FANTASTIC FOUR #265

"THE HOUSE THAT REED BUILT" | "HOME ARE THE HEROES"
John Byrne, Everything Except...
Lettering by Mike Higgins | Coloring by : Glynis Wein
Editing: Bob Budiansky | Building: Jim Shooter

The Plot: (Story 1) The Trapster breaks into the Baxter Building with plans to kill the Fantastic Four, but is thwarted by the building’s automated defenses.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Franklin’s robotic baby-sitter is named as HUBERT in this story's narration, despite my belief that Byrne never called it by name during his run. Perhaps I was simply remembering that none of the characters seem to refer to the robot by name.

My Thoughts: This is a nifty little eleven-pager narrated partly by Trapster and illustrated from his perspective, through his eyes, and partly narrated by the Baxter Building itself and viewed through its built-in cameras. The story isn’t especially action-packed or funny (aside from the inherent humor of Trapster being defeated by a building), but its creativity makes up for that.

The Plot: (Story 2) A week has passed since Mister Fantastic, the Thing, and the Human Torch vanished, along with several of New York’s other heroes. Sue, Alicia, and Franklin have been staying at Avengers Mansion to be near the heroes’ point of disappearance. As the trio goes out on a walk through Central Park, they witness the heroes’ return. But the happy reunion is cut short when Sue suffers a radiation-induced attack. The FF rush her to the hospital.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Sue recaps the heroes’ disappearance.

Since last we saw her, Alicia’s hair has been shorn off. I believe this was a result of her hospital stay following her beatings as a prisoner of Annihilus in issues 251 – 256, an event mentioned by Sue here.

Reed and Johnny return from the Secret Wars with She-Hulk in a Fantastic Four uniform. Ben is nowhere to be found and Johnny is cut off before he can explain to Alicia what happened to him. Also, bizarrely, we’re told that SECRET WARS #1 is on sale next month — so the FF returned from the event before its first issue had even been published.

Is It Clobberin' Time? I knew this day would come. There’s no Clobberin’ Time this issue and, with the Thing off the FF for pretty much the remainder of Byrne’s run, I’m must sadly retire this category, with only occasional upcoming exceptions for Thing guest-spots. It was a good run, Is It Clobberin’ Time?. You'll be missed.

My Thoughts: Not a lot to say about this particular story. It simply fills in a couple blanks as to the disappearance of Reed, Johnny, and Ben in THE THING #10, and teases She-Hulk as a new member of the team without revealing the wherefores of her joining.

Part of the idea behind SECRET WARS was for every title to be changed in some way. Some of these changes were major, and resonated for years: Colossus breaking up with Kitty Pryde and Spider-Man’s black costume, for example. Other changes barely lasted an issue or two before being discarded: e.g. Iron Man’s souped-up armor.

Byrne, at least, gives us a long-lasting change. The Thing had had his own series for close to a year at this point, but, per Byrne, any good Thing story is, by definition, a good Fantastic Four story. So, in his mind, Byrne had to get the Thing away from his teammates in order to justify his series’ existence. Thus, as all the superheroes return from “Battleworld”, where they fought in a week-long secret war against their villainous counterparts, the Thing — having discovered that on Battleworld he can change back and forth between his human and rocky selves at will — chooses to remain behind for a serialized adventure called “Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger” (which sounds way, way more awesome than it actually is, thanks to a ton of fill-in writers over the serial’s span).

So She-Hulk arrives to fill in for Ben as the Fantastic Four’s muscle. I’ll quickly reiterate my thoughts on She-Hulk from my look at AVENGERS 235 during my Roger Stern Spider-Man reviews:

I've been a fan of the character for years. In general I think that, from Orion slave girls to Gamora and beyond, green chicks are hot. But She-Hulk is my favorite character in that specific category. I knew little about her when I was younger, and I think my first exposure was the (in?)famous Joe Jusko "muscle beach" poster (probably NSFW unless you're on a construction site circa the 1980s), which was prominently positioned on the wall of my local comic shop.

While She-Hulk started out "savage", she was always brainier than her cousin. But I prefer the "sensational" version popularized by John Byrne's run on the character in the early nineties -- though that characterization would begin here, in the pages of Stern's AVENGERS. Stern is the one who would change She-Hulk from a brooding, temperamental amazon into a fun-loving party girl -- which, to me, is a more appealing characterization. There are plenty of characters out there with She-Hulk's original grumpy disposition. It's nice to see a character who transforms into a supposed "monster" but who prefers that form over her weak, mousy alter ego.

So while I’ll miss the thing, there’s no one I’d rather see Byrne use in his place than “Shulkie”. Bring on the next thirty issues!