The reveal that Agatha Harkness was behind a lot of the Easter Egg shenanigans on WandaVision has sent comic book speculators running for the back issue bins, in the hopes of grabbing a copy of Fantastic Four #84 or #184, but there is a forgotten hidden gem that highlights Agatha’s powers, that is often overlooked in the classic run of the series.
In Fantastic Four #110, written by Stan Lee, with art by John Buscema, fans were treated to a tense and claustrophobic masterpiece, entitled “One From Four Leaves Three”. Previously, The Thing and The Human Torch had escaped the Negative Zone, but Mr. Fantastic has been left behind, and as he hurtles towards certain death, the rest of the team are powerless to help.
Making his elastic body into a sail, he tries to use the air currents to get to safety, however, the alien Annihilus is assembling his hordes to attack him. Meanwhile, there is trouble back at The Baxter Building, The Thing seems to be planning to take over leadership of the team, a fight breaks out with Sue, Ben, and Johnny, and Reed’s situation grows consistently worse.
The team gets their act together long enough to send a lifeline to Reed, but it’s seen by Annihilus who start their onslaught. It seems hope is lost till Agatha arrives and in the chaos announces “I want you to get me a candle, and a piece of chalk.” Agatha creates a Constantine-type circle and starts a spell, a wind picks up and outside locals feel as if an earthquake is happening. Even J Jonah Jameson gets in on the act in a typical Lee cameo. However, in The Negative Zone, Agatha has cast her magic and confuses the alien attackers by creating millions of copies of Reed. In the confusion, Reed can use the device sent to him to escape back to Earth without Annihilus being able to follow.
In a coda to the story though, The Thing has had enough and storms from the building seemingly out of control, setting up events for the next issue.
It’s a great issue, but oddly even after Reed has returned, Agatha gets no acknowledgment of her part in saving his life.
With Agatha issues going up in price, along with West Coast Avengers #45 (first appearance of White Vision) it seems that for the time being Agatha Harkness has had a surge in popularity, but Fantastic Four #110 , although a Bronze Age classic, has gone a little unnoticed. However, collectors should look out for the rare green mistake cover, the wrong colors were used on many printed copies, which attracts quite a high cover price. The cover should have had normal skin tones and a red backdrop, but the mistakenly printed issues give everyone green skin, adding to the supernatural nature of the cover image. I actually prefer it that way.
A great issue and a minor key for collectors.
