Fantastic Four #79
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four #79 (October 1968) is a quietly significant chapter in the Lee–Kirby run because it carries two distinct narrative threads that would echo across decades of Marvel continuity: the first appearance of Android Man — a Mad Thinker creation whose defeat here was only temporary, as he was later reactivated by Doctor Doom to infiltrate the Baxter Building — and a pivotal scene in which Reed Richards privately learns that the cosmic-ray radiation in Sue's blood poses a dangerous complication to her pregnancy, a revelation he withholds from her. That second thread seeded the long-running dramatic tension around Sue's pregnancy that would not be resolved until Fantastic Four Annual #6, and the consequences of her irradiated physiology were revisited in stories as late as Fantastic Four #267 and into the Volume 3 era. Taken together, the issue exemplifies how Lee and Kirby wove serialized emotional stakes — Ben Grimm's identity crisis, a husband keeping a frightening secret from his pregnant wife — into action-driven Silver Age storytelling.
In "A Monster Forever?", the Fantastic Four face a chilling threat when a Mad Thinker android attacks Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters, testing the limits of their strength and loyalty. As Reed Richards grapples with troubling news about Sue's health, the team’s unity is strained by secrets and the looming danger of a relentless foe. With Jack Kirby’s dynamic art and Joe Sinnott’s sharp inks bringing the action to life, this 1968 issue delivers emotional weight and suspense in equal measure.
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The issue was produced during the final years of the Lee–Kirby partnership on Fantastic Four, with Stan Lee handling the script and Jack Kirby providing the plot (a co-plotting arrangement widely acknowledged by both creators in subsequent interviews, even though the indicia credits use only the signature banner crediting both men). Joe Sinnott inked the pencils and cover, and Artie Simek lettered the story — the same tight creative unit responsible for most of the run's best-remembered issues. The issue arrives at a narrative inflection point: Ben Grimm had just been temporarily restored to human form in the preceding issue, and this story forces that resolution — via the accidental radiation of the Wizard's Wonder Gloves — back into tragedy, with Ben choosing to embrace his Thing identity rather than admit he can no longer change back.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Written by Stan Lee, plotted by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (co-plot credit widely acknowledged in interviews), penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnott, lettered by Artie Simek.
- First appearance of Android Man (Earth-616), a superhuman android created by the Mad Thinker, who is accidentally reactivated by police clearing out the Mad Thinker's old hideout and drawn to Ben Grimm by the energy signature of the Wizard's Wonder Gloves.
- First appearance of Sergius O'Hoolihan, the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building doorman, whose full name is later confirmed in Thing #21.
- Key story development: Reed Richards secretly learns from Sue's medical charts that the cosmic rays in her blood could endanger their unborn child — information he deliberately withholds from her, a plot thread that directly leads to the climactic events of Fantastic Four Annual #6 and the birth of Franklin Richards.
- Ben Grimm's identity dilemma drives the emotional core of the story: forced back into his Thing form permanently when the Wizard's Wonder Gloves radiate him during the Android Man battle, Ben publicly declares it was his plan all along, masking his grief.
- Although apparently destroyed in this issue, Android Man was subsequently repaired by Doctor Doom and reappeared as the 'Super-Android' in Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Comics Magazine #1 (December 2000).
- The story has been reprinted in at least 16 editions internationally, including Marvel's Greatest Comics #61 (January 1976, edited with two pages removed), Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 4 (2005, black and white), Stan Lee Meets The Thing #1 (December 2006), and the Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 3 (2015) and Fantastic Four Epic Collection #5: The Name Is Doom (2020).
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Reprints
Reprinted in HIP Comics #1989 (1969), Hit Comics #89 (1969), Los 4 Fantásticos #106 (1969), Fantastic Four #2 (1970), I Fantastici Quattro #76 (1974), Marvel's Greatest Comics #61 (1976), Une Aventure des Fantastiques #9 (1976), Essential Fantastic Four #4 (2005), Stan Lee Meets The Thing #1 (2006), Stan Lee Meets #[nn] (2007), Fantastic Four : L'intégrale #1968 (2009), Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #8 (2012), Marvel Gold. Los 4 Fantásticos #2 (2012), Fantastic Four Omnibus #3 (2015), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #5 (2020), Die Fantastischen Vier #75, Fantastiska fyran #20, Ihmesarja #38
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