Fantastic Four #248
Published and © by Marvel, November 1982
Title: “Nightmare!”
Synopsis: A strange crystal artifact under the moon’s surface traps the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans in a cascading nightmare.
Writer: John Byrne
Artist: Byrne
Review: Following a Doctor Doom two-parter (see reviews of Fantastic Four #246 and #247), writer/artist John Byrne returns to the kind of done-in-one stories he featured often early in his FF run. Returning to the moon for a celebration with the Inhumans, Marvel’s first family ends up in a nightmare of unreal proportions – literally. Byrne has always excelled at this kind of old-school, sci-fi story, dating back to his work on Charlton’s Space: 1999 (see reviews). This certainly isn’t an essential issue of FF, but if a reader is looking for some well-written, well-drawn escapism, this one fits the bill.
Grade: B+
Cool factor: It’s always cool when Byrne visits the Inhumans.
Collector’s note: According to the Grand Comics Database, there is a 75¢ Canadian variant of this issue. … According to MyComicShop.com, there is also a Mark Jewelers variant.
Character quotable: “I got me a weird feelin’ … like all the analyzin’ in the world ain’t gonna count for diddly against whatever built this moon-eater.” – The Thing, ever-lovin’, blue-eyed master of the understatement
Editor’s note: This review was originally published by Comics Bronze Age on Nov. 5, 2009.
