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Fantastic Four: Crusaders and Titans

by Robert Greenberger

Seemingly concurrent with the return of co-creator Jack Kirby to Marvel, writer/editor Roy Thomas was inspired to dive into his bag of tricks and find some new foes, some old characters to revive, and tweak the lineup of Marvel’s flagship title wonderful Four. That run of stories is being collected in wonderful Four: Crusaders & Titans, collecting issues #164-176 from 1975-76. Roy is aided and abetted by interior artists George Perez, rich Buckler, and John Buscema. more than a few of the covers are by Kirby, inked by his former FF collaborator Joe Sinnott and it’s a nice reminder of how strong their work together is. Kirby was past his prime at this point while Sinnott was able to make the work look as good as it had years earlier. In fact, Sinnott was the visual secret engine to the run in the decade after Kirby left. He was pressed into service to take the work of John Romita, Buscema, Perez, Buckler, and others and make it consistently look like the best of the Kirby/Sinnott days.

The volume opens with the revival of the Crusader, originally known as marvel Boy. A 1950 creation of Stan Lee and Russ Heath, Robert Grayson and his parents fled the Nazi menace and relocated to Uranus. The planet [turned out to be] inhabited and he grew up among them, developing higher than normal intelligence and telepathic powers. At 16, it was decided Robert would pilot the Silver Bullet back to earth and, using power-producing pills from his hosts and a pair of wrist bands that would emit blinding “atomic radiance” from his father, fight crime on Earth. He headlined his own title, although weak sales rapidly saw it renamed Astonishing and he was gone after six installments, the latter five nicely drawn by bill Everett.

Roy had the FF find Grayson in a state of suspended animation and altered the backstory so the gauntlets were now “Quantum Bands” and the source of his powers. It was a nice nod to the Atlas era even though he was now positioned as a villain and then was seemingly killed off (the Quantum Bands, of course, are still around and Grayson avoided death and is now an agent of Atlas).

After a fill-in from Buckler and Dan Adkins guest-starring the Hulk, Roy kicked things into gear with a storyline that once more robbed Ben Grimm of his thing persona. However, with a four in the team’s name and a clear need for power, Reed goes out to recruit a replacement. Unlike the last time this happened, when the Inhuman Medusa temporarily filled in for sue Richards back in issue #130, this looked to be more of a permanent need. Mister wonderful went out and hired a hero: Luke Cage, who arrived just in time to help them stop the Wrecker.

Roy was masterminding the overall storyline which showed a shadowy foe manipulating events surrounding the team; no easy feat as page counts dropped during this run from eighteen to seventeen pages. things nicely build to a satisfying revelation in issue #170.

From there, we return to check out one of Roy’s favorite places in the marvel Universe: Counter Earth. Roy created this planet, revolving around Sol like our own, and set Warlock’s adventures there only a few years earlier. now the golden ape Gorr brings the team there to stop Galactus’ herald, the Destroyer, from summoning the consumer of worlds.

In a taut three-parter, the FF fail, Galactus arrives, and Counter Earth’s creator, the High Evolutionary, wants to go mano-a-mano with the cosmic entity to save the world. The thing returns just in time for the climax and unexpected arrival of the impossible Man. The resident of Poppup then takes center stage in the final story in the collection, a light-hearted change-of-pace tale that actually lists Lee, Perez, Thomas, Kirby, Sinnott, John Verpoorten, Marv Wolfman, Archie Goodwin, Gerry Conway, and, Marie Severin as guest stars.

The pace is unrelenting and there’s something for every taste in this collection, a representative sampling of 1970s superhero action at its finest.

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Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans