All Time Classic:Fantastic Four #262 'The Trial of Reed Richards'

This issue just has to be one of the greatest comics of the 1980's, I just read it again over the weekend and had forgotten how good it was.It's almost like it takes every major concept Kirby created for the Fantastic Four in the 1960's and it just grabs that ball and runs with it.
      Sure, Byrne's figures are sleeker and a little more elegant, than Kirby's, with his ultra dynamic posing and robust powerful figure work, but this story remains true, to the flavour of what Lee, and more so Kirby, envisioned to be the cosmos as it exists within the Marvel Universe.
      The plot; Richards is made to answer for saving the life of the planet devourer Galactus back in issue 245 (I think) and is put on trial for his actions.After Galactus' life was saved he only went off and destroyed the Skrull throneworld killing 8 million beings, as you do, this is the reason Rchards is on trial.
       The jury is mostly composed of other races that have survived Galactus' assault on their world, so it's pretty obvious that Richards will be found guilty. In the public gallery there is a great assortment of the weirdest looking aliens, kind of like the bar scene from the first Star Wars film, all of them baying for Reed Richards' blood. Richard's pleads guilty to the charges levied against him..This further incites the partisan jury.
       Richards answers that he is merely guilty of the charge of saving Galactus' life, and reasons that Galactus is beyond good and evil and is therefore neutral and that Galactus has a greater role in the universe than merely destroying planets, that there is a higher purpose to his actions in the grand scheme of the cosmos. Princess Lilandra discounts this logical  thought progression of Richhards as 'childs arithmetic' where as the Watcher acting in Richards' defense says 'here this lone human has the intellect to understand the cosmos using simple logic'.

Then Galactus himself shows up telling the court that Richards' is among the few if any mortals he acknowledges as friend, and the interesting scene here is that all the different races perceive Galactus differently as their mortal mind  cannot comprehend a cosmic being of this magnitude.He appears humanoid to us but differently to all the different alien races. this is conveyed wonderfully in a beautiful splash page which shows Byrne at the height of his imaginative and artistic powers.The Watcher warns Galactus that he is doing Richards no favours by appearing at the trial as he is he is inciting the gallery to a combination of fear and hatred.

Galactus and how he is perceived by us and all the other races in a masterful touch by Byrne

The Watcher sends the Torch off to get get Odin of the Norse Pantheon and the assemblage is awe of the being in the presence of a God. He claims that Richards is not guilty of anything as Galactus is a force of nature and not the malevolent being that the assemblage thinks. This cuts some ice and nearly gets Richards off the hook. The final testimony is from Eternity the corporeal form of the universe itself and we are treated to a recounting of Galactus's origin and Eternity explains that Galactus exists to test planets and to weed out planets that do not pass the test, and reiterates that Richards is innocent.The trial ends. The Fantastic Four are returned to Earth.
John Byrne appears in this story as he is at a loose end on what to write in the next issue of Fantastic Four and he is told by the Watcher to recount the tale of the trial of Galactus while it is fresh in his mind as in his words 'such knowledge will fade as it is not meant for mortal minds' (Gotta love the Watcher.) The episode ends on an ominous note as the Watcher says the day Galactus is stopped and defeated , 'Let the universe mourn'.

Final Page;The Watcher and writer/artist John Byrne

Hinting,not so subtly, that it would be the end of everything. A true classic and a fine example of the shared Marvel Universe being used to its full potential, in crafting an intelligent science fiction thriller.