FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #17

"LEGACY"
Words and Pictures: John Byrne | Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Carl Potts | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
With thanks to Jim Salicrup, Tom DeFalco, and Al Milgrom

The Plot: In upstate New York, Sharon Selleck has car troubles and walks to the nearest town. She finds the citizens inhospitable, but manages to get a hotel room and a meal at the local diner, followed by a promise from the town mechanic to get her car fixed. But the next day the garage is closed, and Sharon finds herself stranded in an increasingly frightening town.

Sharon calls Julie Angel in New York but is cut off, then sneaks out of the hotel and leaves town, followed by a throng of citizens. She manages to hide from them and call the Fantastic Four from a phone booth, but the FF are unavailable and Sharon is grabbed before she can relay her plea for help to Roberta the robot receptionst.

The next day, Johnny visits Julie and learns Sharon could be in trouble. They return to the Baxter Building, where Reed plays the recording of Sharon’s panicked call from the night before. Reed pinpoints the call’s origin as King’s Crossing, New York, where the FF first encountered the Skrulls.

The team infiltrates King’s Crossing using subterfuge and Johnny rescues Sharon. Realizing the townspeople are infected with a Skrull virus, Reed restores them to normal with a counteragent. After making amends with the local sheriff, the Fantastic Four and Sharon head home.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: As noted last time, according to the Marvel Chronology Project, this issue takes place during the two days that elapsed between panels in FANTASTIC FOUR #257, to account for Reed’s appearance here despite his disappearance at the end of that previous issue. Johnny reinforces this chronology at one point as he recaps the events of the past few days.

We learn this issue that Sharon is the lead singer of a “shatterock” band called the Rolling Dead. She was on her way to a gig when the car (which she had borrowed from Julie) broke down.

The Fantastic Four first encountered the Skrulls in FF #2, which Sue recaps for Sharon:

Reed then realizes that the Skrulls he left in a field as cows began to produce something akin to milk, but which imbued anyone who ingested it with shapeshifting powers. The townspeople attempted to ply Sharon with their tainted dairy, but being lactose intolerant, she couldn’t keep it down.

Reed detects the Skrull influence on the locals using a scanner he constructed following the FF’s second battle with Super-Skrull in FF #32.

Reed states that the townspeople were tainted by the Skrulls for six years, meaning Byrne is adhering here to the “Seven Year” rule – everything which happened in the Marvel Universe since FANTASTIC FOUR #1, regardless of how long has passed in real time, is considered to have occurred over the span of seven years. Though I believe at some point those seven years became ten, which is a number I’m much more comfortable with.

Is It Clobberin' Time? It’s probably the best clobberin’ time yet, as Ben rhetorically asks, “Hey, kiddies, do you know what time it is?” before unleashing…

My Thoughts: It’s another one of those TWILIGHT ZONE-y stories for which Byrne like to use the FF as a vehicle, but I actually really liked this one. First off, given the extra page length of an annual, Byrne builds his story slowly. The first seventeen pages are dedicated entirely to Sharon and her plight, as the townspeople become progressively creepier and creepier to her. It really sets up an eerie atmosphere.

Then the FF come in, but the story doesn’t immediately go into straight-up superhero mode. Instead we get the group going “undercover” in King’s Crossing, which is something you don’t normally expect from this series. But when Byrne decides he’s going to go offbeat, he apparently goes all the way.

But eventually it’s action time, and as usual, Byrne shines there as well, going wild with a ton of creative looking Kirby-style monsters assaulting the Fantastic Four before Reed finally puts a stop to things. And on top of that, we get to see the new black-and-white costumes in full-out action for the first time. I will never understand how anyone can prefer the FF in blue. These uniforms are infinitely superior to the classic look, or any variation thereof.

The only nits I must pick are relatively minor: One, Sharon is spotted initially by a little boy who turns into a dog and follows her around town. The story makes it seem like this could be important, like maybe the boy will serve some role in freeing Sharon or helping the FF. But after that initial scene, we never see him again.

And two – slightly more egregious though it still doesn’t bug me all that much – the fate of King’s Crossing was basically caused by the FF when Reed planted those Skrulls in a nearby field years earlier. Yet when Reed explains to the police chief that the Skrull’s milk retarded their aging and they are no older now than they were when they first transformed, all is forgiven and the FF fly off into the sunset. It feels like a cheat.

But as I said, it doesn’t bother me that much. This is a fun story and a worthy use of the Annual’s double length.