Fantastic Four #19
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four #19 is the true birthplace of one of Marvel's most enduring and narratively complex villains: the character who would eventually be known as Kang the Conqueror first walked onto the page here, disguised as the time-usurping pharaoh Rama-Tut. Although Lee and Kirby did not initially plan a direct connection between Rama-Tut and the Kang they would introduce a year later in Avengers #8, later writers retroactively wove the two together into a single, sprawling identity, making this issue the anchor point of decades of time-travel storytelling across both the Fantastic Four and Avengers franchises. The issue is also a foundational example of the Fantastic Four's defining creative DNA—the team ventures into danger not for combat glory but out of a purely scientific impulse, hoping to find a cure for Alicia Masters' blindness—distinguishing it from virtually every other superhero book of the Silver Age. Its ripple effects extended far beyond Marvel's 1960s output, touching the origins of Apocalypse, the Young Avengers, and the MCU's entire Multiverse Saga.
In "Prisoners of the Pharoah!," the Fantastic Four journey back to Ancient Egypt in a desperate bid to cure Alicia's blindness, only to be captured by Rama-Tut, a mysterious time traveler from the year 3000. Written by Stan Lee and brought to life with dynamic art by Jack Kirby, this 1963 classic features bold colors by Stan Goldberg and sharp inks by Dick Ayers, all framed by Kirby’s iconic cover pencils and Paul Reinman’s definitive inks.
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The issue was written by Stan Lee and penciled by Jack Kirby, with inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, and lettering by Sam Rosen; it carried a cover date of October 1963 but was released on newsstands on July 9, 1963. One observer has noted that Kirby's conception of the Egypt-set adventure may have been influenced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz's blockbuster film Cleopatra, which had released earlier that same summer of 1963—a reminder that Kirby, working under heavy deadline pressure across multiple titles simultaneously, drew inspiration from the broader popular culture surrounding him. Stan Lee served as both writer and editor-in-chief on the title at the time, and the cover famously misspelled 'Pharaoh' as 'Pharoah,' a typo that was carried into the story's own title, 'Prisoners of the Pharoah!'
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Rama-Tut, the time-traveling pharaoh from the year 3000 who would later be retroactively established as an early identity of Kang the Conqueror (Nathaniel Richards), one of Marvel's most prominent recurring villains.
- Created by writer Stan Lee and penciler Jack Kirby, with Dick Ayers on inks, Stan Goldberg on colors, and Sam Rosen on letters; cover date October 1963, on-sale date July 9, 1963.
- The story's title is 'Prisoners of the Pharoah!' — the misspelling of 'Pharaoh' was an error in the original printing that appeared on both the cover and the interior title page.
- The Fantastic Four travel to ancient Egypt aboard Doctor Doom's time machine (previously introduced in Fantastic Four #5) seeking a radioactive substance that might cure the blindness of Alicia Masters, Ben Grimm's girlfriend — making altruistic scientific curiosity, rather than villainy, the catalyst for the entire adventure.
- Within the issue, Rama-Tut enslaves the Fantastic Four using a 30th-century 'ultra-diode ray' that saps their powers; he also attempts to make Susan Storm his queen. The Thing temporarily reverts to human form due to solar radiation before regaining his powers through contact with Rama-Tut's weapon.
- The issue plants the seeds of Rama-Tut's connection to Doctor Doom: the text strongly implies that Rama-Tut is a descendant of Doom, since he claims an ancestor built the time machine he used — a plot thread that was later complicated and partially retconned by Fantastic Four #273 (1984), which linked the character's ancestry to Nathaniel Richards (Reed's father) and the alternate Earth-6311.
- The letters page of this issue contains a letter from a teenage Steve Gerber, who would go on to create Howard the Duck — an early documented appearance of a future comics creator in a Marvel letters column.
- The story has been reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four Vol. 2 (first collected 1988), the Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Master Plan of Doctor Doom, the Mighty World of Marvel #42 (Marvel UK, 1973), and the Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #2 (2021), among other collections.
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Reprints
Reprinted in America's Best TV Comics #[nn] (1967), Marvel #1 (1970), Marvel #2 (1970), Strange #5 (1970), Estréia! (1ª Série) [Quarteto Fantástico] #7 (1970), I Fantastici Quattro #14 (1971), The Mighty World of Marvel #41 (1973), The Mighty World of Marvel #42 (1973), Giant-Size Avengers #2 (1974), Une Aventure des Fantastiques #27 (1982), Marvel Masterworks #6 (1988), Essential Fantastic Four #1 (1998), Biblioteca Marvel: Los 4 Fantásticos #03 (1999), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #2 (2003), Fantastic Four Omnibus #1 (2005), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #2 (2009), Avengers: West Coast Avengers - Lost in Space-Time #[nn] (2012), West Coast Avengers Omnibus #2 (2014), X-Men: The Rise of Apocalypse #[nn] (2016), Marvel Gold. Los 4 Fantásticos #1 (2016), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #2 (2017), Avengers West Coast Epic Collection #2 (2019), Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #2 (2021), Kang: The Saga of the Once and Future Conqueror #[nn] (2022) + 9 more
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