Fantastic Four 323 - Inferno

Kang travels into the Inferno of New York as part of his plan to steal a weapon buried in California.

Fantastic Four #323

Story: Steve Englehart
Pencils: Keith Pollard
Inks: Romeo Tanghal
Letters: Ghastly J. Workman
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Fantastic Four or rather Three encounter Mantis as she searches for help to find her child which they offer once they have ascertained the situation in New York can be handled. Meanwhile Kang the Conqueror is seeking a powerful weapon created by a Celestial buried in California and plans to use Mantis's power as the Celestial Madonna to secure it. However she has lost this power and so he has to try other ways with the Three pursuing him to California and attacking as the Human Torch's power gets out of control.

Why isn't Kang a Fantastic Four villain? He made his debut in the series under the identity of the time travelling Pharaoh Rama-Tut. It was originally suggested that he was a descendent of Doctor Doom or even perhaps a future incarnation of Doom himself. Later it was revealed that he was from a parallel timeline that had been influenced by the intervention of Nathaniel Richards, Reed's father, who became an alternative candidate for the ancestor with Kang's real name revealed to be Nathaniel Richards. But instead the character got used in Avengers where he got his best known name and appearance and rarely ventured outside it. Prior to this issue his sole encounters with the Fantastic Four have been restricted to a cameo in an annual when just about every villain in the fledgling Marvel universe tried to attack Reed and Sue's wedding or a single story in the Human Torch/Thing strip in Strange Tales. Otherwise he had mainly been in Avengers but did sometimes turn up in other series. It's odd as a time travelling dictator who is the descendent of either the Four's archenemy or else of the (usual) leader's father would surely be a natural foe to turn to. But instead he has rarely come to these pages and here the attraction is not so much the team (who currently lack any of the Richards clan) but rather his pursuit of Mantis and Steve Englehart's continued attempts to tell her story.

(Later on in the mid 1990s the Fantastic Four did indeed get another foe who is a time travelling future dictator descended from the family. But I seem to be about the only reader who liked Hyperstorm. And he's also connected to another prominent Marvel family who are not known to have encountered him yet.)

As discussed previously on Fantastic Four Annual #21 (and more briefly on Silver Surfer Annual #1 and West Coast Avengers Annual #3) this was a period of prolonged behind the scenes struggle between Steve Englehart and his editors on all three titles with disagreement over the direction they should go in and the use of particular characters such as Mantis. Consequently after leaving West Coast Avengers he transferred his plans to Fantastic Four hence the use of traditional Avengers villains both last issue and this one. It would appear that Englehart had also planned a semi-crossover with Avengers as Kang is here seeking the same goal as Nebula over in the Fall of the Avengers storyline and working sneakily to avoid the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. The result of all this is that the Three are all too clearly wandering through someone's else's storyline and despite the "Inferno continues" triangle on the cover this issue is only very tangentially related to the crossover with a minor encounter with living parking meters and Kang commenting on how he can use the dimensional upheavals to slip in undetected by his counterparts being the only significant features. The Torch initially thinks his problems with controlling his flame power are down to the effects of Inferno but the problems continue even out on the west coast.

Combined with some poor art that seems to be a consequence of new inker Romeo Tanghal struggling with both the Thing and Ms Marvel the result is that this really doesn't feel like an issue of Fantastic Four or an Inferno crossover. Instead it is hard to disguise that it is supposed to be a West Coast Avengers storyline with even the California location retained. Also if editorial was closing in on Mantis then it would have helped to accelerate the telling of her story but instead things continue to drag out with Kang's intervention feeling more of a distraction than an advancement of the plot. This issue is forgettable.