FANTASTIC FOUR #277

"BACK FROM BEYOND"
Story and Pencils: John Byrne | Embellishing: Jerry Ordway
Coloring: Glynis Oliver | Lettering: John Workman
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: On Earth, the Thing returns from the Beyonder’s Battleworld and goes to visit Alicia. When he finds Johnny there early in the morning, Ben lashes out at his teammate. Alicia calms them down, but further conversation is interrupted when another planet appears, moving toward the Earth. While Johnny takes Alicia to the Baxter Building, Ben runs across a woman who shapeshifts into an alien Dire Wraith, but dies before she can steal Ben’s body when the other planet explodes. In the aftermath, Ben learns that the planet was the Dire Wraith homeworld, and was destroyed by Rom the Spaceknight and his allies.

Meanwhile, Doctor Strange arrives in Belle Porte, Connecticut to find Reed, Sue, and Franklin Richards apparently dead — but his mystic senses reveal that their souls have actually left their bodies. Strange follows the errant souls to the realm of Mephisto, where the demon lord has imprisoned Franklin while he tortures Reed and Sue. Strange releases Franklin, whose mutant power—unencumbered by the psychic blocks placed on it in his physical form — apparently destroys Mephisto in a fit of fury. With the villain defeated, Strange and the Richardses return to Belle Porte.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A lengthy footnote recaps Ben’s time on Battleworld, and he also thinks to himself that he became the Thing permanently once more while trapped there.

Alicia and Johnny reveal to Ben this issue that they fell in love while he was away. Ben doesn’t mind this exactly; he had planned to break up with Alicia following his time on the Beyonder’s planet. But he had hoped to do so on his terms, and feels betrayed over the fact he was unable to accomplish that goal.

Johnny compares the damage caused by the approaching Dire Wraith homeworld with that done in FF #234, referring to it as “that time Ego the Living Planet attacked!” Readers will recall that in that issue, the damage appeared to be caused by one “Skip” Collins, but he apparently unconsciously summoned Ego with his reality warping powers and Ego actually caused the chaos on Earth (I think? Issue 234 is incredibly unclear as to what's caused by Skip and what's caused by Ego). Skip repaired the damage done at the end of 234, but here it’s noted that New York (and the Earth) will undergo a lengthy period of repair.

The Dire Wraiths were the primary villains of ROM, one of Marvel’s licensed comics in the eighties (and one of the few licensed comics at that point to take place firmly in the mainstream Marvel Universe). The full tale of the Wraiths’ homeworld’s destruction was told in ROM #65.

Reed recalls that Franklin’s psychic blocks were placed in issue 245.

At the issue’s conclusion, She-Hulk prepares to move back to Avengers Mansion, but the Thing tells her not to — he’s back on Earth, but he has no intention of returning to the Fantastic Four. We're told to follow his story into THE THING #23.

Is It Clobberin' Time? The Thing is here, he fights the Human Torch, and he fights a Dire Wraith, yet somehow, sadly, there’s no clobberin’ to be declared in this issue.

My Thoughts: And that’s a series wrap on Benjamin J. Grimm, folks. Though Byrne has about twenty issues and an annual remaining before he departs FANTASTIC FOUR, he will not utilize the Thing again in anything more than the most minor of flashbacks. And it’s a real shame, too. I love She-Hulk; she’s one of my favorite Marvel characters — and I appreciate the different dynamic she brings to the team makeup. But I feel that of all the founding FF members, Byrne had the best handle on Ben, both artistically and characterization-wise. If not for the fact that he and She-Hulk make each other redundant, I would have much preferred to see Ben stay on with her and, say, Johnny leave for the rest of the run. (I have nothing against the Torch per se; I just find him the least compelling member of the FF.)

As far this issue goes — it’s another experiment from Byrne, this time telling two stories in parallel — one using the top half of every page and the other using the bottom. I’m not sure if Byrne was the first person to do this, though I would assume not. I know I’ve seen it elsewhere, notably in a Mark Gruenwald CAPTAIN AMERICA issue published a couple years after this one. But he does it very well in any case. You can read the top half of every page and then the bottom half, you can read the top halves of every two page spread and then the bottoms, or you can simply read the entire top half and then the entire bottom half, and you won’t feel lost trying any of these methods.

I also appreciate Byrne’s use of the larger Marvel continuity here. I’ve never read ROM, though it’s another series, like MICRONAUTS, where I understand Bill Mantlo did some really good work. Byrne’s partner-turned-rival, Chris Claremont, utilized the Dire Wraiths as well during this time period over in X-MEN, so there must have been something to the concept. In any event, I’m glad to see Byrne acknowledging something so world-shattering as another planet entering Earth’s orbit here in the pages of one of Marvel’s top-tier titles.