File:Fantastic Four Vol 1 183 001.jpg

Description
As the Impossible Man, Thundra, and Tigra return to the Baxter Building, they are horrified to see Sue Richards plunging toward them from an upper-story window. Sue is barely conscious and tries to use her force field to absorb the impact of her fall, but she cannot concentrate, and the field dissipates uselessly. At first it seems to Tigra that they are too far away to help, but then she quickly tells Thundra to throw the Impossible Man at Sue. Unlike the women, he has been watching with only casual interest, and he comments that if he were she, he would change into something before it is too late. As Thundra throws him, she says that he is Sue's only hope, and then he remembers that humans cannot change shape like he can. Accordingly, he changes himself into a pterodactyloid, catches Sue, and glides lightly to the sidewalk. When the Brute sees that Sue has been saved, he realizes that her three companions will soon learn that he is not the real Reed Richards, so he begins to activate the Baxter Building's defenses to keep them out. Meanwhile, in the Negative Zone, Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Annihilus are standing on a small planetoid trying to formulate a plan of action. Reed persuades Annihilus to relate how the Mad Thinker's "monster" Android seized power in Annihilus's own kingdom. Annihilus says that the Android appeared, seemingly from nowhere, in the middle of his realm. Reed quickly deduces that the Android is the one created by the Mad Thinker to destroy the Fantastic Four several years ago, which was hurled into the Negative Zone at the conclusion of their battle. Unable to find its targets, the Android shut itself down, and it was in this state that Annihilus discovered it. Using his own equipment, Annihilus transformed the Android into a totally subservient creature that he called the Scavenger, which aided him when Reed, Ben, and Johnny entered the Negative Zone on their mission to save Reed's unborn son. Over time, the Scavenger developed the desire to become a real, living creature, and so, when Annihilus lay defeated after his last battle against the Fantastic Four, the Scavenger stole the Cosmic Control Rod and transformed itself into the "monster" Android. Proclaiming itself alive—and it was, for all practical purposes—the Android usurped Annihilus's kingdom. Unfortunately, in using the control rod to give itself life, the Android drained it, canceling Annihilus'S immortality. Without his power, says Annihilus in conclusion, he cannot conquer, and without conquest he is doomed to die. Then Annihilus spreads his wings and starts to fly away. Reed, having lost his stretching power, cannot reach him, but Ben throws a rock at him and he falls back to the planetoid. Reed tells him to think things over rationally. Doubtless, Reed continues, the Thinker has mentally summoned the Android back to Earth through the Negative Zone portal in the Baxter Building, which means the Thinker will try to take over the Fantastic Four's headquarters himself. Reed proposes that they use Annihilus's spaceship, fight the Android, and, upon defeating it—if they do—restore Annihilus's rod's power. When Reed gives Annihilus his word, Annihilus agrees to let them use his ship. The Mad Thinker walks along Sixth Avenue toward the Baxter Building, which he expects his Android to enter from the Negative Zone without significant resistance, because only Sue of the Fantastic Four remains on Earth. Soon, he gloats, all of Reed Richards's super scientific weapons and devices will be his. But the Thinker does not know that Reed's place has been taken by the Brute, nor does he know that Thundra, Tigra, and the Impossible Man are currently the Fantastic Four's guests. At Just that moment, Sue and her three companions are deliberating the best way to re-enter the Fantastic Four headquarters. The Impossible Man suddenly decides that he is not having fun anymore, becomes miffed, and departs, leaving just the three women to deal with the Brute. Sue discovers that her belt-signal fails to activate the elevator, so she, Thundra, and Tigra climb the stairs. When they reach the headquarters, they find the heavy door sealed shut, its lock unresponsive to Sue's voiceprint. Thundra tears the door off its hinges, but this exposes them to Reed's laser beams, which the Brute has reset to kill. As the Brute watches them on a viewscreen, the Thinker's Android smashes in through the Negative Zone portal. The Android is enraged at having been unable to resist the Thinker's mental summons, because this seems to prove that it is not as independent as it thought. The Brute realizes that if the Android could reach the portal, so can Reed, Ben, and Johnny, so he starts to battle the creature in an effort to seal the portal behind it. At the same time in the Negative Zone, the three teammates are using Annihilus' spacecraft—his "deathship"—to speed toward the portal. Unfortunately, they have to pass through the region of negative space that is inhabited by the Borers, and the ship is besieged by the metal-eating creatures. Sue, Thundra, and Tigra dodge the lasers, and then Sue blankets the area with small force-shields. The beams ricochet off the shields into their own firing mechanisms, which ends that menace, but then steel restraint cables wrap themselves around the three heroines. Sue sets up a series of small force discs in mid-air on which Tigra leaps across the room to the manual cut-off lever. The cables then retract—except for the ones that Thundra shatters—and the women head for the laboratories. But they are totally unprepared for the scene that greets them as they approach the Negative Zone chamber, where the Thinker's Android is battling the Brute. Just as they enter, the Android bombards the Brute with cosmic radiation, forcing the Brute to transform back into Reed Richards of Counter-Earth. Taking heart that one of their adversaries has been defeated, the women attack the Android itself. Back in the Negative Zone, the Borers have brought the spaceship with Reed, Johnny, and Bon down onto a small asteroid. As Ben and Johnny keep the Borers occupied, Reed cannibalizes the craft and constructs a direction finder that will guide them all home. When he is finished, Reed asks Johnny to carry him, and he hands Ben a salvaged jet-pack from the ship. Together, the three of them leave the Borers behind. Thundra batters the Android with all her strength, but it refuses to collapse. Instead, it swats her away and strides past the stunned Tigra toward Sue. As she erects her invisible force field around herself, the creature declares that once she dies the 'voice' in its head that summoned it will be silenced. Sue has no idea what the creature is talking about, and as it pounds her field relentlessly, she feels herself losing consciousness. Just then, however, Reed, Ben, and Johnny emerge from the Negative Zone portal, and when Reed sees his wife in danger, he springs to her defense, even though he lacks his power. When the Counter-Earth Reed sees Reed's willingness to sacrifice himself for the one he loves he begins to wonder what could have possessed him to attack such a man. (Actually, the adverse effect of the cylinder that struck him on the head has begun to wear off.) Unseen, the Mad Thinker enters, discovering much to his chagrin that the Fantastic Four have returned and that his calculations are wrong once more. Using a hand-held computer, he quickly recalculates his odds and is dismayed to learn that there is a 99.9% chance of his being captured if he remains. Thus, as the Fantastic Four, aided by Thundra, start restraining the berserk Android, the Thinker, still unseen, hastily departs, vowing to fight them another time. The Human Torch notices the Cosmic Control Rod attached to the Android's throat. Reed tells Thundra to double the creature over with a punch, and when she does, Ben tears the rod away. Instantly, the Android collapses, its power source removed. Ben is about to crush the control rod in his fist when Reed reminds him that he gave his word to return the object to Annihilus. Ben thinks Reed is crazy, but Reed says that since he has lost his powers he is the most expendable of them, so he should be the one to return with the rod to the Negative Zone. At this, the Counter-Earth Reed seizes the rod 'They saved his world from Galactus, he says and this world cannot afford to lose the leader of the Fantastic Four.' Before they can stop him, he leaps into the Negative Zone portal and shatters its controls with a blast of energy from the rod. The concussion that made him evil has worn off, he declares as he enters the Negative Zone. His Sue is still in a coma on Counter-Earth, he says, so he has nothing to hold him here, while Reed has everything. Then the portal seals behind him, and they watch him vanish into the distance on the Negative Zone monitor: Reed says that his otherworld self sacrificed his life so that he himself might live, and Sue replies that, had their positions been reversed, Reed would surely have done the same.