FANTASTIC FOUR #252

"CITYSCAPE"
Chronicler: John Byrne | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Tom DeFalco | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: On a planet within the Negative Zone, the arrival of the Fantastic Four is observed by a group of primitive natives. These beings attack the FF, poisoning Mister Fantastic and rendering him unconscious. The fight is stopped by the village elder, Mama Shonti. She explains that the FF’s arrival was foretold in prophecy and that they are destined to destroy the massive walled city of Ootah, which expelled the natives years ago, forcing their devolution to a primitive state.

On Earth, Annihilus searches the Baxter Building for Franklin Richards, finds him, and takes him prisoner.

The natives prepare to sacrifice a young woman named Taiya to Ootah, but the Human Torch and the Thing rescue her. When the Thing proves that Ootah will destroy anything which attempts to pass through its walls, not just a living woman as the natives have long believed, the FF decide the city is malevolent and raze its walls. Reed comes around and attempts to stop them, but is too late. Ootah’s brain is destroyed and the villagers go berserk within the city limits, rampaging throughout.

As Ootah falls, Reed reveals that it was actually a highly evolved artificial intelligence which one day might have become sentient if not for the superstitions of its former inhabitants leading to its destruction.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Annihilus recalls that he once harnessed Franklin’s mutant power to his own sinister ends, but he is no longer able to do so thanks to the psychic blocks Franklin put in place in issue 245.

Is It Clobberin' Time? Yes, the Thing lays some clobberin’ on Ootah’s brain.

My Thoughts: Byrne has, as noted previously, used some of his FANTASTIC FOUR installments as a sort of “TWILIGHT ZONE” anthology series, using the FF to explore unusual phenomena around the world. Here, he begins a storyline which will see the series turn into an analogue for STAR TREK as the FF spend a few issues seeking out new life and new civilizations in the Negative Zone. This first stop in particular has a very TREKish feel to it, with the team encountering a race of primitives and, without a “Prime Directive” to follow, inadvertently doing harm to their world’s development.

But of more interest to me is the fact that Byrne randomly draws this issue in landscape format. Every page, including the cover (save the “Marvel Comics Group” trade dress and the issue number and Comics Code seal) is orientated horizontally. The bizarre thing about this is it serves no purpose. I get that it’s a fun and different thing to do, and it’s cool to read a comic with an unusual layout, but one would expect the story to somehow facilitate such a concept. However, outside of a title which stretches to justify the experiment, there’s nothing about this issue that couldn’t have been done in standard portrait style orientation.

So the story’s not bad and the artistic experiment is kind of interesting; it just would've been nice if they could have been tied together somehow.