FANTASTIC FOUR #292

"THE MAN WHO DREAMED THE WORLD!"
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: Al Gordon
Colorist: Glynis Oliver | Letterer: John Workman
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Invisible Woman, She-Hulk, Human Torch, and “Licorice” Calhoun fly to Berlin, intent on stopping Nick Fury from assassinating Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, Fury sneaks into Hitler’s sanctum and attacks the dictator, but is taken out by his guards. The Fantastic Trio arrives soon after and battles a giant Nazi robot, then Sue goes in search of Fury.

She finds him under interrogation and frees him. They're making their way out of the room, Sue having convinced Fury not to kill Hitler, when the Führer draws a gun. Fury whirls and shoots him.

Then, suddenly, Fury and the others awaken in a modern day SHIELD facility with Mister Fantastic watching over them. Reed explains that Licorice is a mutant and has been in a coma for fifty years. In his dreams, his power recently began creating brief time warps, one of which sucked in the FF members and Fury when She-Hulk rescued him from being killed in 1936. Licorice’s survival resulted in no more time warps, but also trapped the group in his dream with him. Fury’s killing Hitler finally jolted them free.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Sue and Johnny use their powers in a very creative tandem (seriously; this is a stunt that would make Chris Claremont, master of team power coordination, green with envy) to jet the FF across the Atlantic, and Sue says the trick was inspired by their return from orbit in issue 279.

She-Hulk recaps the events of last issue by telling Sue and Johhny a bunch of stuff they already know as if they hadn't been there for any of it:

Fury screams “Wa-hoo!” as he bursts in on Hitler, the trademark war cry of the Howling Commandos.

A couple times in the issue, Fury's possible assassination of Hitler and the ensuing temporal disturbance it would create is compared with the Beyonder's attempt to kill Doctor Doom before he was able to participate in the Secret Wars back in issue 289.

Johhny notes that the group is tracking Fury with the aid of a transceiver She-Hulk borrowed from him last issue.

When She-Hulk easily disarms the Nazi robot with some jovial banter, Johhny observes that she's quickly gotten over a concern expressed in issue 289 that she might be little more than the FF’s eye candy.

Reed explains how he survived his fight with Annihilus in issue 290. (Turns out he actually was that weather balloon that left the battle site after all! Who’da guessed?)

My Thoughts: This issue returns to that TWILIGHT ZONE feel of the earliest Byrne stories; in fact Licorice Calhoun’s time warp dreams bring to mind comparisons with the unconscious reality warps of Skip Collins way back in issue 234, the first story to which I made a TWILIGHT ZONE comparison. But I think I like this tale much better than that one for the simple fact that the FF and friends play something of an active role in the proceedings.

Recall that in #234’s “The Man With the Power”, Skip altered the world around him and the FF spent the entire issue on the defensive, fighting back against his various warps. They never got to the bottom of what was causing the changes; never even met Skip! Here, She-Hulk rescues Licorice from the accident which originally left him comatose and as a result the FF are sucked into his dream — a scenario which only ends due to Fury’s direct action. This is a far cry from the FF’s lack of proactivity in the prior adventure.

Plus Byrne clearly loves doing period pieces like this. From 1936 Manhattan last time to 1936 Berlin here, he almost seems more at home drawing the vehicles, architecture, and fashions of the past than those of the present. It makes me wish, as I believe I noted once before, that Byrne’s entire run could've been a period piece.