Fantastic Four #273 Dec 1984
"Fathers and Others"
While searching for Nathaniel Richards on Other-Earth, the Fantastic Four are brought to
the massive citadel controlled by the Warlord by the gunslinger known as Bret Colby.
As they prepare to press forward, suddenly a massive tripod weapon rises out of the ground to face them.
This time the Fantastic Four are ready for them. The Human Torch flames on and confuses the pilots
of the weapon by creating flame duplicates of himself, until he can melt the side of the hull with his real self.
Watching this from her control room is Cassandra Richards, wife to Nathaniel, who is furious
that her primitive warriors cannot stop these four outworlders intruding upon her domain.
She warns her minions not to fail her again or they will suffer a painful death.
Outside, the Fantastic Four search the inside of the ship and discover that it is empty.
Reed deduces that the tripods can be controlled remotely this close to the base.
The Fantastic Four and their allies suddenly spot some warrior women flying in on mechanical steeds and decide to act cautiously.
With Sue erecting a force-field around them, they wait until the warrior women land.
Their leader begins to ask them why they are clashing with the Warlord.
When Reed introduces himself, the react violently to the name Richards, accusing him of being relative to the Warlord.
Reed quickly subdues the warrior woman attacking him, and the rest of the warriors are ordered to stand down by their elder.
She asks Reed to release her daughter as they have much to discuss.
After they have compared notes, and it is revealed that the Fantastic Four are from a parallel universe,
the leader of the Eyriennes explains that by their calendar it is the year 1127.
She explains that on their world their calendar begins on the date that their people first landed on the moon.
She explains that the first to travel to the moon developed a colony called Luna.
Soon a war between Luna and Earth erupted leading to a nuclear war that nearly wiped out the human race, but ended in the destruction of Luna.
The planet was plunged into a nuclear winter and after ten years it also became bombarded with debris from the shattered moon.
Poverty and war reigned supreme until one day the being who became known as the Warlord appeared, Nathaniel Richards.
Richards tried to help this world by utilizing his knowledge of science. He eventually ventured to the land of the Eyriennes.
With this class of warrior women, Nathaniel helped rebuild society, arming the Eyriennes as a military and building his massive citadel.
In thanks for rebuilding their society, the Eyriennes gave one of their own -- Cassandra -- to be his wife.
However in the passing years someone calling themselves the Warlord had become a tyrant,
controlling the outside society from within the citadel. Someone they believe to be Nathaniel Richards.
Impressed by the story, Reed theorizes that this reality did not experience the "great interruption",
the period of time known as "the dark ages" when the advancement of science completely stopped.
Suspecting that the Warlord is his father, Reed decides to approach the citadel alone to try and talk sense into Nathaniel and stop hostilities.
As Reed approaches the citadel, he recalls how he came to this realm to find his father and hopefully close the gaps in his memory.
He thinks back to how his father raised him to have a love for science and eventually funded
his spaceship project until he disappeared three years prior to the birth of the Fantastic Four.
His thoughts are cut off when suddenly a sentry device pops out of the ground and demands to know who he is.
When Richards identifies himself and asks for an audience with the Warlord, the Warlord obliges with a holographic image.
Unable to discern the identity of the Warlord due to the helmet and masked voice, Reed asks if the Warlord cannot recognize his own son.
When Reed asks the Warlord how he could use his science to turn this alternate world into a perverted warzone,
the Warlord simply answers by unleashing a massive army of attack planes and tripods upon them.
The Fantastic Four, Eyriennes and Colby's cowboys all join in the bloody battle ahead.
As the fight rages on, Wyatt Wingfoot manages to slip away to get closer to the citadel.
On the other side of a ridge, he spots the Warlord and one of his men prepping an anti-matter cannon that will kill all the intruders.
With the lives of his friends hanging in the balance, Wyatt makes the uneasy
decision to take a life to save his friends by tossing a rock into the anti-matter cannon.
With the weapon jammed, it instead explodes on the spot while Wyatt tries to leap to safety.
Wyatt later awakens in a medical lab within the citadel.
Soon they all learn that the Warlord was actually Nathaniel Richard's wife Cassandra, who was posing as him to the outside world.
Nathaniel is heart broken by this truth, but is glad that it has been revealed and he has been reunited with his first son.
Nathaniel tells the Fantastic Four that he intends to stay on Other-Earth until he can fix all the wrongs carried out by his wayward wife....
... Centuries later in the year 3000 of Other-Earth, a man watches old 3-D Stereovision
tapes of the past and finds them more exciting compared to the dull future world he lives in.
Deciding to do something about it, this bored man decides to travel to the long abandoned citadel of the Warlord.
Inside he finds plans for a time machine, deciding to travel back in time to ancient Egypt,
he disguises the time machine as a massive Sphinx and uses it to go back in time where his destiny awaits him....
Story & art by John Byrne.