FANTASTIC FOUR #238

"THE LADY IS FOR BURNING!"
Words and Pictures: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Frankie Raye reveals to Johnny that she has a golden costume which vanishes when she's wearing clothes and reappears when she isn't. She explains her past to Johnny, which causes her to suddenly “flame on” and unlocks repressed memories of her childhood, when she was accidentally endowed with fire-powers by her stepfather. Johnny begins to teach Frankie control over her abilities, then takes her to the Baxter Building, where Reed runs some tests on her.

Meanwhile, in Benson, Arizona, a doctor named Jake and his wife, Penny, peform an autopsy on a man who was frightened to death. Penny persuades Jake that they must contact the Fantastic Four for help.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A footnote on the first page reminds us that the FF were recently prisoners of Doctor Doom.

The majority of this story is a recap of Frankie’s life. In a nutshell: she originally had no memory of her life before she was fourteen years old. But when her memories are unlocked she recalls her stepfather, Thomas Raye, a repairman who became distraught when the Fantastic Four first appeared, and took Frankie to his hidden lab with the intention of building a new Human Torch.

Johnny realizes that Thomas Raye was an alias, and Frankie’s stepfather was actually Phineas Horton, creator of the original World War II android Human Torch.

After running his tests, Reed suggests that Frankie could become a new member of the FF.

For the timeline-conscious among us, Frankie says she was fourteen when she put on the costume, which was shortly after the Fantastic Four’s public debut, and also says that she's worn the costume for six years. Ergo, per Byrne at this point, the FF have been in operation for barely more than half a decade.

Is It Clobberin' Time? No, the Thing has only a three-panel cameo in this story.

My Thoughts: First off, the cover cracks me up. I even like Byrne's self-portrait. A lot of people like to rag on him for inserting himself into his stories, calling him egotistical -- and while he may well be, this is really no different from the time Doctor Doom visited Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in an FF annual many years earlier. Byrne merely ran with their precedent.

As a “story”, there's really not much to say about this one. It's basically one long exposition dump as Byrne brings his weird Frankie Raye sub-plot to a close and ties her in with the Golden Age Human Torch (this is not the last time Byrne will visit that character, either, though he won't return to him in this FANTASTIC FOUR run).

I know I'm overthinking this, but what's up with Frankie’s costume? She's worn it since she was fourteen, but it only appears when she's naked. We first glimpsed the concept when she caught sight of herself in a mirror as she reached for a towel a few issues back. But surely she has looked down at herself in the shower many times over the years? Surely in general she's seen herself nude once or twice in the mirror? Further, is she a virgin? Not that there's anything wrong with that; but the implication here is that literally no one, including herself, has seen her naked in six years.

The whole concept makes absolutely no sense, but at least it's been explained and we can put it behind us now.

"THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…"
Story and Pencils: John Byrne | Guest Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Reed creates a new robotic babysitter for Franklin, then escorts Sue, Franklin, Ben, and Alicia into a secret chamber which houses a machine Reed is certain will transform the Thing back into Ben Grimm. Reed straps Ben in and activates the device, but it overloads and explodes and Ben is reverted to an earlier form of his Thing body.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: As noted in the caption above, two weeks have passed since the first story in this issue.

Franklin’s new “sitter” is based upon that beloved former member of the FF family, Saturday morning cartoon mainstay HERBIE the robot. I believe official sources have named him HUBERT, but to my knowledge, Byrne never addresses the robot by any name during his time on this title.

Ben asks Alicia point blank if she loves the Thing or Ben Brimm, and notices her hesitation in answering.

The form Ben reverts to is based on his appearance from the earliest issues of FANTASTIC FOUR.

Is It Clobberin' Time? No, but Ben does try to smash HUBERT.

My Thoughts: I feel like every FANTASTIC FOUR writer believes they have some obligation to do a story where Reed tries to revert Ben to normal, and I just don't see why. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did it best in “This Man, This Monster!” from FF #51; anybody who tries to revisit that ground is doing themselves and the readers a disservice. And Byrne seems to realize this; while he also pays homage to the trope, he makes sure to have Reed explain that if this attempt doesn't work, Ben will be stuck as the Thing forever. Though, in the tradition of "the illusion of change", Byrne will step back that declaration in only a few issues' time.

The art in this story is wonderful. I really have little problem with Byrne’s inking his own work on this series, but at the same time, seeing him polished here by his X-MEN finisher Terry Austin makes the regular monthly installments pale by comparison. Austin’s tight, crisp style is just what Byrne’s somewhat rough pencils need. It's too bad he only returns one or two more times before this long run is over.