Good Reading: Fantastic Four #305

Here is an issue I pulled out during the week. Was it great. Hell no. But it was solid entertaining, and fun. Basically it is dealing with the Thing still moping around after Johnny married Alicia in #300 who Reed has elected to lead the FF as he and Sue retire to the suburbs to raise Franklin. Ben is considering who he should  ask to replace the Richards when who comes floating by only Crystal of the Inhumans, in a wonderful coincidence that can only happen in comic books.

    There is some history here as Crystal was Torch's first love and the Thing's motives for recruiting her are not completely in the interests of the team; he hopes Crystal will pry Johnny back from his wife Alicia. Crystal has come to collect her psychotic and estranged husband Quicksilver and bring him home to Attilan. It is also revealed Crystal was playing around with a real estate agent behind Pietro's back. Infidelity was rarely dealt with in mainstream comics of this era.

     Anyway the torch rightly suspect Ben's motives in hiring Crystal and confronts him on the rooftop of the Plaza building. This leads to an entertaining fight. And they ain't messin' around. Eventually cooler tempers prevail.
      Sue also questions Crystal's character in an interesting exchange quizzing her over her extramarital affair (the little minx) setting up plotlines for further dissension down the line which could have been utilized but sadly were not.
      Quicksilver is shown to be out to lunch as he and crystal talk smack to each other in Reed's makeshift jail/asylum where he is keeping both Kristoff (the kid that Doom brainwashed into believing he was Doom) and Pietro, this results in fracas between the two former sweethearts. All in all this was a very entertaining issue. John Buscema's art is rock solid, but sadly it looks a little dated unlike his work on Avengers where he was inked by the incomparable Tom Palmer who gave his pencils depth and grit.It was said at this point Big John had lost interest in drawing superheroes and it shows, but even a sub-par John Buscema is still a master of his craft. Steve Englehart had really shook up the status quo here with the new line-up (the new Ms. Marvel, Sharon Ventura joins in the next issue) and this title looked like it was going places after John Byrne's stellar run ended but sadly a lot of what was to come was dross. So bad Englehart had use the pseudonym 'John Harkness', first cousin twice removed from Agatha.;-)