Fantasticast Four #30: Property Damage 30
Written by: Stan Lee (A rather nice writer)
Illustrated by: Jack Kirby (A quite noteworthy artist)
Inked by: Chic Stone (A somewhat nifty inker)
Lettered by: Art Simek (An occasionally neat letterer)
This is why I should read ahead... It turns out that a suit of armour is a fairly minor piece of property damage when compared to the completely accidental loss of an entire artefact-filled castle. I really wish I had the ability to put a conjectural price on the loss of the castle, much as people have done with the destruction to Metropolis and New York in Man of Steel and Avengers. So many one-of-a-kind antiques lost forever, as well as the unique alchemical knowledge of Diablo.
Talking of Diablo, he really is one of the lesser Lee/Kirby villains to have gone on and feature within the Marvel universe. He's one of my least-favourite, even though his origin story far outweighed my expectations. It's not that the gimmick of the villain doesn't work for, it's that it's so horribly mis-applied. Instead of being a genuine and rare mystical villain for the team, he often gets reduced to an unlikely potion master, with coloured liquids causing all sorts of strange things to happen. He's not a villain I look forward to returning.
Check out our coverage of Fantastic Four #30 on our thirty-third episode: Bad Horse, Bad Horse, with special guest host David Walker