It’s the 20th Anniversary of the FF and…The team doesn’t exist! This is a giant-size issue with a great cover, and inside is a key to it.
Note that Jack Kirby does not appear next to Stan Lee in the upper right corner of the comic. That’s because he refused to be rendered, due to his historical animosity with the company–and to the fact that, in this very issue, Marvel reproduces some of his work as a back-up feature but didn’t pay him for it.
This is the famous “terror in a tiny town” issue–one of the single greatest FF stories ever made. And it starts strangely…
We see Johnny Storm living in a quaint small town, dreaming of stealing a rocket and becoming a hero. The rest of the family live there, too, with none of them displaying their known skills and abilities (but all are having the same dream). And Thing is Ben Grimm, and Alicia can see. Then comes the misdirect:
We are led to believe Puppet Master is behind it. And he is, a bit. He’s on it anyway. But the real villain…
…Is Doom.
Dr. Doom got Puppet Master to put the team’s consciousnesses (along with Puppet Master’s own daughter, Alicia) into little dolls and forces them to live in a town controlled by Doom.
Their minds are wiped, but eventually they start to remember who they are and break free.
At the end of the story, the tables are turned and Doom gets stuck in the small town as a doll, and Puppet Master has the whole town attack him.