Fantastic Four (1961 series) #10

The story starts with Reed Richards using an X-ray camera with radioactive film to study Sue Storm's invisibility, with Johnny Storm taking notes (!?). Then they see the Fantastic Four flare and realise it must be from Ben Grimm who's the only 1 absent, and assume it signals a problem. But 1st they find that the nuclear lock on the door is jammed so they can't get out of the room. Mr Fantastic squeezes his flexible arm under the door and down to the Pogo Plane hangar but can't quite reach it to fly it to their window. But meanwhile Human Torch has figured out how to make his flame 'burn without heat' so he can melt through the lock without triggering a nuclear explosion (!!??).

The flare came from nearby where Ben is visiting his girlfriend Alicia so they don't bother with the Fantasti-Car but head out on foot, or in Johnny's case flying on fire. Reed has to use his elastic body to avoid being mobbed by fans. Sue is approached by 1 of her 'fans' but turns into Invisible Girl to get away and nearly gets run over. They all burst in to Alicia's apartment expecting trouble but find that they've been called to see the little statues the blind girl has carved of the FF's foes Mole Man, Miracle Man, Skrulls, Dr Doom and Sub-Mariner. Sue doesn't like Namor being lumped with the bad guys. Reed asks about her and Subby and says that he always assumed that when the time was right he and Sue would ... But she stops him from saying more because she doesn't know what she feels.

But we head to the office of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who are writing this very story. But they're stuck for a villain and bemoan the fact that Dr Doom is dead. However he walks in very much alive but refuses to explain how he survived being lost in space (in #6). He removes his mask and the creators cringe at the sight of his face - but so does he when he sees himself in a mirror. But then he uses threats to make Stan ring the FF and say what he tells them to.

Johnny takes the call and tells Reed that Lee and Kirby want him to pop over to devise a plot for the next issue. Reed finds that strange because they finished discussing it yesterday (even without a villain?), but it doesn't make him suspicious. Thing wants him to tell them to stop drawing him uglier than he is. When he's suited up to leave Ben and Johnny 'check' that his clothes are elastic just in case he has to use his power. But when he gets to the comic studio Doom gasses him to sleep and teleports them away, but not before leaving his address for the rest of the team to follow them.

Reed awakes in a chair in Doom's lab. Victor Von Doom shows him the mental teleporter attached to his armoured chest and explains that it allows him to think of a place and be there instantaneously. He claims that he obtained this and other marvels after the FF (actually Sub-Mariner) sent him off into space on a meteor. He was rescued by intergalactic Ovoids (eggheads) who showed him their mental powers. In particular they had effective immortality because when 1 was dying he transferred his mind into a new body. Then they beamed him back to Earth with his new knowledge.

Now Doom tells Richards that he has been using Ovoid science to swap their bodies. And indeed we see his body sitting in Richards' chair with Reed's mind, while standing Victor has his foe's body. (Surely the Ovoid technique should have swapped their minds instead?) Doom sheds Richards' suit to reveal the FF costume underneath, and uses Mr Fantastic's elastic power to throw the Doom body all round the room.

Just then Thing smashes his way into Doom's castle, followed by Human Torch and Invisible Girl. Of course they attack Doom's body and of course they refuse to believe his claim to really be Reed. Sue does question why Dr Doom would try such a ridiculous trick, but 'Reed' distracts them by pulling the device from the Doom body's chest and claiming that it was an atomic-matter scrambler that 'Doom' was going to use on them. The FF discuss what to do with their enemy. HT imagines surrounding him with a moat of molten lava and leaving him there with camping equipment, or keeping him in a cell of flaming bars. Thing just plans to put him in a big hole and then roll a huge boulder over it. 'Mr Fantastic' suggests they imprison him in an underground dungeon he had planned for 'them'. They take him there and put him in an unbreakable plexi-glass dome. 'Reed' claims there's enough oxygen in some cylinders to keep him alive until they can work out a more permanent solution. But when the others have gone he confides to 'Doom' that he only has 1 hour's oxygen.

Later in the Baxter Building Ben's reading a newspaper with a headline about missing zoo animals. Sue opens Reed's lab door and a menagerie of tiny animals rush out. The 2 plus Johnny try to corral them. 'Reed' comes in from outside and explains that he's invented a reducing ray gun with which he plans to increase their powers. He reminds them that dinosaurs once dominated the Earth but they grew too large and died out. He proposes that if they'd remained smaller with relatively larger brains then they would have been in mankind's position now. So now he intends to reduce his teammates in size while retaining their powers. Then he'll bring them back up to size with increased powers. Johnny's flame would last longer and allow him to fly faster. Sue would have finer control over her invisibility. And Ben would be able to switch between Thing and human at will. Surely this was worth borrowing some zoo animals for. They're hooked and the 3 vie to be 1st, but 'Reed' says he'll do them all together. But in the privacy of his lab he gloats as he demonstrates shrinking an object to nothing.

Meanwhile the real Reed Richards uses his scientific mind to escape. He employs Doom's mask to make a crack in the dome. Then he forces 1 oxygen cylinder into the crack and then throws another cylinder at the 1st causing an explosion. Escaping the castle he makes his way to Alicia's apartment and tries to convince the blind girl he's really Reed Richards. But unfortunately for him Sue was visiting and she's here invisible and hits him over the head with a vase. But Alicia senses the aura of goodness of the man inside the armour. Human Torch and Thing now burst in and Ben attacks Doom for menacing his girlfriend. But as he's about to strike a killing blow something makes him hesitate when 'Doom' just talks to him rather than fighting back.

The trio take Doom in the Fantasti-Car to the Baxter Building to ask 'Reed' what to do. Their leader renders their enemy powerless with electronic coil ropes round his wrists. Then he prepares to shrink his 3 'companions'. 'Doom' leaps up and begs them not to trust him. Thing is beginning to suspect something's wrong. Torch gets an idea. There are men using dynamite nearby and he uses heat to cause it to appear in the room as a mirage. 'Doom' dives on the 'dynamite' to save his friends while 'Reed' tries to escape the explosion by slithering up a pipe. But Thing drags him out and the 3 confront him saying they know who the real Reed Richards is. And the shock of exposure breaks Victor's mental control of the switch and they revert to their correct bodies.

Surrounded by his foes Dr Doom fires a sub-miniature transistor-powered blast gun in a finger of his armour. But it hits the control panel of his reducing ray which fires and the beam happens to hit *him*. Reed turns it off but it's too late as the villain suffers the fate he had planned for them, and he disappears into nothing.