The Red Ghost and His Indescribable Super-Apes! (part 2)
Page 5. Oh, my God! Reed! Is that your idea of a streamlined aerodynamic shape... a rocket with a big round ball on the leading end?! That would work for something assembled in orbit, which wouldn't be expected to push its way through atmosphere at escape velocity. But you know, I guess Reed knows what he's doing. The Thing's comment is terrific. Not too long earlier, he has just been a surly menace ready to go berserk at any moment. This would work fine for a few issues but would get old real quick. By having Ben Grimm's basic personality resurface once he more or less came to terms with becoming a monster, his sarcastic sense of humor saved the character and made the Thing one of the most appealing Silver Age heroes.
Okay, Comrade Kragoff? Am I wrong or could you have just made the cockpit of your spaceship transparent and not the whole vehicle? You know, saving millions of dollars and avoiding huge amounts of technical obstacles caused by requiring a transparent vehicle. Oh, never mind. This was when Lee and Kirby visualized the Earth being surrounded by a permanent belt of cosmic rays which would mutate living things passing through it. As space travel became more common (both in the comics and in real world), this was changed so that the FF has been hit by a rare cosmic storm. Just their luck. Otherwise, all the American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts would be coming back down turned into six foot tall ducks, shooting lightning from their ears or growing extra navels, that sort of thing.
Kragoff doesn't seem worried he will just be killed instantly by the cosmic rays or develop massive cell breakdown, cancer, leukemia. Nope, he expects super-powers and nothing less.That's the attitude.
Page 6. This was a feature of the early Marvels that they soon dropped, breaking a story up into chapters, each with a splash page and title. Booklength stories were rare back then. Golden Age comics gave you a lot of five or six page stories each issue, but then they were 64 pages long and had lots of room. DC for the longest time kept putting three seperate stories into a 32 page comic, which meant it was hard to develop momentum or pacing; everything had to be jammed in.
That atmo-web suit is a typical Kirby throwaway invention. I don't think we ever saw it again. But I do want to say that our heroes are in a small enclosed area in outer space, where the oxygen and temperature have to be carefully regulated... and the Human Torch is standing there with his flame on for no good reason. Johnny, what is WRONG with you?
Page 7. I like the body language of the apes as they line up to report for duty, particularly the Orangutan just plopping down. Kirby and Ditko weren't really trying to get strict anatomical accuracy here; the baboon is kind of dodgy at best. I think their approach was to suggest the essence of a gorilla or an ourangutan and let it go at that. But then Kirby's anatomy for humans was usually less than scrupulous as well, with hands dispropotionately large or stances with legs four feet apart.
Page 8. The baboon can change his shape to imitate other objects. Fair enough, but you know, what is part of the body is Cragoff holding him by? Ewww. No wonder the ape wriggles loose. And the Orangutan has quasi-magnetic powers that affect living beings? I love the apalled expression and body language from Cragoff in panel 5. Maybe he realizes he has gotten in over his head with this whole idea of giving three sullen primates super powers when he himself hasnt shown any new abilites.
Page 9. Notice Sue turning the wheel to close the hatch to the airlock. A small detail like that adds a lot to plausibility. And I'm just saying, but when you are getting close to hitting the moon, maybe someone should be specifically on duty to watch for it before you wreck your ship. ("Oh, the Moon... yeah, I didn't notice it, it just jumped out of nowhere.")
A stunning view of the Blue Area. It turns out it's the remains of some ancient civilization. How cool is that? Years later, we are told that this was an outpost of the Kree, leading us into Captain Mar-Vell and the war with the Skrulls and so on and so forth. But I like the awe and mystery of finding this unexpected unexplained dead city on the Moon, of all places.
Page 10. This CAN'T be how it happened. This shows why Stan could have used an editor himself. They did not just pop open the hatch and skip out onto the lunar surface to see if there was air. Look at Reed's backpack and headgear, he is doing some tech readings right there. Sue's balloon should have read, "You're right, Reed, the air is exactly like that of Earth. But how?"
Page 11. Now we see Ivan Kragoff's power. If the cosmic rays gave abilities related in some way to a person's basic personality (a big topic in itself), then it seems Kragoff was worried about being harmed and wished to be safe. Well, he came from a culture full of in-fighting and backstabbing as scientists tried to rise in status at the expense of others, so this makes sense. The art is really cool here. The Red Ghost is shown as an outline that can be seen through. It looks remarkably like the way Sue was represented in the recent Fantastic Four movies.
Wait a minute. The Watcher? Where did he come from?
Page 12. And now, Lee and Kirby present another new character. Those first thirty odd issues of THE FANTASTIC FOUR had an impressive barrage of new characters appearing, nearly all of whom are still being used today. Marvel sure got their money's worth in those issues. The Watcher looks less human than he soon would; in his next few appearances, he resembled a regular human being, increasingly pudgy by the way. Here he has that oversized rectangular head and glowing eyes. He is wearing white robes like a Greek philosopher, appropriately enough I guess, but he also has some sort of purple tunic or breastplate under them and a high collared purple cloak as well. By the first Galactus story, though, the Watcher looked much less imposing, even harmless. My guess is this might have been to make Galactus seem even tougher, like putting James Coco in robes next to Charles Bronson in gladiator armor.
Okay, Comrade Kragoff? Am I wrong or could you have just made the cockpit of your spaceship transparent and not the whole vehicle? You know, saving millions of dollars and avoiding huge amounts of technical obstacles caused by requiring a transparent vehicle. Oh, never mind. This was when Lee and Kirby visualized the Earth being surrounded by a permanent belt of cosmic rays which would mutate living things passing through it. As space travel became more common (both in the comics and in real world), this was changed so that the FF has been hit by a rare cosmic storm. Just their luck. Otherwise, all the American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts would be coming back down turned into six foot tall ducks, shooting lightning from their ears or growing extra navels, that sort of thing.
Kragoff doesn't seem worried he will just be killed instantly by the cosmic rays or develop massive cell breakdown, cancer, leukemia. Nope, he expects super-powers and nothing less.That's the attitude.
Page 6. This was a feature of the early Marvels that they soon dropped, breaking a story up into chapters, each with a splash page and title. Booklength stories were rare back then. Golden Age comics gave you a lot of five or six page stories each issue, but then they were 64 pages long and had lots of room. DC for the longest time kept putting three seperate stories into a 32 page comic, which meant it was hard to develop momentum or pacing; everything had to be jammed in.
That atmo-web suit is a typical Kirby throwaway invention. I don't think we ever saw it again. But I do want to say that our heroes are in a small enclosed area in outer space, where the oxygen and temperature have to be carefully regulated... and the Human Torch is standing there with his flame on for no good reason. Johnny, what is WRONG with you?
Page 7. I like the body language of the apes as they line up to report for duty, particularly the Orangutan just plopping down. Kirby and Ditko weren't really trying to get strict anatomical accuracy here; the baboon is kind of dodgy at best. I think their approach was to suggest the essence of a gorilla or an ourangutan and let it go at that. But then Kirby's anatomy for humans was usually less than scrupulous as well, with hands dispropotionately large or stances with legs four feet apart.
Page 8. The baboon can change his shape to imitate other objects. Fair enough, but you know, what is part of the body is Cragoff holding him by? Ewww. No wonder the ape wriggles loose. And the Orangutan has quasi-magnetic powers that affect living beings? I love the apalled expression and body language from Cragoff in panel 5. Maybe he realizes he has gotten in over his head with this whole idea of giving three sullen primates super powers when he himself hasnt shown any new abilites.
Page 9. Notice Sue turning the wheel to close the hatch to the airlock. A small detail like that adds a lot to plausibility. And I'm just saying, but when you are getting close to hitting the moon, maybe someone should be specifically on duty to watch for it before you wreck your ship. ("Oh, the Moon... yeah, I didn't notice it, it just jumped out of nowhere.")
A stunning view of the Blue Area. It turns out it's the remains of some ancient civilization. How cool is that? Years later, we are told that this was an outpost of the Kree, leading us into Captain Mar-Vell and the war with the Skrulls and so on and so forth. But I like the awe and mystery of finding this unexpected unexplained dead city on the Moon, of all places.
Page 10. This CAN'T be how it happened. This shows why Stan could have used an editor himself. They did not just pop open the hatch and skip out onto the lunar surface to see if there was air. Look at Reed's backpack and headgear, he is doing some tech readings right there. Sue's balloon should have read, "You're right, Reed, the air is exactly like that of Earth. But how?"
Page 11. Now we see Ivan Kragoff's power. If the cosmic rays gave abilities related in some way to a person's basic personality (a big topic in itself), then it seems Kragoff was worried about being harmed and wished to be safe. Well, he came from a culture full of in-fighting and backstabbing as scientists tried to rise in status at the expense of others, so this makes sense. The art is really cool here. The Red Ghost is shown as an outline that can be seen through. It looks remarkably like the way Sue was represented in the recent Fantastic Four movies.
Wait a minute. The Watcher? Where did he come from?
Page 12. And now, Lee and Kirby present another new character. Those first thirty odd issues of THE FANTASTIC FOUR had an impressive barrage of new characters appearing, nearly all of whom are still being used today. Marvel sure got their money's worth in those issues. The Watcher looks less human than he soon would; in his next few appearances, he resembled a regular human being, increasingly pudgy by the way. Here he has that oversized rectangular head and glowing eyes. He is wearing white robes like a Greek philosopher, appropriately enough I guess, but he also has some sort of purple tunic or breastplate under them and a high collared purple cloak as well. By the first Galactus story, though, the Watcher looked much less imposing, even harmless. My guess is this might have been to make Galactus seem even tougher, like putting James Coco in robes next to Charles Bronson in gladiator armor.