FANTASTIC FOUR #233

"MISSION FOR A DEAD MAN!"
Story & Art: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: George David Munson, an inmate on death row, is executed. His final wish is for the prison’s priest to deliver a letter to the Human Torch. Two weeks later, Father Vito arrives at the Baxter Building and gives the note to Johnny Storm. It turns out Munson went to high school with Johnny and, while he is guilty of many crimes, he says he was not guilty of the murder for which he was sentenced. He asks Johnny to posthumously clear his name of that crime for the sake of his mother.

Johnny sets out on a quest to exonerate Munson, and the trail of clues leads him to Maggia don Hammerhead. The Torch tries to get the truth from Hammerhead, but Munson’s name means nothing to him. Ultimately, Hammerhead escapes and Johnny is no closer to an answer -- until a police detective informs him that several of the Kingpin’s files were recently turned over to the authorities. With those files, Johnny is able to get Munson’s murder conviction overturned.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Johnny attended Glennville High School, and he notes that he became the Human Torch during his junior year there.

Hammerhead was believed killed in a storyline which ran through AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues 157 – 159.

Hammerhead uses an exo-skeleton provided by the Tinkerer, also of SPIDER-MAN fame.

The Kingpin’s files were turned over to the FBI in DAREDEVIL 172, part of Frank Miller’s fabled run.

Is It Clobberin’ Time? The Thing has only a cameo appearance this issue, and while he tries to murder the Torch in a fit of rage (more on that below), this issue is not clobberin’ time.

My Thoughts: I like when a team book occasionally devotes an issue to a spotlight on a single character. In this case we see the rest of the FF for only five pages comprising one scene, and the remainder of the issue is devoted to Johnny alone.

I also like when heroes are matched up with villains from other characters’ rogues galleries; it’s fun to see them outside their normal realms and in this case Hammerhead is an especially random and interesting choice to battle the Torch.

So you'd think I'd like this issue, but unfortunately I find it kind of substandard. I want to enjoy it, and the Torch’s detective work and fight with Hammerhead are a lot of fun to read. But it all sort of comes apart over the final couple pages as Hammerhead escapes without revealing anything to the Torch, and Munson’s name is cleared only by the deus ex machina of the Kingpin’s files, which are part of a completely unrelated storyline in an entirely different title! What a bizarre way to end this thing. It essentially renders Johnny’s mission moot, and makes one wonder why we just spent a bunch of time reading about it in the first place.

But the journey is fun, at least, and there's one other thing to appreciate about this issue: John Byrne is well known for taking any series he touches “back to basics” (heck, that was the title of the previous issue), sometimes with less-than-stellar results. But here he takes that approach with the Thing, and it totally works. Ben Grimm as originally presented was a tragic character, cursed to live his life in a monstrous body, tortured by his very existence. But somehow, over the years, he became a big cuddly curmudgeon instead.

Here, in one scene, Byrne reminds us that the Thing hates himself for what he is, and brings the tragedy back in full force as we encounter Ben trying to kill Johnny over a joke about his appearance. It's a trifle extreme, maybe, but there's no mistaking Byrne’s intent: the Thing is back to being a self-loathing, pitiable character who merely hides his misery under a projection of jocularity. This is the Thing as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby conceived him, and this is the Thing as he should be.