Look! Ben’s trenchcoat disguise worked! But…Oh yeah, Alicia’s blind.
And then, a Silver Surfer/Galactus story.
After a bunch of issues that meandered around pointlessly, we finally get to see some of the threads pull together. Thing is jealous of Surfer (again) because the dude was alone with Alicia (again), but all that nonsense is quickly squelched by Surfer’s prouncement (above) that he has been summoned by Galactus.
He doesn’t want to work for him anymore. So he secretly uses one of Reed Richards’ machines to hide in the Microverse.
Surfer loves it in the microverse because it makes him feel as if he’s free of the barrier that keeps him on Earth. Nice character moment.
But Galactus is still hungry.
So he decides to come eat Earth.
And he sends his punisher robot out ahead.
The FF defeat the punisher robot but now know that Silver Surfer is the key.
So the FF shrink down to find Norrin Radd. And Reed Richards coins the phrase “Micronauts.”
Long before Bill Mantlo would co-opt the area for his wonderfully underrated toy tie-in, The Micronauts.
And where there’s Microverse, there’s Psycho Man. Because when we last saw him, he had shrunk to nothing.
They fight, until Psycho Man becomes convinced that he must let the FF go to help Silver Surfer save Earth because if the big G eats Earth, he also eats the Microverse.
From there, Galactus is stymied again, and he re-imprisons Surfer on Earth saying he wants to be sure he knows where to find him in the future.
Overall, a really great story with lots of seeds for future storylines. And speaking of the future…
This issue is the debut of Ben’s custom jet cycle, which he calls a “Gizmo.” And while we’re on the topic of vehicles…
The craft Reed creates to get to the Microverse is yellow (why?) and makes me think it’s a prototype for the Magic Schoolbus.