When Titans Clash!

Book: Fantastic Four

Issue No.: 200

Published: August 22, 1978

Title: “When Titans Clash!”

Cover Price: 60¢

Format: Original paper copy

I can’t remember when I first realized that the modern Marvel universe was established in 1961 in the pages of the first issue of Fantastic Four. It’s one of the most basic comic book facts. But I was a little kid when I started reading comics, and I didn’t have access to Wikipedia then. (This was 1978 — the internet didn’t yet exist, much less Wikipedia.)

I did start to notice at some point that then-current comic books would reference older stories. And thanks to reprint books like Marvel Tales and Marvel’s Greatest Comics, I got to read some of those older stories. At the time, even comics from the early ’70s seemed old, and books from the ’60s seemed absolutely ancient. I mean, I was seven years old, and a bunch of these stories were published before I was even born!

In hindsight, those old Marvel stories were babies at the time. I wonder if Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and all of the other architects of the modern Marvel universe had any idea that people would still be talking about the Fantastic Four and Hulk and Spider-Man more than sixty years later. Heck, thanks to Marvel movies and TV shows, those characters are probably more popular today than they were in the 1960s. Even if fewer people are reading comic books these days.

Fantastic Four no. 200 has me thinking about this stuff because it’s a landmark book. Obviously, 200 is a big, round number. And a blurb on the book’s cover notes it’s the 17th anniversary issue of Fantastic Four. Seventeen isn’t a round number, but it is an even ten higher than my age at the time. So I guess I’m old enough to be the Marvel universe’s younger brother. And if I’m ever wondering about how old the Marvel universe is, I can just add ten to my current age.

Since this is a big anniversary issue of the foundational modern Marvel comic book, the creative team kicks out all the stops. It’s a double-sized issue (34 pages of story instead of the usual seventeen), and it officially reunites the book’s titular team after several issues of them being broken up. It also features the defeat of the Fantastic Four’s greatest foe, Doctor Doom. I mean, Doom will of course return, because it’s a comic book and Doom is one of Marvel’s best baddies. But the Fantastic Four (and especially their leader, stretchy guy Reed Richards AKA Mr. Fantastic) get to celebrate a milestone issue of their book with a big win.

I have appreciated the Fantastic Four for a long time, ever since I learned that they were the first modern Marvel heroes. But after reading this story arc (well, at least the last eight issues of it), I can say that I am a Fantastic Four fan. I am especially fond of the Thing (who is delightfully down-to-earth) and Doctor Doom (who is delightfully larger-than-life).

Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard were leading the Fantastic Four creative team during this era, and they’re both delivering excellent work here. I have complained about Wolfman’s work on Spider-Woman, but that’s the exception. Wolfman is a legendary comics writer for good reason, and he’s a good fit for the Four. Pollard, like Sal Buscema, has one of those archetypal Bronze Age styles that I am quite fond of.

If I ever manage to finish up my Marvel Time Warp goal of reading all of Marvel’s 1978 books, I suspect this Wolman/Pollard run of Fantastic Four books will be one that I dig further into.

Next time — Captain Marvel visits Saturn’s moon Titan!