John Byrne had drawn a bunch of issues before this, so I bet you thought we were moving into his run now, but we’re not. In the interim, the team on the upcoming Moon Knight book takes a brief turn and, as brilliant as Moench and Sienkiewicz can be, their work isn’t as suited for a family comic.
Having said that, there’s a great (albeit somewhat abstract) giant seamonster fight and Reed Richards turns himself into a rescue slide.
So, yeah, it’s still pretty good. It’s just very, very different from what you’d expect on this book in particular, and the change in mood and style wasn’t predicated on anything changing with the actual characters—it just picks right up in continuity.
If anyone out there would care to see this particular issue of ‘FF’ done at least a hundred times better, I would refer you to the very excellent episode of the very excellent 1967-70 Hanna- Barbara ‘Fantastic Four’ cartoon entitled “Demon in the Deep”- of course, Moench probably just sat down at his typewriter and belted this out after having watched the episode on TV. Where is Namor’s awesome blue ‘rebreather’ suit, ( designed for him out of incredible generosity by Mr. Fantastic!! ) and why aren’t all the Atlanteans comatose where they belong-?? I wanna know!!