FANTASTIC FOUR #274

"MONSTER MASH"
Penciling & Scripting: John Byrne | Inking: Al Gordon
Coloring: Glynis Wein | Lettering: Diana Albers
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editing-in-Chiefing: Jim Shooter

The Plot: While the Fantastic Four attend to their personal lives on Earth, the Thing is still trapped on the Beyonder’s Battleworld. There, he meets the Frankenstein monster and both are captured by a masked man named Kemp, in the employ of Doctor Julius Akerman, the Monster Master. The Thing and the monster are placed in Akerman’s wagon with Gregor Lupus, a werewolf, but the Thing gets free by changing to Ben Grimm.

A fight breaks out between Ben and Kemp, which is joined by the werewolf at Akerman’s command. Ben becomes the Thing once more to fight the werewolf, while the monster exits the wagon and kills Akerman. Free of his spell, the monster and the werewolf depart, while Ben continues his trek across Battleworld.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: This tale is continued from THE THING #19. That issue is reprinted in the FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE OMNIBUS volume 2, but I have elected to skip it as its story is sufficiently recapped in this issue.

And the recap is simply: Ben Grimm, traveling across Battleworld in search of a woman named Tari, has run into a number of creatures he recalls from the monster movies he watched as a child. He knows these are figments of his imagination, as Battleworld has brought several of his thoughts to life over the time he’s spent there, but they’re real enough to cause him trouble.