12:01 PM
Brad
Plot Overview: The Thing shakes the Baxter Building with his new punching bag which brings the other members of the FF to his room. The thing is upset over the Hate-Monger causing trouble around the country. The other members agree that he is a troublemaker but they can't do much about him.
The FF hit the strees and come across the Hate-Monger giving a speech. He incites a riot and the FF leap into action. The Hate-Monger decides to test out his Hate-Ray on the FF. They immediately turn on each other and begin fighting among themselves. They call it quits as a team and head in separate directions.
Reed returns to the Baxter Building and finds that Nick Fury is fighting with the lobby staff about seeing Reed. They know each other from World War II. Nick Fury reveals that he's now a colonial and a member of the CIA. He needs the FF's help with a rebellion in San Gusto. Reed says that he can handle it himself and takes off in the pogo plane. The other members of the FF see this and get upset that Reed took the pogo plane. Fury goads them into going to San Gusto as well and they take off in one of the FF's rockets.
The Hate-Monger watches all of this and heads back to San Gusto with his men. Meanwhile, Reed disarms several groups of rebels and stumbles upon the Hate-Mongers hideout. He gets paralyzed by nerve gas and captured by the Hate-Monger's men. The Hate-Monger's plan is simple. He's going to use the Hate-Ray on the entire world and turn everyone against everyone.
Just then Nick Fury hits the scene and forces the Hate-Monger to give Reed the antidote at gunpoint. The Hate-Monger manages to escape but Reed has the antidote. He tricks the other members of the FF into taking the antidote and the team is back together again.
The FF hit the scene just as Nick Fury ran out of ammunition. The Hate-Monger decides to blast the Human Torch with a stronger dose of the H-Ray but Sue knocks his aim off. The H-Ray accidentally hits two of his men and they shoot the Hate-Monger for bringing the FF down on him. Fury decides to unmask the Hate-Monger revealing Adolf Hitler. Fury isn't sure if it was the real Hitler of a duplicate. The issue ends with the FF saying that the Hate-Monger can never truly be defeated as long as men have hatred in their hearts.
My Take: This was a very interesting issue. Stan Lee very lightly touched on some social issues in the beginning with the Hate-Monger preaching hatred of immigrants. It was quickly forgotten when the FF turned on each other but it was interesting to see it pop up in a comic book. The Golden Age Superman dealt with a lot of the issues of his era but that kind of storytelling seemed to fade as the Comics Code came into being.
Reed Richards went solo for a good deal of the book and I liked that. It was nice to see him flex his muscles a bit. I've felt he doesn't get the same screen time that the Thing or Torch get so this was refreshing to see. Ii found the H-Ray to be a little lame but the cover of the issue gave that away. It's the Silver Age, you have to take the kooky with everything else.
I liked the reveal of the Hate-Monger as Adolf Hitler. He would have been a much older man but they played him off as probably being a clone. It was a nice surprise in the grand scheme of things and it showed that Lee was thinking outside of the box a little bit. I also thought that Nick Fury added a nice change of pace as a guest-star. He feels different from the other characters running around the Marvel Universe at this time.
The art was solid on this issue. The story was pretty down to earth though so there wasn't anything super memorable. The Hate-Monger didn't look bad as a villain. The quasi-KKK outfit was an interesting choice. I would actually be interested in seeing if there are any Stan Lee interviews about this issue or character. It made me wonder if there were specific events that lead to this issue or if it was Lee trying to be socially relevant at the time.
I give this *** out of *****.
Notes: This issue has the first appearance of the Hate-Monger. He's a solid C list villain that bothers mostly Captain America over the years. Several different guys take up the cowl but I think he's mostly gone by the 1980s. This book also features the first current timeline appearance of Nick Fury. He had previously been starring in the WWII war book Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos. This was a very different version of Fury to the one that people know today. He didn't have the eye patch for starters and he's with the CIA instead of SHIELD. I'm not sure when the more familiar version of Fury shows up or if we get to see how he loses his eye. I'm interested to see how he develops as the 60s progress.
Next Issue: Tales to Astonish #50
Posted in: Alicia Masters,Fantastic Four,Hate-Monger,Human Torch,Nick Fury,Reed Richards,Sue Richards,Thing
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