Nightlife

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL — Issue no. 13, July 1978

Book: Fantastic Four Annual

Issue No.: 13

Published: July 4, 1978

Title: “Nightlife”

Cover Price: 60¢

Format: Digital scan

First off, I am pretty sure I had this book as a kid. The 60-cent price tag (it’s expensive because it’s a king-size issue), the off-brand-for-the-era Fantastic Four logo (which is actually a throwback to the original FF logo), and the Fantastics fighting a bunch of the Mole Man’s mole men… all of this stuff on the cover is very familiar to me.

That said, I don’t remember the story at all. But, hey, it’s been a few decades. Reading it now, the first thing I noticed is the artwork. Sal Buscema generally does good work, but the inks here by Joe Sinnott really take Sal’s work up a notch. It probably helps that I found a good-quality scan of the book, but, visually, this is top-shelf Bronze Age Fantastic Four.

The next thing I noticed is that the Fantastic Four, after being broken up for all of the Marvel books published in the first half of 1978, are a team again. The Four’s Human Torch exclaims this on the first page of the story. That said, this is an annual, and, as I’ve written about before, it’s hard to say exactly when these annuals were published. It does look like this one would have been on sale in July of 1978, but I think the story here takes place a little after the current storyline happening in the non-annual issues of Fantastic Four. Which is fine. I’m sure, even back in 1978, nobody thought the Fantastic Four was gonna stay broken up forever. Especially since their comic book kept coming out every month.

Oh, and there’s an editor’s note on page one that explains the Fantastic Four’s reunification is documented in Fantastic Four no. 200, and that issue is “currently on sale.” Which makes sense — I was betting that FF no. 200 would be a big anniversary issue, and that’d be where the team got back together. But it looks like FF no. 200 didn’t come out for another month or so after this annual was published? Sometimes annuals are weird and confusing for an amateur comic book archeologist like me.

The story here is an offbeat one. The Mole Man is the antagonist, as promised on the book’s cover. And he’s kidnapping people and stealing statues. But it turns out he’s trying to create an underground kingdom for people who are, for one reason or another, outcasts in the above-ground world. The Mole Man sees himself as an outcast and is just looking for friends (other than his minions, the not-quite-human “Subterraneans”). It’s an oddly sweet plot twist. The Thing’s girlfriend, the blind sculptor Alicia, convinces the Fantastic Four to leave the Mole Man and his new friends in peace. Not that they need much convincing. The Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman comments, “I’ve never seen anything so — so touching!”

Next time — Kull fights Thulsa Doom!