Fantastic Four 40

FANTASTIC FOUR #40 (1965)
by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Second part of Doctor Doom versus the powerless Fantastic Four.
Great cover, even if the perspective is a little wonky and the Human Torch’s aim is… weird.

Despite the first page, the Fantastic Four don’t grow to giant size to fight him.

Continuing the theme of last issue, Doom is using Reed’s inventions against him. Including the first drone / spy camera hybrid.

Doom confirms that once he’s done with the Fantastic Four he’ll go back to world conquering.
Everyone needs a hobby.

The spy camera finds Reed, who is saved by Daredevil who transforms his club INTO A SNIPER RIFLE.

Who would’ve thought that the weirdest gadget of the issue would be Daredevil’s?

His reaction to Reed asking a guy who calls himself “Daredevil” to be careful made me laugh.

Reed then hitches a ride on the same taxi driven by Johnny and Susan.
Making his plan from the previous issue (splitting the team so that they can approach the Baxter Building separately) almost completely pointless.

Nice establishing shot of the building, surrounded by the police. It gives the situation a little bit of realism: someone took over a skyscraper and started shooting at civilians, OF COURSE the surrounding area would be evacuated and swarmed by cops!

Meanwhile, Daredevil manages to sneak up on Doom.

It goes about as well as you’d expect.

He barely saves himself with another ridiculous contraption he keeps hidden inside his club… a Telescopic Flexi-Shield ™.

“The sightless sensation”. You can always tell when Stan Lee is narrating.

Doom isn’t very impressed with Daredevil.
Maaaaybe trying to wrestle a guy who goes toe to toe with the Thing wasn’t his smartest move.

But the Fantastic Four are able to rescue him. Specifically Ben Grimm, who has managed to join the rest of the team.

Ben might not be made of rocks at the moment, but he DEFINITELY has stones.

Interestingly, Doom doesn’t recognize him.

We saw Doom very briefly interact with a young Ben in his origin story.
From what we’ve seen in that story alone, it’s perfectly plausible that the two saw each other only once. Future stories will expand their relationship a bit. We can excuse the difference with the fact that Ben is several years older now.

In the meantime Reed has found the Stimulator, a device that he once used against the alien Skrulls, that he’s able to use to restore the team’s powers.
Couldn’t he come up with a more creative name? There’s no way he can trademark “stimulator”.

Even with their powers, Doom is still one step ahead: he activates a freezing unit beneath the floor that is so cold it can even freeze the Human Torch.

Reed buys them a little more time by sabotaging the unit.

Ben Grim brings up a great point: if Reed had this device ready the ENTIRE time, why waste so much time with the crappy gadgets he created last issue?

The answer is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t work completely.

Reed went on and on throughout the entire last issue about them having lost their powers and needing SOMETHING to replace them with, even going so far to call a lawyer to fix his will because without powers they could easily die… ALL OF THAT, and he knew that they just had to wait a few days to get their powers back thanks to the Stimulator!?

Forget “Mister Fantastic”, his codename should be “Drama Queen”!!!

Anyway… Ben will have more legitimate reasons to hate Reed, because he uses the Stimulator to turn him back to the Thing, despite his objections.

Another iconic page from Kirby, with Ben turning back into the Thing again.
And he’s really, REALLY pissed off.

Which is just in time, because Doctor Doom was planning to blast the entire building and the surrounding area.

We have finally reached what is by far the most fondly remembered part of this storyline… the fight between the Thing and Doctor Doom.

It doesn’t start very good for the Thing: Doom hits with 100,000 megavolts…

…AND a hypnotic device…

…AND increases his gravity.

But the Thing keeps coming.

Doom then tries one of my favorite gadgets, which is not named in this issue but will be called the Molecular Expander ™.

But the Thing keeps coming.

Even when Doom blast him again, the Thing keeps coming.

Again.

AND AGAIN.

In fact, the Thing beats Doom so thoroughly that he CRUSHES HIS HANDS, tears apart Doom’s armor, and is so brutal that Reed has to plead him not to kill Doom!!!

Well… the cover DID promise us a “hand-to-hand” fight between the Thing and Doom.

Reed’s mostly concerned about Doom’s diplomatic immunity… although the fact that Doom’s attack on the population of New York could VERY easily be considered an act of war, or at the very very minimum terrorism…

But he’s right about one thing: this battle DEFINITELY hurt Doom’s pride and we will make multiple references to it in the future.

Reed’s hope that Doom won’t ever have enough confidence to attack the Fantastic Four again is… let’s call it significantly less accurate.

The Thing’s not happy about the whole situation, and he does have a point: Reed turned him back into a monster without his consent.

He’ll get over it.

 

Historical significance: 8/10
The relationship between the Fantastic Four and their greatest adversary changes after this battle: so far Doom has been mainly after Reed, but the entire team is an enemy now.
Despite the fact that the Thing leaves the team quite often, he will carry a grudge against Reed’s actions for a long time.

Doom significance: 10/10
Doom won’t take this loss lightly. Even in stories published fifty years later he will STILL be mad at the Thing for the way he defeated him.

Silver Age-ness: 1/10
On the Marvel scale, the only thing preventing the first 0/10 is the complete absence of an explanation for the absence of every single New York hero besides Daredevil, or at least a couple of cameos.

Does it stand the test of time? 9.5/10
There’s a reason this is a classic. The motivations are clear, the heroes struggle consistently, their solutions are credible, every single reference to earlier stories is neatly explained without an infodump… the only reason it doesn’t reach a 10/10 because Reed’s excuse for not using the Stimulator earlier invalidates most of last issue.
Everything else could EASILY fit in a modern story.

It was a Doombot all along
This is the real Doom, no question about it. Even stories that suggests that the vast majority of Doom appereances were Doombots, most notably Walt Simonson’s run, will explicitly refer to the one in this story as the real Doom.

Take over the world
Briefly mentioned to be Doom’s goal once he’s done with the Fantastic Four. Speaking of which…

Destroy the FF!
Arguably the last time he’s after Reed Richards specifically, with the others as little more than collateral damages. After this story, the Thing DEFINITELY becomes a target.

 Crazy tech
A couple of interesting weapons from Doom, including the Molecular Expander, but the trophy HAS to go to Daredevil’s sniper-in-a-cane and personal-shield-slash-umbrella-in-a-cane,