Fantastic Four #229 — Nick Peron

Jan 7

Jan 7 Fantastic Four #229

The Thing from the Black Hole

IMG 2020 20 01 07 03 05 29 gcg1v.png — Credits

The members of the Fantastic Four spend an ordinary Saturday afternoon in a variety of ways: at Alicia's studio the blind sculptress uses Ben's muscle to move a new sculpture into place, Reed and Sue are enjoying a day out at the zoo with Franklin, while Johnny and Lorrie attend an automobile exhibition when suddenly an ominous dark phenomenon appears in the sky. The black hole radiates bands of darkness across the city, blotting out the light, nullifying the Earth's gravity and draining away the air. Fortunately, the effects are short-lived but as the foursome rendezvous, a crowd of panicked New Yorkers turns against them, blaming the Fantastic Four for the phenomenon and threatening violence.

The Fantastic Four escape the mob and, on returning to the Baxter Building, Reed's instruments detect a sentient presence at the centre of the black hole. Worse, Reed believes that his Signal Pulser device is attracting the huge creature and, sure enough, the being heads directly for the Fantastic Four's headquarters. Johnny flames on to intercept it but even a blast of his Nova flame is absorbed by the mass of darkness. Using his elastic body, Reed launches Ben at the creature like a missile, but this attack is just as easily repelled, and Ben plummets the streets below, where Johnny is relieved to find him relatively unharmed.

The Fantastic Four launch a second attack but again are beaten back. The creature uses his powers to rip-up an entire city block from the bedrock and launches it into the sky. With Sue and Johnny left to evacuate the block's residents, Reed and Ben are left to battle the creature alone. Reed tries to envelop the bands of darkness in his pliable form but fails and is injured, leaving Ben to tackle the giant alone, but his best punch barely makes an impact. A recovered Reed collects the Signal Pulser from the Baxter Building and uses it to lure the giant away from Manhattan and out into the ocean.

The ruse works enough for communications to be established between the foursome and the creature, who introduces himself as the Ebon Seeker, born of a black hole and drawn to find other sentient life. The Seeker was attracted to Earth by Reed's Signal Pulser only to find that the planet, like all others, drains him of his life energy, and vows to destroy the Earth before it can destroy him. As the Fantastic Four mount one last desperate attack, the Seeker envelops them in darkness. Trapped and alone in the vast expanse of nothingness, the team ponder their next move, but are soon joined by an ethereal figure calling herself Firefrost who appears to be the key to overcoming the threat of the Ebon Seeker.