Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3
Where Lurks Death... Ride the Four Horsemen!
After centuries away from the planet Earth, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have returned to wreak havoc on the planet once more. Pestilence attacks New York City, bringing the attention of the Fantastic Four, who confront the winged creature. Pestilence explains that they ruled over the Earth centuries past until they were driven away by some unknown force. After attacking Ben, the Thing marshals up all his strength and hits Pestilence as hard as he can, making the creature disappear. Reed rallies everyone together to go searching for the other three horsemen, Reed and Ben taking one part of the Fantasticar and Johnny and Medusa taking the other.
Johnny and Medusa end up in a war-torn country in Africa where the local combatants turn their firepower upon the two heroes, shooting them out of the sky. Johnny and Medusa are quickly overpowered and taken prisoner by an army of black rebel fighters. Medusa frees them with her hair and they fight off the army. They are confronted by War, who injures Medusa. In a fit of rage, Johnny attacks and overpowers War. When he takes off the creature's mask, he finds that the "true face" of War is humanity, before War disappears just as Pestilence did earlier.
Reed and Ben find themselves in Cambodia where Famine is starving everyone there to death. Reed forces one man under Famine's influence to eat before the two heroes attack Famine directly. Reed wraps his body around Famine, and eventually, Famine is defeated like the other two horsemen. The Fantastic Four then reunite to take on Death on the peaks of Mount Everest. Death splits off into death-faced versions of the FF and takes them all on one-on-one. The battle ends in a victory for the Fantastic Four who manage to defeat all their opponents, Death disappearing as well after the battle. The whole episode has Ben upset because the whole time they were fighting he never got the chance to shout "It's Clobberin' Time!"
Recurring Characters
Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Medusa, Human Torch, Thing), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Pestilence, Famine, Death)
Continuity Notes
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are identified as members of the Axi-Tun race in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #5 in the alien races section that lists all the humanoid alien races.
The the real names of the Four Horsemen were identified in FF: Fifty Fantastic Years #1. Who banished them in the distant past is still a mystery to this day. They are Linbythoum (War), Yentron (Pestilence), Krowtanem (Famine), and Rowregyynac (Death)
Ben mentions Johnny having a hard time losing his girlfriend Crystal. The pair dated between Fantastic Four #65-105 when Crystal was forced to return home to Attilan due to the pollution in the outside world becoming lethal. While she was away she met and fell in love with Quicksilver and chose him over Johnny as seen in Fantastic Four #131-132. Crystal and Quicksilver got married in Fantastic Four #150.
A number of the locations in this story are chosen because at the time of this publication there were ongoing conflicts or crisis going on in those regions that were current at the time this story was published in 1974. These should be considered topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. Any reference to the Fantastic Four being active in said conflicts or topical references should be generalized when put into the context of the Sliding Timescale. These are:
Johnny and Medusa's trip to Africa is a commentary on the then ongoing South African Border War which lasted from 1966 to 1989.
Reed and Ben's trip to Cambodia references the damage caused to the country as the result of the Vietnam War which lasted from 1955-1975. Cambodia was subject to bombings by the United States from 1969 to 1973 among other upheavals caused by the war in Vietnam.
For modern readers, the conflict areas in this story, particularly those in Asia, should be associated with the Sin-Cong Conflict. A fictional conflict first referenced in History of the Marvel Universe #2. This conflict is now the reference used to replace all references of the Vietnam War in the present tense in Marvel books that take place in the Modern Age.
