Fantastic Four #31
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four #31 marks the first appearance of Dr. Franklin Storm, father of Sue and Johnny Storm, whose tragic backstory — a brilliant surgeon turned convicted felon — gave the team's two founding siblings a layer of family drama that had been largely absent from superhero comics to that point. By threading a serialized mystery across the issue (Sue's visible distress over an escaped convict's newspaper photo, withheld from Reed and the reader alike until the final pages) and resolving it only in part, Lee and Kirby demonstrated how the nascent Marvel shared-universe model could sustain multi-issue emotional arcs rather than self-contained adventures. The issue also features a contemporaneous crossover with the full Avengers lineup — Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, and the Wasp — arriving at the scene before being persuaded to let the FF handle the Mole Man themselves, exemplifying the tight continuity weaving that distinguished the early Marvel line. Franklin Storm's introduction sets the stage for his sacrifice in the very next issue, making #31 the essential first chapter of one of Silver Age Marvel's most compressed and genuinely affecting family tragedies.
In "The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!", the Fantastic Four face a terrifying threat as the Mole Man begins dragging chunks of New York City into his underground domain. When Sue Storm is injured in the chaos, the team is forced to turn to her estranged father—now a fugitive—whose unexpected medical skills may be their only hope. Written by Stan Lee and brought to life by Jack Kirby’s dynamic art, with Chic Stone’s inks and Stan Goldberg’s colors, this 1964 classic features a cover by Kirby and Stone that captures the subterranean menace in bold, dramatic detail.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
Raw — FN ▾ $68.99–$106 2 listings
Raw — VG+ ▾ $40–$82 3 listings
Raw — VG ▾ $29.95–$81 16 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $1.79–$106 34 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The issue was written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Chic Stone, with lettering by Sam Rosen — the core creative team that had been producing the title since its 1961 launch. It went on sale July 9, 1964, carrying an October 1964 cover date, placing it squarely within the period when Lee and Kirby were publishing Fantastic Four on a monthly schedule while simultaneously building out the broader Marvel Universe across multiple titles. No production anomalies or behind-the-scenes disputes specific to this issue have been documented in available sources; it appears to have been a standard entry in the team's prolific mid-1964 output.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Dr. Franklin Storm (Professor Franklin Storm), father of Sue and Johnny Storm, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — confirmed as a supporting character in his debut.
- Story title: 'The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!' — Mole Man (Harvey Elder) sinks a New York City block underground and takes the Invisible Girl hostage.
- The full Avengers roster of the era — Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Thor (Odinson), Giant-Man (Hank Pym), and the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) — appears at the scene; the FF convinces them to stand down, placing this crossover between Avengers #9 and Avengers #12 in Marvel continuity.
- Sue Storm is struck by shrapnel during the escape from the Mole Man's self-destructing lair, and her survival requires emergency surgery by the only qualified surgeon available — her escaped-felon father, whose identity had been concealed as a mystery throughout the issue.
- Franklin Storm's backstory (manslaughter conviction following his wife's death and a gambling debt gone wrong, with Sue hiding the truth from Johnny by telling him their father was dead) is seeded here and expanded in the directly following issue, Fantastic Four #32.
- Creative credits: Script by Stan Lee; pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by Chic Stone; colors by Stan Goldberg; letters by Sam Rosen; edited by Stan Lee. On-sale date July 9, 1964; cover date October 1964.
- The story was reprinted in Marvel's Greatest Comics #23 — the debut issue of that long-running reprint title — and was reprinted a second time in Marvel's Greatest Comics #29, an unusual double reprint for a single Silver Age issue.
- Franklin Storm was later adapted into the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series (voiced by Richard McGonagle) and portrayed by Reg E. Cathey in the 2015 Fantastic Four theatrical film, where the character was reimagined as a scientist and director of the Baxter Foundation.
Cast · 11 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Mystic #48 (1964), The Fantastic Four #72-111 (1966), Pow! and Wham! #64 (1968), Pow! and Wham! #66 (1968), Marvel's Greatest Comics #23 (1969), Marvel #5 (1970), Marvel #6 (1970), Strange #9 (1970), Marvel's Greatest Comics #29 (1970), I Fantastici Quattro #25 (1972), The Mighty World of Marvel #67 (1974), The Mighty World of Marvel #68 (1974), De Fantastiske Fire [Fantastiske Fire superseriepocket] #1 (1979), Fantastiska fyran pocket (Fantastiska Fyran Superseriepocket) #1 (1979), Une Aventure des Fantastiques #33 (1984), Marvel Masterworks #21 (1992), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #4 (2003), Fantastic Four Omnibus #2 (2007), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #4 (2010), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #2 (2017), Marvel Origins #23 (2024), Die Fantastischen Vier #2, Die Fantastischen Vier #28, Los 4 Fantásticos #47 + 1 more
Key issues in Fantastic Four
★
★
★
★
★
★
★
★Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.