Fantastic Four #45
Among Us Hide... The Inhumans
Mister Fantastic grabs a hold of the Thing and pulls him from the wreckage. The Human Torch in turn, grabs both of them, and carries them to higher ground. Reed sends Johnny off to find the Dragon Man and the Invisible Girl. Johnny quickly tracks them down, uses a super-nova burst, and temporarily blinds the Dragon Man. Sue is able to wrest free of his grasp.
Elsewhere, the Sandman and the Trapster attempt to break out of their prison cell. Sandman tries to punch his way through the glass window, but as soon as he does, a secondary pane of glass slides overtop of it. The Trapster wonders if Medusa will attempt to rescue them.
The Invisible Girl manages to tame the Dragon Man and discovers that the creature behaves as if he were actually a small child. Sue and Johnny bring the Dragon Man back to the Baxter Building.
Johnny leaves and tries to call Dorrie Evans for a date. Dorrie has other plans, and Johnny gets miffed. He goes for a walk down the streets of Midtown Manhattan. He finds a skittish red-haired woman sitting in the back of an alleyway. Johnny is completely mystified by her and tries to approach. The woman shoos him away and suddenly a strong gust of wind blows through the air separating the two. When Johnny recovers his senses, the girl is gone. Confused, he returns to the Baxter Building.
Johnny is frustrated and gets into an argument with Sue and Ben. Angrily, he snaps back and leaves the building to search for the mysterious redhead. He finds her in another alleyway and discovers that her name is Crystal. Crystal sees Johnny demonstrate his powers and deduces that they are similar to one another. She decides to take Johnny back to her home. Crystal’s pet is an over-sized bulldog named Lockjaw. Lockjaw has forked antennae on his brow, which generates a charge of energy. The energy opens up a portal to Crystal’s homeland and the three enter the rift.
At the Baxter Building, the Dragon Man begins to lose control again. Reed and Ben attempt to contain him, while Sue renders him inert with a tranquilizer gun. Afterwards, Ben stalks off to reflect upon what it is like to live as a monster.
Crystal meanwhile, introduces Johnny to her people – the Inhumans. He first meets Karnak, who demonstrates his martial prowess by judo-flipping Johnny over his shoulder. He then encounters Black Bolt, Gorgon and Triton. The most surprising member of the Inhumans however is Crystal's sister, Medusa – a woman whom Johnny remembers as a member of the Frightful Four. Karnak claims that Johnny tricked Crystal into believing that he was an Inhuman like she, and a fight breaks out. Despite his powers, Johnny cannot defeat all his adversaries, so he burns a hole through the ceiling and flies off. He creates the "4" signal in the air with his flame to alert the rest of the Fantastic Four.
Reed sees the signal and the team boards their new Airjet-Cycle. They track Johnny down and encounter Gorgon, Karnak and Medusa. The super-powered combatants begin to fight when suddenly, Black Bolt, leader of the Inhumans, arrives on the scene.
Recurring Characters
Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, Thing), Inhumans (Black Bolt, Crystal, Gorgon, Medusa, Triton, Lockjaw), Dragon Man, Sandman, Trapster, Doris Evans (voice)
Continuity Notes
The Trapster and the Sandman have been incarcerated since their capture at the end of Fantastic Four #43, however the Trapster briefly broke out to terrorize the wedding of Reed and Sue as seen in Marvel: Heroes & Legends #1. Nobody remembers that the Trapster was ever free thanks to the Time Displacer device that Reed used to banished the villains who attacked his wedding circa Fantastic Four Annual #3.
This issue marks the end of Johnny's relationship with Doris Evans which began in Strange Tales #113-133. When she is next seen in Fantastic Four #134, she is married with two children.
Although this story establishes that Crystal is sister to Medusa, the rest of the royal family is identified as cousins to Medusa as specified in Thor #149.
Inhumans Special #1 identifies that the neighborhood the Inhumans are hiding within is New York's Bowery.
The Inhumans are an offshoot of humanity that were genetically modified by the alien Kree as revealed in Thor #147. They were bred to be cannon fodder to use against enemies of the Kree as specified in Inhumans #3. Inhumans (vol. 3) #2 goes further to explain that the Inhumans apparently "unique" mutations were really to make them resemble various alien races that the Kree considered enemies for the purposes of infiltration. Although not explained here, their powers come from exposure to Terrigen Mist as revealed in Thor #146.
It should be noted here that although Karnak appears to have super-human powers, unlike his fellow cousins he was never exposed to the Terrigen Mist as explained in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #4. His ability to detect the weakness in other objects is the result of training as a monk.
The Inhuman royal family's official name is the House of Agon, a term first coined in Marvel Two-In-One #71. Agon is the name of Black Bolt's father who ruled the Inhumans before Black Bolt before his death as per Avengers #95
