Fantastic Four #31: Reed's Stretchy Body 87

Fantastic Four #31, page 10, panel 3

Fantastic Four #31: Reed's Stretchy Body 87

Written by: Stan Lee, The Man With The Talented Typewriter!

Illustrated by: Jack Kirby, The Man With The Power-Packed Pencil!

Inked by: Chic Stone, The Man With The Panoramic Paint-Brush!

Lettered by: S. Rosen - The Man With The Leaky Lettering Pen!

Another of the Mole Man's defences is a series of spores that turn, on contact, into cactus-esque floating balls that suck oxygen from the air. Before this, however, they were missiles fired at the Human Torch. So, that's missile > spore > floaty oxygen-sucking cactus ball. Which is quite a life cycle!

The lack of oxygen causes Johnny's flame to extinguish (a rare accurate cause of de-flaming in these early comics), and Reed has to stretch out to grab hold of his team-mate. Quite how he manages to get his arms outside of the Fantasticar without either him or Ben passing out from oxygen starvation isn't really dealt with.

Check out our coverage of Fantastic Four #31 on our thirty-fifth episode: