Finnegan (First appearance)
- New York Policemen
Locations:
Items:
- Fantasti-Flare
- Vibra-Guns
Synopsis for ""The Fantastic Four Battle the Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android""
After receiving a call from the mayor to deal with the recent surge of mob activity in the city, Reed Richards summons the other members of the Fantastic Four, even though it will interrupt his crucial DNA experiments to do so. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, a super-genius known as the Mad Thinker revels over how he and his computing machines have been able to assist the local mobs into committing their crimes without being captured. The Thinker then decides to set higher goals and begins plotting to take over the world. When the mob warns him that the Fantastic Four will try and stop him the Thinker tells them that he has already come up with a means to eliminate the heroes and prevent them from interfering in his operations.
Sometime later, the Human Torch is visited by his cousin Bones who informs Johnny that his circus is starting to fail without an attraction to draw people in. Meanwhile, Reed Richards is offered a research position with the prestigious General Electronics Corporation. This also happens to coincide with the Thing being offered a wrestling career and Sue being scouted by a Hollywood agent. Returning to the Baxter Building, each member of the Fantastic Four express their desires to seek out these other opportunities and agree to disband for a short period to see if this is what they truly want.
As it turns out these events were orchestrated by the Mad Thinker, and after a meteor strikes the Earth disabling the Baxter Building's security systems, he and the mobsters take over the Fantastic Four's abandoned headquarters. Meanwhile, each member of the Fantastic Four find their new careers fulfilling compared to their lives as super-heroes. They all decide to return home and are shocked to find the Baxter Building surrounded by crystal. The Thinker then projects a hologram of himself daring the Fantastic Four to face him in their own headquarters. The foursome easily break through the crystal barrier and defeat the mobsters armed with Reed's own weapons. They next battled the so-called Awesome Android, an android created by the Mad Thinker based on Reed's own research. They are able to defeat the creature when Reed points out its single weakness.
The Mad Thinker then faced the Fantastic Four alone, but suddenly found none of the devices in Reed's lab worked any longer and was quickly subdued. Reed then revealed that the Mad Thinker was foiled thanks to a contingency plan that he could not have foretold: Before leaving the Baxter Building to take his job at General Electronics, Reed hired their mailman Willie Lumpkin to press a button outside their headquarters every day that would temporarily deactivate all the devices within. With the Mad Thinker's plot ruined, the Fantastic Four turn the criminal mastermind over to the authorities.
Notes
- This issue is reprinted in other comics and books, see references for more info.[1]
Continuity Notes
- Although appearing to be a one-off character, the wrestler known as Fatal Finnegan in this story is revealed to be a fan favorite of the Yancy Street Gang in Fantastic Four: First Family #3
Trivia
Click to Enlarge
- The Thing formally took up a wrestling career in Thing #28, when he joined the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation.
- This issue also features a "Fantastic Four Pin-up Page" signed by Stan and Jack.
- This issue features a letters page, Fantastic Four Fan Page. Letters are published from Mary hoffman, Ronn Goff, Reynolds M. Morris, Michael "Mickey" Martin, Fred Gibbons, Ginger Church, Roger Mann, Ricky Phillips, Roy Thomas, Bob Kennedy, and Jerry Smith.
- Concerning the published letter by Roy Thomas: Stan Lee ironically responds to this letter (which was rather long) with "it's a good thing we don't pay you by the word!" Lee would later hire Thomas as both a writer and EIC at Marvel Comics.
- Also in his letter, Roy Thomas mentions that he would like to have head masts of each of the Fantastic Four on the cover, with two heads on each side of their distinctive, "Fantastic Four" centered logo. As writer and editor, Thomas will later make this happen in Fantastic Four Vol 1 160.
See Also
Links and References
References
- ↑ The first story is reprinted in the following comics/TPB's:
- Essential Series Vol 1 Fantastic Four 1
- Marvel Collectors' Item Classics Vol 1 10
- Giant-Size Fantastic Four Vol 1 5
- Marvel Masterworks Vol 1 6
- Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol 1 1
- Epic Collection Vol 1 Fantastic Four 1