The Fantastic Four Get Their Blue Costumes Back, And Other Easter Eggs and References In November’s Solicitations

Minor spoilers ahead, obviously, since we’re dealing with the solicitation text for a book not due in stores for three months.

In #86 of that series, the Thing basically convinces the Sandman to go straight. Yeah, that’s right! Sandman has just recovered from a previous altercation where he became combined with Hydro-Man and goes to a bar to unwind. The bartender recognizes him and calls the Ben “The Thing” Grimm to put him in his place. When Ben arrives though, Sandman isn’t looking for a fight, he just wants to drink his beer in peace and talk before the Thing takes him to jail.

Flint explains that their earlier conversation had convinced him to go straight for which he was extremely grateful to the Thing. After a lovely few panels of the two tossing back a couple of brews and lighting up their smokes, the issue closes on Ben saying, “This could be the beginnin’ of a beautiful friendship.” Of course, later writers would contrived turn the Sandman evil again because sticking him back into the same role that he occupied for decades was more interesting than significant character development but who am I to complain? Anyway, I’m honestly hopeful that James Robinson will be playing with this past relationship and possibly revisiting a turn-to-good for Sandman. I’ve always loved these two issues of Marvel Two-In-One and it’s always been a little depressing about how such a well-written and almost heartwarming couple of stories were thrown under a bus somewhere.

It’s also worth noting that this issue features the return of the Fantastic Four’s blue costumes, first seen in 1962’s The Fantastic Four #3 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It is worth noting that these costumes are very faithful to the Four’s original appearance with the general blue shade; black accents at the belts, collar, gloves, and boots; and the chest emblem of a four on a white background. Also, the Thing gets back his swim-trunks look. The major change is the angularity of the accents, eschewing more rounded shapes of costumes past. One of these days, I need to write about the subtle evolution of the Fantastic Four’s outfits. Unfortunately, today is not that day.

Thank you for joining me for another installment of Surfing the Solicits and yet another master class in “Fantastic Four History You Might Not Know but May Improve Your Enjoyment of Future Issues.” Happy comic reading!