When we're talking about the end of all there is, you'd be hard-pressed to find more fearsome characters to adapt for a comics story than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of the Last Judgment who originate from the Book of Revelation. Let's face it: If you subscribe to the beliefs of the Bible and you spot four horsemen descending from the clouds, it's fair to assume that your number is up--that everyone's number is up, given that the task of the Horsemen is to "set a divine apocalypse" upon the world. That sort of wording isn't likely to put a happy face on the event, since no matter how you slice it an apocalypse is still an apocalypse; in addition, though it's comforting to know that Heaven will have horses, it's anyone's guess why a domain with winged angels would need to send harbingers galloping down on horseback. Nevertheless, you can't help but appreciate the notion that God has been interpreted to have a sense of the theatric.
"Four Horsemen of the Apocalpse"
Painted by Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887
From left to right: Death, Famine, War, and Conquest
In terms of these characters being represented in comics, you may remember the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse--that is, the ancient mutant who adapted other mutants to fulfill his plans for global conquest, and whose credo has been "growth, judgment, and destruction" throughout his centuries-long life span. Apocalypse depended on science and technology to create his horsemen...
...but for his final convert, Death, he took advantage of the injuries of Warren Worthington, the Angel, replacing his amputated wings with razor-sharp equivalents and sending him out with the other horsemen to do his bidding.
That story played out in the fall of 1987. But years earlier, in 1974, Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman, along with artist Rich Buckler, created Marvel's earliest version of the Four Horsemen--aliens who would return to Earth to conquer it anew, and, this time, maintain their grip on it forever!
And since we're talking about four horsemen, it stands to reason that it would be the Fantastic Four who would fight to deny them their prize.
But if you're hoping to see team against team clashing in an epic battle, at even some point in this story, then your disappointment is likely to be as great as mine was. Some of the credit for the choices made here--the splitting up of the story into chapters... the abrupt end to each of the Horsemen, one by one... the result not living up to the buildup--should probably be shouldered by Conway, who as co-plotter must bear at least partial responsibility for its direction and execution. The FF, for what it's worth, take this conflict as seriously as any; but in large part, this battle has the wind taken out of its sails because all of its engagements are basically won for the FF, leaving few details to ponder as to making sense of how this story progresses. For instance, how can the Horsemen afford to be so arrogant, when they're so vulnerable? Why split their forces, if they were so determined to avoid defeat? For that matter, what basis does Reed have to believe the Horsemen have split up? How can Reed's aircraft be programmed with their locations? What makes Reed declare that the fourth Horseman may be "undefeatable... totally undefeatable!"--and which of the Horsemen does Reed consider to be the fourth? Wouldn't that only be revealed through the process of elimination?
As we proceed through the story, it's fair to believe that the answers to all of these questions, and more, will become clear. Regrettably, that isn't the case; but on a positive note, Buckler and inker Joe Sinnott provide enough visual compensation for your 50¢*--though despite the globe-trotting, there is no real sense of doom apparent in the scenes, given what we're led to believe is the magnitude of this threat.
*For four bits you get 30 pages of story (after subtracting ads and promotional material--would you believe two different Bullpen Bulletins pages?), which is slightly longer than in a regular FF issue, followed by a reprint of Fantastic Four #21.
Turning the pages to Chapter 1, we find that Pestilence has unleashed a nightmarish coma-pox that renders all mankind unconscious for two days, presumably to give the Horsemen time to position themselves in locations around the world from which they'll achieve total planetary control. (You'll find yourself making more than a few such presumptions in this story.) As everyone begins to awaken, we find the FF have already been out surveying the situation--discovering the streets full of people who are in pain, as well as some coming under attack by rodents and the like. Consequently, it's Pestilence** whom they encounter first, and who provides both the FF and the reader with a brief history of the Horsemen--beings who turn out to be among the many entities who ruled the Earth in ancient times but were eventually cast out or otherwise overcome. In the case of the Horsemen, they arrived from another world during our paleolithic period, but later met their match in another alien race*** -- one which wasn't about to show deference to the Horsemen or acknowledge their claim on the Earth.
**The Horseman who alternates with Conquest in some accounts. With the exception of Death, none of the Horseman are named in the Bible; instead, they've been named by theologians and others based on their descriptions. In Revelations, Conquest was so named due to the passage "...and he went forth conquering, and to conquer"--but that would seem to be the province of War, making one of them redundant. Maybe they both are--after all, they're descending on a world where war and conquest aren't exactly in short supply.
***My guess would be the Kree, or even the Celestials--though I can't see the Celestials taking 100 years (or even one year) to stomp on the Horsemen.
From what we can gather, it looks like the Horsemen have more than their injured pride spurring them to reconquer Earth. Being the point men for their race, they were the ones who were ultimately blamed for surrendering their prize--and it appears they've been given a chance to redeem themselves by retaking the planet. It's unclear what the penalty would be from their race, should they fail again--but as we cycle through all of the Horsemen, they're obviously defiant in their resolve not to be deprived of their conquest a second time.
Leave it to the blustering Thing, then, to tell Pestilence point-blank that he's not impressed.
(No, I don't know why the rest of the FF were just twiddling their thumbs while the Thing was being disintegrated before their eyes. Maybe they should look up the word "team" at some point.)
Reed is partially right, in his suspicion that there was more to Pestilence's vanishing act than met the eye, though he's mistaken in his analysis of the cause--but eventually the real answer will dawn on him, as we'll see.
For now, the... team splits into pairs, each heading to meet and challenge another Horseman. Unless the FF regard Pestilence and his brethren as all bark and no bite, the stakes seem incredibly high for the FF to split their power down the middle and separate, rather than facing these foes united--we simply aren't given any reason for their course of action here, nor is it at all clear how the FF know where to find their enemies. Even a strong story concept such as this one can do without punting to its readers to fill in the blanks.
From here, we join Medusa and the Torch--travelling to Africa to face War, who's instigated a prolonged five-day conflict between sides that are equally armed.
War has certainly hit the nail on the head as to the FF's questionable tactic in dealing with their foes, though he could hardly claim that he and the other Horsemen have acted any differently--indeed, facing your enemies on your own doesn't seem like strategy that War would countenance. Does each Horseman possess "power enough to rend galaxies"? That's sounding more and more like hyperbole, granted--but in War's case, what he lacks in formidability he more than makes up for in social commentary.
It sounds like War had taken his eye off the ball, and his mission; we can only assume that he knew his number was up, and that he just wanted to score some verbal points against this puny race which has once more brought the Horsemen to defeat. The question remains, how is that happening?
Meanwhile, the other half of the FF arrive in Cambodia--where they come across the handiwork of Famine, who's hypnotized the starving population so that they're under the illusion that soldiers have destroyed their crops. Despite Famine's efforts, Reed is successful in forcing one of the young men present to ingest food, and thereby serve as an example to others who would realize that there is food to savor. By now, Famine realizes that two of the other Horsemen have fallen to the same "curse" that caused their downfall millennia ago--and now, in his struggle against Reed and the Thing, he rails against the inevitable.
Last stop: Mount Everest, where Death is about to face the entire FF. Like the other Horsemen, Death's defiance is still apparent, but his method in dealing with the FF--creating doppelgängers to engage them in battle, rather than using his own power to do so (wouldn't "Death" have the power to cause death, instantly?)--is telling, in terms of the apparent lack of a threat that the Horsemen have posed. The FF have faced doubles of themselves before, and haven't had nearly as easy a time battling those creations as they do with these simulacrums.
The one scene that did strike me out of the ordinary is that of Medusa's admittedly brief contribution to this fight. In her time with the FF, Medusa didn't exactly set the world on fire in her stay with the team; in fact, you could argue that she was much more effective against them as a member of the Frightful Four. Yet here she proves to be the deciding factor in the FF's battle against the Four Horsemen--perhaps a dubious accomplishment, considering the level of resistance of the opposition.
The Four Horsemen were destined for an even more humiliating fate following their exit from this story, when they soon after became captives of the Stranger and taken to his laboratory world. But when the Over-Mind arranges for a "jailbreak" by setting all of the Stranger's prisoners free, the Horsemen are spoiling for a fight.
Gee, so that's what they look like when they attack as a team. What do you know.
 | Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 Script: Marv Wolfman Pencils: Rich Buckler Inks: Joe Sinnott Letterer: Joe Rosen |
No comments:
Post a Comment