I: Feature Story: "If This Be Doomsday!"

Pages: 20

Script: Stan Lee
Pencils: Jack Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Sam Rosen

First Appearance: The Punisher (I)

Villain: Galactus, the Punisher (I)

Guest Appearance: Silver Surfer, the Watcher, Alicia Masters

Gadgets & Technology: Elemental Converter, Transi-Screen, Galactus' worldship space station

Synopsis: (continued from FF #48)

While a helpless Fantastic Four gaze dumbstruck, the Watcher debates with Galactus. Despite the Watcher urging him to find a planet where there aren't billions of intelligent life forms, Galactus refuses to spare the Earth. Thing gets ancy and punches him in the ankle. Galactus tosses a small gas pellet at him- "insect repellent", Reed surmises- which sends the entire team scurrying. Johnny pours intense flame blasts onto Galactus, but the giant simply absorbs the energy, sending it back at Johnny as smothering soot and ash.

The Fantastic Four try to regroup, with Reed and Thing adopting an astonishingly laid back attitude that mystifies Johnny. The two are shaving and bathing while the fate of the world is at stake! Reed declares that it's better to relax and try and think of a new plan to defeat Galactus, because all they have tried has not worked. Meanwhile, the Silver Surfer, stunned by the Thing's wallop, falls into Alicia Master's studio. She treats him as a noble but lonely man, emotions he has never experienced in his years of servitude on behalf of Galactus.

Galactus begins building his power-draining apparatus on the roof of the Baxter Building, setting the stage for the Earth's destruction. Fortunately, the Watcher has a plan. He tells the team there is one machine that can stop Galactus from sucking all the energy out of the Earth, and only the Human Torch can reach it in time. Across town, Alicia Masters tries to convince the Surfer that Earth is worth defending from total devastation, that the billions od different people do matter, because they have as much nobility as she perceives the Surfer to have.

As nervous citizens of the world look on, Galactus makes the final connections with his machine, but there is no power. He investigates and finds the Thing is smashing the machine as fast as Galactus can build it. He slaps Gaalctus with huge chunks of his machinery and hurls Reed, shaped like a cannonball, at the giant. Galactus falls but hovers over the city streets with the aid of his anti-gravity device. He calls down his bodyguard to delay the "gnats" which interfere with him- the Punisher, a half-robot, half-alien abomination.

Johnny's urge is to try and help his team but the Watcher stops him. He forces Johnny through the fabric of time itself and leads him through sub-space to Galactus' worldship, a massive space station that is many times the size of Earth.

Back on Earth, the Punisher smacks the Fantastic Four around until they are forced to hide under Sue's force field. The annoyance of the FF contained, Galactus can turn his attention back to the energy converter that will destroy the earth, and the Punisher returns to the mothership. Meanwhile, Alicia's words have moved the Surfer. He has felt for the first time the range of feelings and emotions inherent in the organisms that his actions have helped to condemn. He is moved to help them, but to protect this planet, he must defy Galactus. The Watcher witnesses the Surfer's new resolve, a turn of events he had not forseen. He worries that the Surfer's well-intentioned defiance will inevitably cause Earth's destruction.

(continued in FF #50)

--synopsis by Jonathan Clarke, aka doesitmatter, with Gormuu

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