Ugh - that's the first thing that comes to mind.
The interesting thing is the saying, "don't judge a book by it's cover." The first two covers gave you a good idea of what you'd expect (the conflict, the villains, a dramatic situation), this one, not so much. Instead they use the cover as a means to focus on their new costumes, the Fantasti-car, and secret hide-out. When I first saw the cover, I was a little taken back, but I pushed forward.
THEN I understood.
Page one shows us the villain of this Fantasti-venture: The Miracle Man. No wonder he didn't make the cover - he doesn't even look intimidating, and he does very little within the story to convince me otherwise.
As it progresses, we discover that he's a disgruntled magician who wants to take over the world. After the Fan Four goes to see his performance, and he makes them look like fools, he decides it's time to strike. The Miracle Man uses his powers to make all sorts of craziness. He even turns a fake stand-up monster into a full-fledged city destroying monster - kind of like the Stay Puff't Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. At the end of it all, he seems invincible, but is taken out when the Human Torch blinds him with a flash. They capture the Miracle Man and discover his secret: he actually didn't perform ANY of the supposed feats. Instead, he was able to hypnotize those around him into believing they saw what they did.
...Hypnotism? AGAIN? I feel a little let down at this point because it's almost as though hypnosis is being used as a way to quickly tie up the loose ends of the story.
Well, enough about that. It's time to talk about the REAL highlight of the story. That's right! What about the Fantasti-Car, the Fantastic Four Costumes, and the Fantastic Four's Skyscraper Hide-Out?!
Stan Lee has always had the ability to turn something small into an event. I need to know the man in order to say he has an ego, but maybe we can say that sometimes he's just overly confident in his product. Maybe he's the ULTIMATE PR Guy! Stan "The Man" always adds exclamation marks onto the end of every sentence, and uses words such as "UNCANNY", "FANTASTIC", "SPECTACULAR", "AMAZING", and by this third issue is already calling it the "GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD!" In fact, the blurb on the cover about their hidden hide-out has THREE exclamation marks!!!! (I put a fourth one in there just to top him!)
Let's look at these things one-by-one. First, the Fantasti-Car:
It's basically a hover couch that is split into four sections. If needed, it breaks apart so that they can hover independently. I actually can't wait to see how long they use this vehicle, because it offers no protection, no maneuverability, and it looks ridiculous.
Next up, the Fantastic Four costumes:
These are the iconic costumes that everyone knows and loves. They still look cool today, and it was really brilliant not introducing them in the first two adventures. The best part is when Susan Storm tells the guys that she made them all costumes - and The Thing throws a FIT! She even made a helmet for him, which is pretty hilarious, since I've never seen him with a helmet. He kind of just stands there while she puts it on him (sort of like when you see an animal in a sweater, you know they hate it, but it's funny). The best part (and sadly, probably my favorite part of the entire issue), is that when they land during the climax in order to fight Miracle Man's monster, the Thing immediately rips his costume off. That costume of his lasted about 10 minutes or so.
Finally, we have the Fantastic Four hide-out. All we really get to see of it is a cutaway diagram of the side looking in. It looks like something I would have drawn as a kid - and seems to have everything but the kitchen sink. Sadly, that's really all we see of it. The rest of the story really just shows them walking around an apartment, with nothing dramatic going on. It even says, "Save This For Future Reference" next to it, but never really gives us the need to refer back to it (let alone the fact that they update the drawing with a new diagram a few issues later).
They really are super-heroes now though, and maybe that's what this issue gives us. They patrol the city from their flying couch, and even have a gigantic building (complete with a missile silo?). The city is starting to look at them like celebrities now, and that's an interesting turn. It makes them stand-out amongst other heroes of that time. I wonder what negative effects we'll see from that? The story ends on a downer though. The Thing is PISSED at Johnny, the Human Torch. It's actually just a little bit of jealousy because Johnny was the one who defeated the Miracle Man. They exchange some words, and the Human Torch leaves the group. Will he come back?! Stay tuned!!!
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