Fantastic Four 325 - Inferno

The Silver Surfer arrives in time for a child custody battle.

Fantastic Four #325

Story: S.F.X. Englehart
Guest pencils: Rich Buckler
Guest inks: Romeo Tanghal
Letters: Michael Heisler
Colors: George Roussos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

(Although not part of Inferno itself or included in the collected editions this is the conclusion to the storyline in the earlier Fantastic Four issues so worth a look at.)

The Silver Surfer noticed the disruption to Mercury's orbit and has come to the Solar System where he finds the Human Torch adrift in space and takes him back to New York. There he is reunited with Mantis and learns how she lost her memories then her powers and her son. He agrees to help her recover him. The Surfer proves unable to turn off the Human Torch's flames then Kang returns accompanied by the High Cotati and a pod containing Mantis's son. The Cotati demand that Mantis cease pursuing her son who they want to be their ambassador to the universe. She refuses so the Cotati determine she must die and unleash the Priests of Pama on her. The Fantastic Four and Surfer join her in fighting back with Kang producing more advanced weaponry to restrain the Surfer. Mantis breaks through to reach the Cotati and fights with her mind, forcing them to flee with the Priests and Kang both withdrawing as well. Mantis announces the Cotati have withdrawn into the realm of pure thought and only she has the training to follow them so she says goodbye to the Surfer and abandons her body to enter the realm. An upset Surfer flies away alone.

And so we reach multiple endings. Not only is this the real ending for the Fantastic Four's Inferno saga (even though Inferno itself has ended by the time the Surfer and Torch reach Earth) but this is also the last issue with Englehart's name on it and the conclusion to his attempt to tell a saga involving Mantis. Englehart would remain on the series for another eight months using the pseudonym "John Harkness" with a bizarre story in which the Fantastic Four wind up being replaced by imposters based on the Silver Age and there were some dreams as well that reflected some of the battles with editorial. The whole thing ends with "Mr Harkness" appearing in the final two panels of issue #333 to agree with Franklin "this was all a mistake" and says "I'll try. But it might take a better man than me to straighten out this mess." With that Englehart was gone and also soon left Silver Surfer. He then wrote an open letter to fanzines about the problems he had had on all three series (West Coast Avengers being the third) at Marvel, directly blaming Tom DeFalco rather the different individual editors. In later years his website would include some details of the disputes that invariably casts a cloud when reading the issues themselves.

This story does not disguise its roots as a rewritten quick piece designed to end things with Mantis with as much dignity as possible whilst Englehart still had any control over her. It makes use of Kang's time travel abilities to go off and make a deal to work with the Cotati for his own revenge but ultimately boils down to little more than a guest star turning up for a fight. The Surfer and Mantis were intended to be reunited to carry forth into adventures in the Surfer's own series but with that avenue cut off Englehart now resorts to removing Mantis from the physical realm altogether. Despite reiterating that she has lost her powers and can only rely on her training she proves able to abandon her body completely in a rushed ending as she chases after the Cotati.

The Cotati's motivations make little sense here. They have manipulated things to arrange for a child to be born to a union between a human and Cotati because... they lost their ability to move and want "an ambulatory plant" to "be our ambassador to the universe". Why they can't just make use of another being's body if they want to walk about is utterly unexplained and they've already shown they can communicate with other beings. It's a feeble motivation for what has turned out to be such a long quest over multiple titles and it feels as though no effort is being made deliberately. The final battle resorts to Mantis still having powers from when she trained to become the Celestial Madonna that she has not demonstrated for a good while.

All in all this feels like a deliberate poor effort with a writer more concerned to write Mantis out of the physical realm than anything else and just throwing out random stuff to get to the conclusion. Combined with some terrible art - the Thing especially looks worse than ever - and the result is a whimpering end to it all.

(Oh and exactly when is Inferno set? This issue takes place in the aftermath but it's called "A Christmas Tale" and features snow. Yet other issues have referenced the summer or Halloween.)