Fantastic Four vs. Dinosaurs

I was cleaning out some old boxes yesterday when I happened upon dinosaurs in an unexpected place. A few years ago a cousin of mine gave me all of his old comic books, most of which wound up in a box for safe keeping. When I dug up the dusty old container yesterday, I noticed that some of Marvel's most famous superheros once fought dinosaurs.

The 345th issue of Fantastic Four might have held a shock for fans of the super-powered team. On the cover of this issue was a Triceratops draped in the torn suits of Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing with the words "Fantastic Four No More!" Could a herbivorous dinosaur really have been the end of the heroes?

As you might expect, the answer is "no." Due to a time travel glitch, the Fantastic Four wound up on a mysterious island where American soldiers were already battling it out with dinosaurs. (Gee, that's an original idea.) The superheros and the soldiers manage to evade the dinosaurs with few casualties, but in order to distract a rampaging Triceratops Mr. Fantastic has to strip to his skivvies. Thankfully he is provided with an extra uniform soon afterwards.

The next issue, #346, picks up the storyline. After fending off a Tyrannosaurus the survivors head out to sea on a wooden raft, and as is comic book convention there is something hungry waiting in the water. Somehow the humans manage to fend off the Kronosaurus and make it back to their own time. I am a little weary of the "dinosaurs on a mysterious island" storyline, though. Why can't someone think of something a little more original, like "Dinosaurs on a Plane"?

Riley Black | | READ MORE

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.