FANTASTIC FOUR #21 (1963)
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Nick Fury makes the transition from his WWII comics (which were still running) into the modern Marvel Universe, the same year of his first appearance.
We begin with a regular day in the lives of the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards is running experiments…
…the Human Torch practices murdering Spider-Man…
…the Thing is keeping in shape…
…and Invisible Girl is playing dress-up.
As you can see, she really brings a lot to the team… I can’t imagine why they felt the need to give her new powers and a personality.
But then we jump straight into the main plot: there’s a guy calling himself Hate-Monger who is… well the name is pretty spot-on.
Guys, I think Hate-Monger might be a bad guy. Just saying.
I would say it’s unreasonable to think a scene like this would take place in 20th century America in broad daylight, but… you know.
The Thing is the first one to spring into action to stop the mob, and for once the rest of the team is ready to actually do SOMETHING. And they would if it wasn’t for Hate-Monger using his H-Ray™ against them.
I wonder what the H stands for.
Oh no, the H-Ray™ is making the Fantastic Four fight each other! That doesn’t happen all the time on its own!
Random Civilian #75 is right, these guys are famous for always going along just fine in all previous issues!
Speaking of things that don’t happen with frightening frequency, the Fantastic Four split.
But then who decides to join the story if not Nick Fury himself, after needlessly beating up civilians. Got to love that exclamation point above Reed’s head!
This is not the first time these two meet: Reed was actually in one of Fury’s World War II stories.
That encounter is an interesting continuity quirk. While Nick Fury’s past remains anchored to World War II, Reed’s hasn’t. And in 1963 it was still plausible the two met twenty years earlier, but over the years it became ridiculous. Eventually, they guy who met Nick was retconned into being Reed’s grandfather.
It’s also not that big of an appearance; here below is pretty much the whole extent between Nick and Reed’s interaction during issue #3 of Fury’s book, published earlier that year.
Back to the Fantastic Four story. You might think Fury is here because of Hate-Monger, but actually it’s for a completely different reason: he wants Reed’s help in stopping a coup.
S.H.I.E.L.D. won’t be introduced until 1965, so Fury is currently working for the C.I.A.
As Reed flies off to the made-up San Gusto, we learn Nick Fury is actually aware of Hate-Monger.
Nick Fury will eventually develop into one of Marvel’s most manipulative characters. While that characteristic is completely absent from his WWII stories, there are hints of that here.
The fact that the Fantastic Four Three are currently gullible idiots makes things easy, though.
As the Fantastic Four Three fly to San Gusto on their rocket, Hate-Monger decides to follow them… with his UNDERGROUND ROCKET!!!
Stan Lee must’ve loved that idea, because basically the same plan is recycled by the exceedingly lame Rabble Rouser in the truly awful Strange Tales #119.
Dick Ayers replicated the Kirby panels surprisingly well.
Nobody beats Jack Kirby at drawing crazy tech like this.
That’s some impressive technological feat, but of course Hate-Monger and Rabble Rouser pale in comparison to Doctor Doom digging through freaking continents in Astonishing Tales #6.
Back to the main story: who would’ve thought that Mister Fantastic would be excellent in guerilla warfare!?
He still gets captured, though.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the most ridiculous pseudo-science in a Marvel comic! Bold statement, to be sure, but…
HATE RAYS AFFECTING GRAVITY.
Hate-Monger plans to use his H-Ray™ to conquer the world, while keeping an antidote for himself. I’m not entirely sure WHY… once we learn his real identity, the idea that he’s not full of hatred is even more ridiculous.
However Nick Fury storms the Hate-Monger base (BY HIMSELF!!!), forcing him to give the antidote to Reed.
Also note Nick pointing out the C.I.A. couldn’t give a crap about Hate-Monger until he messed with American interests. Satire or did Stan not think that line through?
The greatest spy in the world and the smartest man in the universe, ladies and gentlemen.
We’re still not done, because the Fantastic Three Four are still under the influence of the H-Ray™. Thankfully, Reed managed to swipe more antidote pills.
Yeah that’s not awkward or anything.
And speaking of awkward…
Nope. Not gonna touch that one.
Soooo… why exactly did Nick Fury need the Howling Commandos? Or the rest of the US Army, for that matter!?
Invisible Girl ends up saving the day by tricking Hate-Monger into shooting his H-Ray™ against his men.
And we end the story with Hate-Monger being unmasked as ADOLF HITLER.
Or was he? It’s suggested this might have been a double. After all Hitler would’ve been 74 years old in 1963.
Historical significance: 6/10
Hate-Monger will return as an infrequent Captain America villain, but of course the big impact is introducing Nick Fury to the modern era. It’s basically forgotten by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. is introduced; he doesn’t even wear his trademark eyepatch yet!
Still, it does establish a close friendship between him and the Fantastic Four, something that will come up again and again.
Silver Age-ness: 20/10
HATE RAYS BOUNCING OFF THE MOON ARE AFFECTING GRAVITY!!!!!!!
Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
This is entertaining and all, but you really can’t do most of this stuff today. Hate-Monger stirring up trouble in modern times has been done multiple times, and with different incarnations of the character, with varying levels of success… but it’s WAY over the top in this story.
The fact that he turns out to be Hitler is very on the nose, and we really didn’t need a very forced reason to make the FF fight each other… they do that already on their own in this period!
Still very fun to read, and Kirby is really starting to show off what he can do, but this hasn’t aged particularly well.
How close is this to the modern character? 9/10
Kind of weird to describe a clone of Hitler as a “modern character”, isn’t it?
The idea that he’s the actual Hitler was soon dropped, as it was already on shaky ground in 1963.
His classic run ended with him being trapped inside the Cosmic Cube in Super-Villain Team-Up #17, but he’s popped up again… and of course there’s not just ONE clone of Hitler around.
Other than the fact that the story doesn’t focus on him being Hitler, since it’s the final twist… it’s not like there’s a lot of ways you can characterize a clone of Hitler!!!
There have been other characters taking the Hate-Monger name. One of them was an artificial construct working for Psycho-Man in Byrne’s Fantastic Four run, another was a mysterious entity running around in the 90s…
…and there’s even a Punisher villain with the name. This one MIGHT be linked to the original, given he’s a white supremacist wearing a swastika, but it’s not confirmed.
It’s one of the rare cases where the original look is one of my least favorites… I don’t know, it seems too goofy.
While his appearances in the Jurgens run on Captain America wasn’t all that great, he managed to get a GREAT costume out of it. He actually looks pretty scary!!!
