5 Great 1970s Fantastic Four Villains Not Enough Marvel Fans Talk About
The Fantastic Four was the first superhero team that Marvel Comics introduced in the 1960s, and they were one of the most important teams of the 1970s as well, fighting everyone from Doctor Doom and Galactus to Annihilus, and more. These villains are big names and are world-threatening forces of nature, but they are not the only great villains that the First Family of Marvel Comics battled in that decade. There are countless villains from that decade who have been forgotten all these years later and deserve far more recognition than they get today. These villains rank from powerful antagonists to interesting minor villains who should have been bigger.
From an alternate version of Reed Richards and a world-conquering herald to the Fantastic Four’s own twisted counterparts, here is a look at five Fantastic Four villains from the 1970s who deserve more love.
5) Mad Thinker
The Mad Thinker has been around since the 1960s, first appearing in Fantastic Four #15 (1963) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He is a Silver Age villain introduced to help push Reed Richards in the realm of intelligence, an evil genius compared to Reed’s brilliant scientist. The Mad Thinker’s specialty is in robotics, and he can even predict events down to the second, a similar trait that Tony Stark possesses. His debut remains memorable because he was foiled by mailman Willie Lumpkin, who tripped a circuit breaker to ruin his plans.
However, he became much more formidable in the 1970s. His main storyline that decade actually came in 1970 with “The Mad Thinker and His Androids of Death,” which was one of the final Lee-Kirby collaborations before Kirby left Marvel. He was notable as one of the few Marvel villains written to be an intellectual peer of Reed Richards. Since the 2000s, he has almost never appeared outside of villain team-ups, and he deserves more recognition. Ironically, it wasn’t until January of this year that his real identity was revealed in Fantastic Four #7 by Ryan North and Humberto Ramos, so he might be ready for a revival.
4) Terrax the Tamer
There have been a lot of heralds of Galactus, but one of the deadliest is rarely talked about anymore. Terrax the Tamer made his comic book debut in Fantastic Four #211 (1979) by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne. His appearance here was specifically to replace the Silver Surfer as Galactus’ herald. However, while Surfer was heroic and Galactus was more of a force of nature than a villain, Terrax was a genuine antagonist who only cared about his own selfish ambition and his thrill at watching the destruction of worlds.
He also had a huge storyline in 1982 where he threatened to destroy Manhattan if the Fantastic Four didn’t kill Galactus for him. This led to Galactus stripping Terrax of his Power Cosmic and banishing him. The biggest problem here is that this marked the end of Terrax being a world-threatening villain, and he became more of an alien menace that was often easily beaten. As someone who tried to blackmail the Fantastic Four after he betrayed Galactus, he deserves a much better reputation.
3) The Brute
When readers talk about different Reed Richards variants, the discussion goes toward the Council of Reeds and the Maker. However, there was a horrific variant that debuted in Marvel Premiere #2 (1972) by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Dan Adkins. This was a creature known as the Brute, a name he earned in Warlock #6 (1973) by Mike Friedrich, Bob Brown, and Tom Sutton. He is the Reed Richards of the High Evolutionary’s Counter-Earth, where instead of getting stretching powers, he turns into a giant purple super-strong monster, more Hulk than Mister Fantastic.
His defining Fantastic Four storyline was in Fantastic Four #175-183 (1976-1977), where he turned evil, joined the Frightful Four, beat Reed Richards, knocked his Earth-616 counterpart into the Negative Zone, and then impersonated him in the FF. It was a horrific story where he plotted to kill Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm and tried to seduce Susan Storm, only to throw her out of a window when she learned the truth. He then sacrificed himself when he realized the error of his ways. He has appeared a few times since then, but this is a Reed Richards variant that deserves a return.
2) Dragon Man
Dragon Man first appeared in Fantastic Four #35 (1965) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He wasn’t a villain in the traditional sense of the word because he was a 16-foot-tall, fire-breathing android built by Professor Gregson Gilbert, brought to life and controlled by Diablo. Marvel then turned him into a King Kong-style character, a monster who imprinted an affection for Susan Storm and who refused to hurt her even when ordered to attack the Fantastic Four.
In the 1970s, he was back when a billionaire named Gregory Gideon used the Dragon Man to abduct Susan Storm and her baby, Franklin. However, once again, the Fantastic Four turned things around and convinced the robot to turn on its master, proving it was an innocent being manipulated by the true villains. Today, most people know Dragon Man thanks to the retcon where Valeria Richards upgraded the original robot and allowed the Future Foundation to adopt him. However, as a manipulated monster, he was so much more interesting, and that version deserves a lot more attention.
1) The Frightful Four
The Frightful Four should be just as popular as the Sinister Six, but unlike the Spider-Man villains, the FF’s evil counterparts have mostly been brushed away by the sands of time. The team debuted in Fantastic Four #36 (1965) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as mirror-opposites of the Fantastic Four, with the Wizard, Sandman, Paste-Pot Pete, and an amnesiac Medusa making her Marvel Comics debut months before the Inhumans first showed up.
In the 1970s, they became a revolving door when it came to members, and they had huge battles against the Fantastic Four in 1970, 1972, 1974, and 1976. The best of these stories came in 1976 when they captured the Fantastic Four and then held auditions for a new fourth member in the Baxter Building. However, recent years show that the Frightful Four are more of a nuisance team, and this has kept them from reaching Sinister Six levels of popularity.
