Fantastic Four #128 (Thomas/Buscema, Nov 1972). The family reunites underground, just in time to see the Mole Man’s new alliances torn apart by resentment and greed.
Fantastic Four #127 (Thomas/Buscema, Oct 1972). Sweet blue-eyed Benjamin gets fooled by the combined forces of the Mole Man and a forgotten Iron Man villainess.
Fantastic Four #126 (Thomas/Buscema, Sept 1972). Feeling responsible for the family’s latest feud, Ben reminisces about their origins… and wonders if Mole Man might be able to cure Alicia’s blindness.
Fantastic Four #129 (Thomas/Buscema, Dec 1972). Johnny cuts out to join Crystal at the Great Refuge, but Black Bolt seems to have broken bad! Agatha Harkness announces that she can no longer babysit for Franklin. And Ben stumbles into an ambush set by the Frightful Four, now featuring a new villainess. Even after the Lee/Kirby era, this book’s got thrills and family drama to spare.
I have less citations for these than I have in earlier posts– I think the idea of Mary Jane getting a symbiote has been done a couple of times, but most notably in Gerry Conway’s Renew Your Vows series. The bigger concept of symbiotes being Green Lantern Corps adjacent space knights originated in Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Guardians of the Galaxy, which is an idea that I am absolutely in love with. (The poses and designs of the alien species are all from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, if you were wondering.) And Misty Knight using Dr. Spectrum’s Power Prism to create a prosthetic is an idea that I’ve done with Hal Jordan before, but I think I prefer it in this context.
when i was rereading bits of defalco’s ff run for baby kristoff caps i completely forgot the roster was reed-less bc for like TWO YEARS everyone thought that reed and doom were DEAD?
and that they literally DIED HOLDING HANDS???? holding… hands.
