File:Fantastic Four Vol 1 171 001.jpg

Description
Under Reed Richards's supervision, the Thing is testing his powered exoskeleton against a Life Model Decoy sent to the Fantastic Four by SHIELD. When Ben momentarily lets his guard down, the LMD gets in a punch, but Ben quickly dispatches the android with a double-handed slam. The battle takes less than ten seconds, which indicates to Reed that the suit makes Ben about 90% as strong as he was when he was the Thing. Ben wishes the suit were air conditioned as he takes it off and heads for a cold shower. Later, as Ben is drying off, he muses that he is lucky that Reed did not simply replace him instead of building him a special costume. Ben sorely misses his superhuman strength, which was canceled by the Hulk's gamma rays, and he wistfully recalls the time when the Thing was the strongest person on the planet. After he gets dressed, he walks into a test chamber and finds Sue using her force field against a pair of explosive mini-missiles, trying to focus her mind on more than one object at a time. Suddenly a machine fires three golden disks at her, but she quickly traps all three of them in a force bubble. The result, she says, simulates telekinesis. Ben asks about Alicia, and Sue answers that she has taken Franklin to the country. Then, her session finished, Sue heads for the shower. Meanwhile, Johnny Storm and Frankie Raye, who are visiting the Central Park Zoo, are discussing Frankie's aversion to Johnny's flame-power. When Johnny became the Human Torch to battle the Crusader, she says, it "freaked her out." But Johnny assures her that he has told Reed he wants to leave the Fantastic Four, and then he kisses her. Suddenly there is an ear-splitting sound, and Johnny looks up to see a peculiar aircraft descending. The craft lands in the middle of a baseball diamond, but one of its rockets turns off prematurely, and it topples over. Johnny wants to investigate, but Frankie asks him to wait for the police. A few minutes later, two squad cars pull up. Then a hatch opens in the craft and a glowing, golden gorilla leaps out. As the astonished police watch, the gorilla grows to gigantic size, and they run to their cars and flee. At this, Johnny flames on and soars away, but he quickly returns because of his promise to Frankie. He is sure the police can handle the ape as soon as they get some heavier guns, he says. As Frankie and Johnny join the crowd of fleeing bystanders, the gorilla strides down Fifth Avenue spreading panic and wrecking automobiles. Then he strides to the Baxter Building and begins to climb up. When the beast reaches the 38th floor, he sees Reed and Sue, smashes his hand through the window, knocks Reed momentarily unconscious, and grabs Sue. Ben, who has just put on his Thing exoskeleton, looks out the hole the gorilla made and sees him holding Sue on the roof. Reed and Ben quickly head for the Fantasticar, but they find the gorilla blocking the way through the roof, so Ben smashes through a wall. Then Reed and Ben circle the ape in the car, and Ben slams him in the face. But the creature merely shrugs off Ben's blow and hurls the Fantasticar away with Reed still inside. Ben drops onto the beast's shoulder and begins to pummel him in the head, but when Sue tries to use her force field and her invisibility, something in the beast's glow weakens her powers. At the last possible instant, Reed brings the hurtling Fantasticar under control and screeches to a stop on a roof. At Frankie's apartment, Johnny hears a radio report about the Fantastic Four's battle against the gigantic ape, and he tells Frankie that he cannot stand by and let his friends and his sister get killed. Then he flames on and soars away. As Frankie watches Johnny depart, she suddenly realizes that this has all happened to her before. Meanwhile, Johnny streaks toward the Baxter Building, wondering what it is about his flame that bothers Frankie so much. When Johnny arrives, he finds the ape holding Sue in one hand and Ben in the other, and he hits him in the face with fire-bursts. But the beast throws Ben at Johnny with such force that Johnny is stunned. Mr. Fantastic catches them in his body as they fall. Johnny has had the breath knocked out of him, says Reed. Ben fails to notice how slowly Reed's elastic body resumes its normal shape. Meanwhile, Sue creates a very thin force field around her body and expands it until she frees herself from the gorilla's grip. Then, shaping her force field into a parachute, she floats to the ground into Reed's arms. As the Fantastic Four regroup, the gorilla angrily begins to smash the Baxter Building rooftop. Reed suggests that Johnny attack, since his flame seems to negate the gorilla's protective glow, and Ben asks Johnny to carry him along. When they reach the Baxter Building, Johnny blasts a chunk of concrete out of the gorilla's hands and Ben slams his feet into his face. Then Johnny bombards him with firebolts. Just then Reed and Sue arrive in the Fantasticar, and Reed tells Sue to throw a giant force field around the gorilla. When she does, the beast begins to shrink, and as the Fantastic Four look on in astonishment, he returns to normal size. Reed tells Johnny to grab him before he falls on the bystanders in the street below, but Sue, weakened from the strain, drops her field, and the gorilla topples. Johnny streaks after him and catches him by the hand, but he can only slow his fall before he slips from his grip. Fortunately, Ben has by this time made it to the street, and he catches the unconscious gorilla in his arms. A few minutes later, at headquarters, Reed places the gorilla into a rig that he originally designed to hold the Hulk. The gorilla stopped glowing when he shrank, and Reed wishes the ape had a "human master" to tell them how to deal with him. But then the gorilla, who introduces himself as Gorr, says that he does not need a human master. After the Fantastic Four get over their amazement that he can talk, the gorilla explains that he came nearly 200 million miles searching for someone to help against Galactus.