12:01 PM
Brad
Cover Date: October 1963
Plot Overview: Reed calls for The Thing and Alicia Masters to come to the Baxter Building. When they arrive, he explains that he had been studying up on ancient Egypt and discovered a tale of a blind ancient Pharaoh. This Pharaoh was cured by a radioactive plant. Reed proposes that they use Doctor Doom's time machine from issue #5 to travel back in time and retrieve this plant for Alicia Masters.
They head to Doom's abandoned castle and teach Alicia to use the machine. She sends them to the past where they are immediately confronted by an ancient Egyptian army. The army is no match for the FF until suddenly their powers are sapped away and they all collapse.
The FF are captured and taken to the Egyptian leader Rama-Tut. He explains that he's a time traveler from the year 3000. He came back in time in the Sphinx to loot history. He crashed and damaged his ship when he arrived and was stranded here. He was also blinded in the crash but still managed to conquer the Egyptians with his special gun. His damaged ship leaked radiation and infected the plants which then healed him. He further explains that his gun can dominate the FF and make them slaves.
Rama-Tut sends Reed, Thing and the Torch off as slaves and decides that Sue will become his bride. Each member of the FF try to fight the rays powers but have no success. Until one day, the hot Egyptian sun turns the Thing back into Ben Grimm. The change removes the effects of the ray gun and he escapes from slavery.
Ben manages to get the gun away from Rama-Tut and releases Sue from it's power before becoming the Thing again. Sue uses the gun to release the Torch and then the Thing. Rama-Tut escapes to his Sphinx ship while the Torch finds Reed and releases him as well.
The FF storm the Sphinx and are briefly caught in a water trap but the Torch manages to defeat the trap. They find Rama-Tut but he escapes in a smaller ship and travels back to the future. They muse about who Rama-Tut might actually be until Sue finds the plant that restored Rama-Tut's vision. The Thing is overjoyed at this news. They head to the present only to discover the vial didn't return with them. Reed explains that a fail safe in the machine probably won't allow radioactive material to travel with them. Everyone is dismayed at this setback as the issue comes to an end.
My Take: Rama-Tut as the villain here is a little silly but I enjoyed this issue. It was a straight forward adventure with nothing too ridiculous. This issue also holds up quick well following the Annual. It didn't feel like a giant letdown after a really good story there.
I really enjoyed the time traveling here. It was a little different of a situation from the more recent issues. It's also nice to get a villain that isn't Dr. Doom or Namor for variety. I also really liked that the ending was a downer. Spider-Man has been doing that a lot but it really feels like a novelty for this time period. It was cool that things weren't wrapped up in a nice little package when everything was all said and done.
The art was good as always when it comes to the Fantastic Four. It's Jack Kirby, what more can you say on the art front? He has the character models down and is pumping out consistent quality on a monthly basis.
This gets *** out of *****.
Notes: This is the first appearance of Rama-Tut. Rama-Tut himself is a fairly minor character but he branches out into more important characters like Kang the Conqueror and Immortus. There are multiple versions of Rama-Tut over the year due to his time traveling. Like I mentioned, Kang is the most important version of Rama-Tut to the MU. Kang himself will appear in Avengers #8 about a year later.
Next Issue: Tales to Astonish #48
Posted in: Alicia Masters,Fantastic Four,Human Torch,Rama-Tut,Reed Richards,Sue Richards,Thing
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