Fantastic Four Annual #10
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFantastic Four Annual #10 is a Bronze Age reprint package that brought two of the most significant stories in early Marvel history back to a new generation of readers: the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm from Annual #3 (1965), which remains the first superhero wedding in the Silver Age Marvel Universe, and the revival of the Golden Age android Jim Hammond (the original Human Torch) from Annual #4 (1966), the story that formally grafted Marvel's wartime past onto its emerging continuity. By bundling both issues into a single volume, the 1973 annual served as a curated primer on the Fantastic Four's most consequential character developments for readers who had missed the originals. Marvel's own continuity databases additionally credit this reprint as the first appearance of Sue Storm under her married name 'Susan Storm-Richards,' making it a minor but trackable milestone in how the character was formally designated going forward.
In "Bedlam at the Baxter Building!", Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl host a joyous wedding celebration for their superhero friends—only for Doctor Doom to strike, unleashing a wave of villainous chaos with his Emotion Charger. As the Baxter Building erupts into mayhem, heroes and villains collide in a high-stakes clash of wills and wits.
In "The Torch That Was!", the Mad Thinker unleashes a long-lost android form of the original Human Torch, reactivating the flame-wielding machine to turn against the Fantastic Four. With the android's powers now under the Thinker’s control, the team faces a terrifying echo of their past—caught in a battle against a foe who was once a hero, now weaponized by a mastermind’s scheme.
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Assembled under editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, Annual #10 carried a cover-dated month of March 1973 but, as documented by the Grand Comics Database using contemporary trade advertising and the fanzine The Comic Reader #97, actually reached newsstands among the September 1973 on-sale cycle. The new cover was penciled by John Buscema and inked by Frank Giacoia — a Bronze Age framing for two foundational Stan Lee/Jack Kirby stories that had been out of print for several years. The choice of contents reflects the early-1970s Marvel practice of using King-Size Annuals to recirculate landmark issues that new readers would otherwise have no practical way to access.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Contains a full reprint of the lead story from Fantastic Four Annual #3 (October 1965), titled 'Bedlam at the Baxter Building!' — written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Vince Colletta — in which Doctor Doom uses an Emotion Charger to unleash virtually the entire Marvel villain roster on Reed and Sue's wedding, making it the first superhero wedding in the Silver Age Marvel Universe.
- Also reprints the lead story from Fantastic Four Annual #4 (November 1966), titled 'The Torch That Was!' — written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Joe Sinnott — in which the Mad Thinker revives the android Jim Hammond (the Golden Age Human Torch) for his first Silver Age appearance, setting up the canonical connection between Marvel's 1940s and 1960s publishing eras.
- The new cover art for Annual #10 was penciled by John Buscema and inked by Frank Giacoia, distinct from the original covers of the reprinted issues.
- Roy Thomas served as editor-in-chief overseeing the 1973 annual's assembly and publication.
- Marvel's continuity databases record this reprint as the first in-continuity appearance of the character designated 'Susan Storm-Richards' — the hyphenated married surname — reflecting how the character was formally catalogued after her 1965 wedding.
- Despite a March 1973 cover date in the indicia, contemporaneous trade advertisements in Fantastic Four #138 and the fanzine The Comic Reader #97 confirm the issue was published on sale among the September 1973 monthly cycle.
- The wedding story from Annual #3 featured cameos from virtually every major Marvel hero of 1965 — including the Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and Nick Fury — as well as a self-referential appearance by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby themselves being turned away at the door for lacking invitations.
- The Jim Hammond story reprinted here directly feeds into later continuity: Hammond's apparent destruction at the hands of Quasimodo in Annual #4 was subsequently retconned as the event that provided the body from which Ultron constructed the Vision.
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965), Fantastic Four Annual #4 (1966)
Reprinted in Strange Spécial Origines #217 (1988), Fantastic Four Epic Collection #8 (2022), I Fantastici Quattro Gigante #25
Key issues in Fantastic Four Annual
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