Fantastic Four #126
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four #126 marks the formal changing of the guard on Marvel's flagship title: it is Roy Thomas's first issue as ongoing scripter following Stan Lee's elevation to Publisher, making Thomas the first writer other than Lee to hold the reins of the book that launched the Marvel Universe. To inaugurate his tenure, Thomas and artist John Buscema frame the entire issue as the longest retelling of the team's origin published to that point, simultaneously welcoming new Bronze Age readers and cementing the team's founding mythology. The cover — a direct homage to John Buscema and Joe Sinnott's riff on the original Fantastic Four #1 composition — announces both continuity with the Lee-Kirby legacy and a conscious fresh start. The issue also quietly introduced the 'Stan Lee Presents' masthead, a small but durable editorial trademark that Thomas himself suggested and that would appear on Marvel's first pages for decades to come.
In "The Way It Began!", the Fantastic Four confront the return of the Mole Man in a story that revisits the team's origins with a fresh, revealing twist. Written by Roy Thomas and brought to life by John Buscema’s dynamic art and Joe Sinnott’s crisp inks, this landmark issue reimagines the founding moments of Marvel’s First Family. The cover, also by Buscema and Sinnott, captures the intensity of the Mole Man’s return with striking detail.
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When Stan Lee was promoted to Publisher in 1972, he handed scripting duties on the Fantastic Four to Roy Thomas, who was simultaneously becoming Marvel's new Editor-in-Chief — a dual role that Thomas navigated by writing the book himself. Thomas had briefly scripted FF #119 before this, but #126 was his declared formal debut on the series, an occasion noted on the issue's letters page and in the Bullpen Bulletins. Lee and Thomas together chose to use the transition issue to revisit the team's founding story, with Buscema and longtime inker Joe Sinnott providing continuity on the art side; Buscema had been the title's primary penciler since Jack Kirby's departure at issue #102.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'The Way It Began!' — written by Roy Thomas, penciled by John Buscema, inked by Joe Sinnott, lettered by John Costanza. Cover date: September 1972; on-sale date: June 27, 1972.
- First issue with Roy Thomas as the ongoing scripter, marking Stan Lee's official exit as the Fantastic Four's writer after Lee became Marvel's Publisher.
- The issue introduces the 'Stan Lee Presents' masthead on the story's opening page — a Marvel-wide brand identifier that Thomas suggested and that would persist on the company's comics for many years.
- The framing device has Ben Grimm use Reed Richards's Thought-Projection Helmet to walk through the team's origin from Fantastic Four #1 (1961), making this the most extensive origin retelling published up to that point in the series.
- The retelling adds new story details not present in the original FF #1: Johnny Storm explicitly names himself after the World War II-era android Human Torch, and the Mole Man is depicted with a radar-like sense.
- Ben Grimm's motivation for the arc that follows — seeking out the Mole Man to demand a cure for Alicia Masters's blindness — is established here, with Alicia appearing in cameo.
- The cover is a deliberate homage to the cover of Fantastic Four #1, with the letters page including a reduced-size reprint of the original FF #1 cover to underline the issue's retrospective character.
- The issue was adapted as a Power Records book-and-record set (Peter Pan, PR13, 1974), pairing an abridged reprint of the comic with a 45 RPM audio dramatization — one of the only Marvel Fantastic Four entries in that series, and a recording later sampled by rapper Eminem.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Fantastic Four #15 (1972), Hit Comics Die fantastischen Vier #250 (1973), Los 4 Fantásticos #154 (1973), Fantastic Four: "The Way It Began" [Book and Record Set] #PR13 (1974), I Fantastici Quattro #124 (1976), The Mighty World of Marvel Annual #1977 (1976), Captain Britain #35 (1977), Captain Britain #36 (1977), Fantastiske Fire #11/1980 (1980), Nova #35 (1980), Essential Fantastic Four #6 (2007), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #12 (2010), Fantastic Four #1 Facsimile Edition #[nn] (2018), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #8 (2022), Fantastic Four Omnibus #5 (2024), De Vier Verdedigers Classics #73, Die Fantastischen Vier #123, Fantastiska Fyran #11/1980
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