Fantastic Four #128
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four #128 is a document of early Bronze Age Marvel caught at a peculiar crossroads of creative transition and real-world regulatory pressure. It marks one of Roy Thomas's earliest issues simultaneously serving as both writer and Marvel's new Editor-in-Chief — the first person to hold that title after Stan Lee stepped aside — making it a quiet milestone in the company's editorial history. The issue's most lasting contribution to Marvel lore is its four-page full-color glossy 'Friends and Foes' pin-up insert drawn by John Buscema, which was directly commissioned in response to a dispute with the Nixon administration's Wage and Price Control Board and whose Hulk illustration was later reused as artwork for the inaugural Marvel Value Stamps campaign. The story itself delivers a notably humane capstone to the two-issue Mole Man arc: Thomas constructs a villain rendered genuinely pitiable by romantic betrayal — jilted at the altar by Kala in favor of Tyrannus, then watching Tyrannus betray Kala in turn — a layered emotional resolution that elevated a Silver Age monster-ruler into a more complex Bronze Age antagonist.
In "Death in a Dark and Lonely Place!", the Fantastic Four face off against the Mole Man in a high-stakes showdown beneath the Earth's surface, where the stakes aren't just about survival—but about the fate of a very unexpected union. Written by Roy Thomas and brought to life with dynamic art by John Buscema and inks by Joe Sinnott, this 1972 issue delivers tense action and personal stakes in the depths of Subterranea, with a cover by Buscema and Sinnott that captures the drama in stark, dramatic detail.
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Roy Thomas took over as Fantastic Four writer with #126, just as he simultaneously assumed the Editor-in-Chief chair vacated by Stan Lee in 1972, making this two-issue arc (beginning in #127) among his earliest full creative statements on the title. The four-page glossy color insert bound into the issue was not planned as a bonus feature: Thomas explained in a later interview that Marvel had raised its cover price from fifteen to twenty cents, and a representative of Nixon's Wage and Price Control Board challenged whether the publisher was delivering commensurate value — the insert was hastily produced and mailed to the official as proof, and he accepted it. The interior pin-up art was penciled by John Buscema and inked by Joe Sinnott (with one source citing John Verpoorten as inker on the insert specifically), and Buscema's character renderings from those pages were subsequently reused as production art across multiple Marvel publications through the mid-1970s.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Story titled 'Death in a Dark and Lonely Place!' — Part 2 of 2, concluding the Mole Man/Kala/Tyrannus subterranean arc begun in Fantastic Four #127.
- Written and edited by Roy Thomas (Marvel's first Editor-in-Chief after Stan Lee); penciled by John Buscema; inked by Joe Sinnott; lettered by Artie Simek; cover by Buscema and Sinnott.
- Contains a rare four-page full-color glossy 'Friends and Foes' pin-up insert — one of the very few such inserts in Bronze Age Marvel comics — featuring characters including Hulk, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, Doctor Doom, Galactus, Mole Man, Sandman, Trapster, Wizard, and the Inhumans.
- The insert was produced specifically to satisfy a Nixon-era Wage and Price Control Board challenge over Marvel's price increase from 15 to 20 cents — Roy Thomas himself confirmed this origin in a recorded interview.
- The Hulk pin-up from the insert was later repurposed as the promotional 'teaser' artwork for the Marvel Value Stamps program launched in 1974; the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom images were also reused in other Marvel publications.
- Story resolution: Mole Man's plan to flood the surface world with lava is foiled when Kala betrays him for Tyrannus, Tyrannus then betrays Kala, and the humiliated Mole Man frees the FF to deal with his double-crossers — Reed permanently disables the doomsday machine and seals the tunnel behind the team.
- Issue #128 is collected in Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four Vol. 12 (collecting issues #117–128); exists in a UK edition with a 6p cover price and a Mark Jewelers advertisement insert variant.
Cast · 23 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Fantastic Four #17 (1972), Hit Comics Die fantastischen Vier #252 (1973), The Mighty World of Marvel #35 (1973), I Fantastici Quattro #126 (1976), Captain Britain #11 (1976), Captain Britain #9 (1976), Captain Britain #13 (1977), Captain Britain #14 (1977), Super Spider-Man #232 (1977), Super Spider-Man #233 (1977), Super Spider-Man #234 (1977), Fantastiske Fire #12/1980 (1980), Nova #37 (1981), Super Spider-Man TV Comic #536 (1983), Die Fantastischen Vier #128 (1998), Essential Fantastic Four #6 (2007), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #12 (2010), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #8 (2022), Fantastic Four Omnibus #5 (2024), De Fantastiske Fire #16, De Vier Verdedigers Classics #75, Fantastiska Fyran #12/1980, Los 4 Fantásticos #156
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