Fantastic Four #26: It's... ASBESTOS!!! 22

Fantastic Four #26, page 3, panel 6

fantastic four #26: it's... asbestos!!! 22

Unforgettably Written In The Grand Manner by: Stan Lee

Powerfully Drawn In The Heroic Manner by: Jack Kirby

Inked by: George Roussos

Lettered by: Art Simek

Luck often plays a big role in Silver Age Marvel comics. It was luck (and, apparently, Tony Stark) then ensured that Bruce Banner turned into the Hulk and didn't die when the gamma bomb exploded. It was luck that the super soldier serum kept Captain America alive in the freezing waters for 60-odd years. And it was luck that allowed a young Stanley Lieber to find gainful employment at Martin Goodman's publishing company. Oh, wait, no - that was nepotism.

In this comic, it's pure luck that, out of all of the hospitals in New York, Johnny is brought to the same one that Reed is currently being treated in. And it's surely got to be luck that the very same hospital just so happened to have a couple of asbestos screens lying around, just in case someone with control issues and the ability to non-lethally self-combust should require treatment.

Check out our coverage of Fantastic Four #26 on our twenty-seventh episode: Hulk Goes Home And Plays With His Trains with special guest-host Michael Bailey