Artifacts of Infinity

Episode 7 - The Bomb in Man's Heart

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Episode 7: The Bomb In Man’s Heart

  • Today we’ll be covering Fantastic Four (1961) 62 & 63, and X-Men (1963) 53

    • Preface:

    • Covering the first appearances of Blastaar-The Living Bomb Burst
    • Dark Ages of X-Men

      • Fantastic Four 62: “--And One Shall Save Him!”

      • Reed is in the Negative Zone following a confrontation with Sandman
      • Ben talks to Reed on the Trans-Barrier Phone and tells Reed that as long as there is life there is hope but Reed is despondent
      • Reed is headed for the Earth’s explosive belt!
      • Crystal of the Inhumans seeks air from the Inhuman Royals
      • In the Negative Zone, Art Deco red shirts pitch some dangerous cargo into the explosive belt fearing that he will still escape, but relieved that he is heavily sedated
      • The discarded person ends up on the same space rock as Mr. Fantastic
      • Reed pontificates
      • Crystal convinces the Royal Family to send Triton to assist
      • Automatic Translators are a thing, thank goodness!
      • Reed is rescued thanks to the Inhuman!

        • Fantastic Four 63: “Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst!”

        • The F4 are immediately attacked
        • Blastaar has followed Reed through the portal and has teamed up with Sandman
        • Bedlam ensues
        • Our heroes manage to get a disabling helmen onto Blastaar and knock him out and pitch him back into the Negative Zone

          • X-Men 53: “The Rage of Blastaar!”

          • Blastaar gets all kinds of extra while floating around in the Negative Zone
          • This is our intro to the X-Men. Cyclops-Scott Summers; Marvel Girl-Jean Grey; Iceman-Bobby Drake; Hank McCoy-Beast; Warren Worthington III-Angel
          • Professor X is recently inhumed and Jean is trying to learn to fill his shoes with some high-tech machinery which will change her thoughts into radio-waves
          • This goes badly and Blastaar escapes into our world
          • The X-Men try to stop him but he uses finger-blasts to fly into the air to beat up Angel
          • Cyclops becomes Flyclops using his optic blasts… how is this not a thing he does more?
          • Iceman gets extra YIKES
          • Jean has Iceman make ice statues that she animates using her telekinesis to attack Blastaar with
          • “Wherever men live with hate in their hearts--Blastaar lives there too!”

            • If you want to read the issues we covered today you can find them collected in:

            • Essential Fantastic Four Vol 3
            • Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four Vol 7
            • Fantastic Four Epic Collections Vol 4
            • Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol 3
            • Essential Classic X-Men Vol. 2
            • Marvel Masterworks The X-Men Vol 5
            • X-Men Epic Collections Vol 3
            • X-men Omnibus Vol 2
            • Comixology and Marvel Unlimited
            • Ask your local library.

              • If you would like to know more about Blastaar:

              • Marvel Two-in-One (1975) 75 (Not available digitally)
              • Annihilation, all of them

                • GO READ X-MEN!

                Shout-out to Crushing Krisis, with ComicBookDB gone, his work is some of the most comprehensive!

                Creators of these issues:

                Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Stan Goldberg, Sam Rosen, Arnold Drake, Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael Dee, Herb Cooper, Mike Esposito

                Find us on Twitter @ArtifactsOfI and ArtifactsOfInfinity.com

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                Artifacts of InfinityBy Everett Christensen and Jonathan Hutson