Is THERE No END To THESE LOOPY LAPSES In LOGIC?

Copyright MARVEL COMICS.  Cover art JACK KIRBY & GEORGE ROUSSOS (as BELL)

I'll try and make this as short as I can.  In FANTASTIC FOUR #19, REED RICHARDS and SUE STORM are on a visit to the Museum of Natural History when they spy some hieroglyphics that seemingly portray a blind Pharaoh being exposed to a vial of radioactive herbs which restore his sight.  Faster than a fart from the FLASH, the foursome are soon using DOCTOR DOOM's time machine to speed back to ancient Egypt in a mission to obtain said vial in order to restore the vision of BEN GRIMM's blind girlfriend, ALICIA MASTERS.

After a succession of encounters with a time-traveller from the future, the foursome obtain the vial and return to the present.  Unfortunately, however, on arrival the vial is gone, as the time machine is seemingly unable to transport anything with radioactive properties from the past to the future, or vice versa.  (Hang on a minute - aren't cosmic rays radioactive?  Then don't the FF have 'radioactive properties' in their genetic makeup.  Two loopy lapses for the price of one?)

Ben is understandably disappointed that poor Alicia must remain blind, although Reed vows to work at replicating the substance until he hopefully one day will meet with success.  So, no happy ending this time 'round, mainly because MISTER FANTASTIC is clearly stunted when it comes to seeing the obvious way to resolve the situation.

In the best comicbook tradition, "Can you spot the solution, readers?"

It's simple.  Take Alicia into the past, cure her blindness, and then bring her back. There'd be no story then though, would there?  Guess that's why I'm not writing comicbooks for a living!    

MIGHTY MARVEL COVER GALLERY - PART FIVE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, yet another phantasmagorical pictorial presentation of the very early days of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL from 1972/'73, when it seemed all of Britain was receptive to the 40 page power-packed periodical which hit the shelves week after week.

Nowadays, of course, Marvel U.K. no longer exists as we knew it, and a company called PANINI have a permit to produce a plethora of full-colour monthly publications for British readers.  And what a Marvel-lous job they do of it too.  (Pun?  What pun?)

However, nothing can truly match the excitement generated by the re-presentation of of those early Marvel classics back at the start of the '70s - when, if you were a certain age, the world was yet young and way-out wonderment still aborning.

Remember to come back for Part Six.