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> Reprinted in: Fantastic Four Masterworks Volume 1 • Fantastic Four Omnibus Volume 1 |
From the Mouths of the Marvels:
"This man - his face feels strong and powerful. And yet, I can sense a gentleness
to him. There is something tragic, something sensitive!"
- - Alicia Masters, touching the Thing's rocky features, page 9 And you thought Dr. Doom had cool action figures! |
Fantastic Four #8
Publication Date: August 2, 1962
Letters Page: Page One
I: Feature Story: "Prisoners of the Puppet Master!"
Pages: 23
Script: Stan Lee
First Appearance: Puppet Master, Alicia Masters, Rocco, State Prison Warden Williams, State Prison Guards Joe & Charlie
Villain: Puppet Master, Rocco, prison rioters
Guest Appearance: Alicia Masters, State Prison Warden Williams
Cameo Appearance: State Prison Guards Joe & Charlie
Marvel Milestones: first time Reed attempts a cure for the Thing
Gadgets & Technology: Radioactive clay
Synopsis: Reed is working in the lab
when he is surprised by the entrance of the Thing. He tells his gargantuan friend
to stay out of the lab, while Sue and Johnny bar the entrance. The Thing
is insulted, and he mopes that they must not consider him a full-member of
the team if they will
keep secrets from him and he storms off. Sue follows him outside while
invisible, and pleads with him not to quit the team. Two guys on the street
notice Thing arguing with the thin air and take the opportunity to poke fun
at him.
Sue kicks one fellow right in the butt and Thing wraps a lamppost around the
other in
response.
Just then, Sue sees a man climbing up the side of a suspension bridge. "He'll
be killed!" she cries and fires the FF flare for help. Reed stretches out to
grab the man but can't reach him. Johnny flies over to the bridge and he
realizes the man is in a trance.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, an odd little man called the Puppet
Master bends over a scale
model of the bridge and prepares to toss a clay figure off it. His finger is
burned when he touches it; the same moment Johnny catches the man and flies
to safety. The Puppet Master knows what has happened: the Human Torch has
denied him his first test of power, and so Johnny must become his next victim.
The Puppet Master's blind step-daughter Alicia enters the room, alerted by his
cry. He rebukes her and admonishes her for calling him "father". "I am only
your step-father! Do you understand?" he shouts. He goes into the other
room, where he dons a protective suit and sculpts a figure of the Thing from
radioactive clay. He places the model in a diorama of his room and, across
town at that very moment, the Thing begins marching away from Sue, completely
sapped of his will. She
follows in her invisible form, and
they both enter the domain of the Puppet Master. Alicia remarks that she
senses that two people
have arrived in the room, and her suspicious step-father hands out gas masks
to her and the Thing and then gasses the
room. Sue falls unconscious and reverts to her visible form.
The Puppet Master notices the resemblance of Sue Storm to Alicia Masters and
hatches a plan. He dresses Alicia in an FF uniform and blonde wig, sending her
back to the Baxter Building along with the Thing. Alicia feels Thing's face
and
instantly recognizes the sensitive man within the rocky, craggy features.
As they leave, the Puppet
Master takes out a model of the state prison's warden and plans a mass
inmate breakout at the jail.
Thing and Alicia arrive at FF headquarters and the Thing, under Puppet
Master's control, attacks Reed and Johnny. He smashes through Reed's
chemicals, and amazingly, they change him back to Ben Grimm. As the
Thing disappears, so does the Puppet Master's control over him. Reed tells him
that this was the reason why
Reed had
banned Ben from his lab- he was perfecting the formula to cure Ben and
couldn't bear to disappoint him should it have failed.
They instantly recognize the blind girl among them is not Sue. Ben comforts
the frightened Alicia who is confused by Ben's transformation. She is
reassured once the potion wear off, and the Thing stands with her again, even though
the Thing is once again depressed about his lot in life as a monster.
Puppet Master's prison breakout goes as planned. While he is preoccupied,
Sue, who is now awake, flees the room. Puppet Master has planned for this and,
squeezing the legs of an Invisible Girl puppet, she comes crashing to the
floor. With "only one chance!" she fires off an FF flare which the other
three and Alicia notice from the Fantasticar. They find the Puppet Master
waiting with an enormous mentally controlled puppet. It twists Reed into a
pretzel but one punch from Thing knocks it down. Puppet Master escapes with
Sue on the
back of a winged, flying horse-puppet, but Reed snatches her away with a
stretched arm. The Torch pursues but exhausts his flame chasing the jet-powered
horse.
Just then a nearby television reports about the prison breakout, being
led by an inmate named Rocco, and tells
that the
inmates have taken the warden hostage. The Fantastic Four race to the scene.
Torch melts the floor underneath the prison and snatches the warden from the
mob's clutches. Then the Thing tears the wall out from them and tosses a
prisoner into the mob. Tying a few cell doors together, he makes a cage and
snares the other prisoners with it. The prisoners fire at the Fantastic Four
but Reed bounces the bullets back at them. Johnny creates a ring of fire to
hold more prisoners and Sue freaks out a prisoner by holding him at
gunpoint while invisible. The warden and his guards regain control of the
prison.
The thwarted Puppet Master decides to enable his "greatest puppet of all"; a
puppet of himself as king! With this puppet, he can demolish the U.N., have
other rulers serve him dinner and enslave the Fantastic Four! Alicia has had
enough of her evil step-father. She sneaks up behind him and knocks the puppet
from his hand. It falls to the floor and when the Puppet Master rushes
to recover it, he trips over her hand and falls out a window. The Fantastic
Four find Alicia alone and the Thing comforts her. No one notices the crumpled
Puppet Master doll at their feet.
Pages: 1
The Human Torch discusses the finer points of his flame power.
--synopsis by Jonathan Clarke, aka doesitmatter, with Gormuu
--letter pages provided by Aussie Stu
Issues Reprinted
Click on cover image to learn more about each issue.
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FF #1 |
FF #2 |
FF #3 |
FF #4 |
FF #5 |
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FF #6 |
FF #7 |
FF #8 |
FF #9 |
FF #10 |
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