I: Feature Story: "It Started on Yancy Street!"

Pages: 22

Script: Stan Lee
Pencils: Jack Kirby
Inks: Chic Stone
Letters: Sam Rosen

Guest Appearance: Watcher, Alicia Masters

Villain: Red Ghost, Super Apes

Cameo Appearance: Yancy St. Gang

Flashback Cameo: Puppet Master, Mole Man, Super-Skrull, Miracle Man, Dr. Doom, Mad Thinker, Sub-Mariner

Marvel Milestones: First Kirby collage

Synopsis: It actually does start on Yancy Street, as the Fantastic Four are running from the jeers and pranks of the Yancy Street Gang. The team is too powerful to combat normal humans; as Reed states “It’s like trying to swat a fly with an atom bomb!” They board the Fantasti-car only to find a parking ticket in the windshield!

The team returns to the Baxter Building followed closely by a small, flying camera. Reed goes through a photo collection of their rogue’s gallery on a hunch that one of their villains is perhaps goading on the Yancy Street Gang. After comingup dry, they open their fan mail as the flying camera waits outside, unbenknownst to them. It sends a signal to one package, which explodes in Thing’s face. A note inside challenges the Fantastic Four to a rematch with the Yancy St. Gang.

They reach Yancy Street at midnight and find it deserted. Just then, a gorilla blindsides the Thing and an orangutan uses magnetic powers to hurl automotive parts at them. A baboon traps Johnny in an asbestos sack and fires a ray at Thing, changing to a brick when the Thing chases him. Reed recognizes them as the Red Ghost’s Super-Apes. He wraps himself around the gorilla but the ape latches him onto a passing truck. Reed snaps back and Sue places a protective force field around them as the gorilla lunges at them.

The Red Ghost appears, holding the Torch hostage. The orangutan calls the Red Ghost’s ship from the sky and the Fantastic Four are forced aboard at gunpoint. The ship takes off to return to the moon!

That’s all the Fantastic Four needs to know: they launch a surprise attack on their captors and the Red Ghost slips through the wall. The Super Apes escape through trap doors and the room is sealed. The Red Ghost, from his command center, jettisons the chamber onto the moon’s airless surface.

Sue surrounds her teammates with a force field, preserving what little air they have left. Reed stretcheshis neck high up in the sky and spots the Blue Area of the Moon over the mountains, where an artificial atmosphere exists. There’s no time to climb over the ridge blocking their path, so they decide to tunnel under it. Thing digs through the moon rocks and finally, just as the air gives out, punches through into a corridor. They have entered the home of the Watcher.

The Watcher is there to greet them. He warns them not to touch the strange and dangerous objects he has collected throughout the galaxy. Reed, however, masters a few of the Watcher’s tools and uses one to drag the Red Ghost’s ship into the surface of the Blue Area. The Fantastic Four is waiting for them and they attack. The fight is a stalemate so the Red Ghost tries once again to invade the home of the Watcher. He finds Reed inside and holds him at gunpoint.

The other three chase off the Apes and regroup at the home of the Watcher. Sue traps the Red Ghost in her force field which cancels his phasing power. She shoves him into a matter transmitter and he disappears. The Super Apes take off in their ship, leaving the Fantastic Four stranded. Sensing the Fantastic Four abandoned in his home, the Watcher returns them all to Yancy Street.

--synopsis by Jonathan Clarke, aka doesitmatter, with Gormuu

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