FANTASTIC FOUR #249

"MAN AND SUPER-MAN!"
Chronicler: John Byrne | Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: George Roussos
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Superior Being: Jim Shooter

The Plot: A Skrull starship emerges from hyperspace near Pluto, pursued by Gladiator of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard. The ship seemingly explodes under Gladiator’s assault.

On Earth, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are out in Central Park when they spot the Fantastic Four’s signal flare. Johnny is first back to the Baxter Building, where Reed explains that he monitored an explosion near Pluto, and some piece of debris from that explosion is rocketing to Earth faster than the speed of light. The “debris” is soon revealed as Gladiator, who appears in Manhattan to be challenged by the Thing.

Gladiator defeats the Thing, then the Human Torch. Mister Fantastic attempts to reason with him using his universal translator and learns Gladiator is after the Skrulls, but Gladiator then takes him out as well. The Invisible Girl follows, as does the Thing, back for a second round. Then, as Gladiator gloats over the defeated FF, he is confronted by the X-Men.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Johnny and Ben bump into Julie Angel, dressed up as some kind of mime for a drama class exercise, in Central Park. Ben is thrown into a funk when he realizes how much he frightens Julie. Also, Johnny wears an absurdly fringed jacket during the scene.

Johnny recalls that Frankie Raye became Galactus’s herald in issue 244. When he reaches the Baxter Building, we’re treated to an old-fashioned Silver Age-y cutaway of the new layout.

When Gladiator announces himself as an agent of the Shi’ar, a footnote tells us to check out UNCANNY X-MEN for more on that alien civilization.

Franklin attempts to lash out at Gladiator using his mutant power, but the psychic blocks placed in issue 245 hold, rendering him ineffective.

When the X-Men appear, it's noted that they're speaking in Gladiator’s alien tongue rather than English.

Is It Clobberin' Time? It is straight-up "Leap out the window into the bad guy while yelling 'It's clobberin' time!' time"! (Though narration lets us know Ben is all talk this time, as Gladiator makes swift work of him in the very next panel.)

My Thoughts: I have to imagine that when John Byrne left X-MEN for FANTASTIC FOUR, there had to be fans who, unaware of the somewhat acrimonious nature of his departure, wanted to know when the X-Men would pop up in the pages of FF. Here, Byrne gives those fans what they want – sort of. But we’ll cover that in more depth next time. Instead, this issue is dedicated to a fight between the Fantastic Four and Superman.

The Shi’ar Imperial Guard were created by Dave Cockrum and Chris Claremont as a not-so-thinly veiled parody of/tribute to DC’s Legion of Super Heroes, and as one of the Legion’s premiere members at the time was Superboy, naturally the Shi’ar team included an analogue for him. But Gladiator is clearly a man rather than a boy, and so from pretty much day one, he was Marvel’s answer to Superman.

(Though Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme was also Marvel’s Superman, of course; the Squadron being analogues for the Justice League. Has anyone ever written a Hyperion vs. Gladiator fight?)

Considering Byrne would later go on to write Superman’s adventures and drastically decrease his power levels, it's fun to see his take on the pre-CRISIS version of the character. This “Superman” takes out all of the FF without breaking a sweat, knocking out the Thing with one blow, snuffing out the Human Torch with a gust of super-breath, and basically stretching Mister Fantastic into unconsciousness. Only the Invisible Girl gives him anything resembling a run for his money, noting that her force fields have taken out the Hulk, but Gladiator eventually overcomes her as well.

So this is the FF’s book, but Byrne makes it clear that if Superman were ever to come calling on the Marvel Universe, its champions would scarcely stand a chance against him. Which, really, is probably how it should be.