FANTASTIC FOUR #277

"BACK FROM BEYOND"
Story and Pencils: John Byrne | Embellishing: Jerry Ordway
Coloring: Glynis Oliver | Lettering: John Workman
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: On Earth, the Thing returns from the Beyonder’s Battleworld and goes to visit Alicia. When he finds Johnny there early in the morning, Ben lashes out at his teammate. Alicia calms them down, but further conversation is interrupted when another planet appears, moving toward the Earth. While Johnny takes Alicia to the Baxter Building, Ben runs across a woman who shapeshifts into an alien Dire Wraith, but dies before she can steal Ben’s body when the other planet explodes. In the aftermath, Ben learns that the planet was the Dire Wraith homeworld, and was destroyed by Rom the Spaceknight and his allies.

Meanwhile, Doctor Strange arrives in Belle Porte, Connecticut to find Reed, Sue, and Franklin Richards apparently dead — but his mystic senses reveal that their souls have actually left their bodies. Strange follows the errant souls to the realm of Mephisto, where the demon lord has imprisoned Franklin while he tortures Reed and Sue. Strange releases Franklin, whose mutant power—unencumbered by the psychic blocks placed on it in his physical form — apparently destroys Mephisto in a fit of fury. With the villain defeated, Strange and the Richardses return to Belle Porte.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A lengthy footnote recaps Ben’s time on Battleworld, and he also thinks to himself that he became the Thing permanently once more while trapped there.