Fantastic Four #2, page 10, panel 3
Uncredited Writer: Stan Lee
Uncredited Penciler: Jack Kirby
Uncredited Inker: George Klein
Uncredited Colours: Stan Goldberg
Uncredited Letterer: John Duffy
One of the great joys of having a member of your cast who can change his body shape must be getting to let your imagination run wild with the artistic possibilities of such a character. The first time I came across this type of power coupled with a writer and artist capable of running with these possibilities came when I read Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's JLA, back in the late 1990s. They had an absolute ball with Plastic Man, and for a large part of the 2000s, successive writers and artists kept Plastic Man as an amusing and inventive character within the League.
But we're not here to talk about the Justice League. We're here, under this category, to take a look at how Stan and Jack handled the possibilities of such a character. We start here, with Mr Fantastic contained in another seemingly escape-proof cell by the US Army. On the previous page we'd seen him use his fingers to probe ever inch of his cell looking for a gap, and here we find him squeezing through a minuscule gap adjacent to a rivet. This leads to this marvellous visual of a plaid-clad Reed sprouting his head from a metal wall.
Oh, and notice that this is before the unstable molecule costumes that would make their début in the next issue. That's an impressive plaid shirt!
Check out our coverage of Fantastic Four #2 in our second episode: Secret Invasion Tie-In