Thundra! Femizon from the Future Appreciation (2019)

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Fantastic Four #151 Oct 1974
"Thundra and Lightning!"
Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are at a haberdashery trying on new outfits, but Ben soon
gives up in exasperation, saying that nothing in the store will ever improve his appearance.
When the owner turns his attention to Johnny, he unfortunately makes some disparaging
remarks about Ben, and an annoyed Ben brandishes his fist at the frightened man.
Fortunately, Johnny calms Ben down, and a short while later, Johnny and Ben, wearing their new suits, walk back to the Baxter Building.
But when Ben and Johnny approach the Baxter Building, they see that it is surrounded by a crackling glow.
Alarmed, Johnny bursts into flame, reducing his new $110 suit to a cinder, and Ben flexes his muscles and tears his own $150 suit to shreds.
Then Johnny flashes up to the top of the skyscraper, while Ben climbs up the wall.
Johnny knows that Reed and Sue are spending the day in the country with Franklin,
which means that someone is trying to invade their headquarters.
Suddenly the wall next to Johnny explodes, and a powerful figure, glowing with energy, strides forth,

demanding to know the whereabouts of the "she-witch," Thundra the Femizon.

Meanwhile, Medusa is walking through a park near the United Nations building,
where she had gone to learn the legal status of her countrymen.
After being pestered by a reporter, she meets Thundra, and the women strike up a conversation.
Thundra explains that she wants to see Reed Richards, who is quite reasonable—even though he is a man.
She goes on to reveal that she comes from a future Earth that in a way does not yet exist.
In this alternate future, women are dominant and men are reduced to slavery.
Of all the Femizons, she continues, she is the strongest and the bravest.
There are a thousand million alternate futures, she says, one born every time a decision is made.
Thus there also exists a world called Machus, a future in which men are in power.
Machus is a bestial place where women are kept as slaves and men fight eternal wars.
Somehow, says Thundra, the world of Machus and the world of the Femizons have recently
been drawing together, and the normally docile men of her world have begun to rebel.
The Femizons have been forced to squelch the rebellion by bloody means, which is not to their liking.

For this reason, Thundra was sent by the Queen of the Femizons to find and battle the Earth's
most powerful male and defeat him so soundly that men will learn their lesson for all time.
This, says Thundra, would eliminate the alternate future of Machus.

Meanwhile, the huge figure, who calls himself Mahkizmo, grabs Johnny's legs and pitches Johnny into a bank of machinery.
But he burns himself and, howling with pain, he vows to break Johnny's neck.
No one injures Mahkizmo, he says, least of all an "effeminate" like Johnny.
Johnny manages to evade Mahkizmo's blows until the Thing climbs up to where they are battling,
but then a solid punch sends Johnny hurtling over Ben's head. When Mahkizmo sees Ben,
he again demands to know about Thundra, saying he will not rest until she is in his hands.
But when he says that Ben is too weak to stop him, Ben staggers him with a powerful punch.
Mahkizmo, however, retaliates with a punch of his own.
He will not be mocked and have his manhood insulted, he shouts, for among the men of his world,
he is the strongest, and only he has been chosen to wield the "ultimate energy."
This is the power that gives him his name—Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man.
Then Mahkizmo strikes a thunderous blow into Reed's equipment, reducing it to scrap. Johnny and Ben can only look on dumbfounded.

Meanwhile, Thundra explains to Medusa that there is some kind of temporal field surrounding the
Baxter Building, which brought her to the Thing rather than to the Hulk or Thor, who are both stronger.
In her months on Earth, she has come to understand something of the world, and now she does not want
to battle the Thing because she is no longer certain that the Femizon path is the proper path for the future.
Yet, she says, neither is Machus. Thus, she says, something must be done about Mahkizmo.

Meanwhile, Reed is returning from the country aboard the rebuilt Airjet Cycle.
He is delighted to have his wife and son back, although he let them stay with Sue's friends for a few days.
As he approaches the Baxter Building, he spots the hole in the wall and suddenly the
portable Geiger counter on his '"Fantasti-Cycle" begins to register a strong reading.
The area is flooded with radiated beta particles, he says and he wonders whether Ben or Johnny
accidentally set off a contained fusion reactor. They could have been killed in the explosion.
When Reed stretches down into the hole, he sees Johnny lying semi-conscious on the floor with Ben beside him.
Then Reed sees Mahkizmo, who renews his demand for Thundra and starts to pound Reed with his powerful fists.
Reed is no match for the nuclear-powered warrior, and he is quickly knocked unconscious and starts to fall toward the street.
Just then Medusa and Thundra approach, and when they follow the gaze of
the horrified bystanders, they see Reed's elastic form plunging toward them.

Script by Gerry Conway. Art by Rich Buckler (layouts) and Joe Sinnott (finishes).

[Phoenixx9]

I loved seeing Medusa back then with no mask-- it was so rare and her face so beautifully drawn.

I remember reading this and thinking how powerful Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man! He should have been a major Marvel villain, but it never happened.

[kcekada]

This was the era in which I was introduced to the Fantastic Four, so I was always partial to Medusa as a member. And Johnny's red uniform. And appearances by Thundra. And Agatha Harkness. And Impossible Man. I don't think it's as endearing to older FF fans who didn't like all of the changes -- and that Sue was separated from the team.

In many ways, the Fantastic Four friends were more interesting than the team itself.

[Phoenixx9]

I think it worked and was interesting--the friends/associates and the FF- because of how they all played off each other. The Sum of the whole being greater than the individuals.

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Marvel Two in One #56 Oct 1979
"The Pegasus Project Part 4: The Deadlier of the Species!"
Guest-starring Thundra, Giant Man (Bill Foster) and Quasar.
Following her defeat at the hands of Titania, Thundra has been forced into aiding the Grapplers
in breaking into Project Pegasus for their employers Nth Command, a subsection of a private company.

As they break into the facility, elsewhere in the Pegasus compound, Ben visits the seemingly
unconscious Wundarr to express his guilty at letting the people at Project Pegasus experiment on him.
Feeling tearful, the Thing leaves the room unaware that Wundarr has revived and forgives Ben for what happened.

Returning to his quarters, Ben runs into Thundra who uses force to try to prevent the Thing from stopping her.

Their subsequent battle leads to the alarm going off, which brings Quasar and Giant-Man to investigate the situation.
Quasar runs into Letha, and Screaming Mimi first, and is at first put on the defensive by Mimi's sonic scream.
However, he manages to overcome the scream's hallucinogenic effects and defeat the three women with his Quantum Bands.
Giant-Man meanwhile finds Titania and Poundcakes in the research center.
His giant size working against him, Giant-Man is easily taken off guard, however, Giant-Man
manages to turn things to his advantage and easily knocks out the two overconfident Amazons.
As this is happening, Ben is losing his fight against Thundra,

however, he manages to turn the battle around on her and defeats her as easily as her comrades.

With Thundra and the other Grapplers subdued, the Thing, Giant-Man, and Quasar attempt to question them.
The Grapplers refuse to speak, and Thundra regrets that she cannot talk either
because she had been honor-sworn not to reveal what their plan was.
Elsewhere in the facility within the Nuclear Research Module, Thomas Lightener has taken the payload brought by the Grapplers
and is busy completing the assembly of a Nth Projector, a device that he intends to use to destroy the Pegasus Project.

Story by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio. Art by George Pérez and Gene Day.

[kcekada]

MTIO #56 is an excellent issue -- maybe my favorite of the entire series. Thunder should have been a permanent gues-star -- she and Ben plays so well off each other. I remember being thrilled that Perez replaced Byrne -- cause Perez draws an excellent Thundra. But at first, I was disappointed that Joe Sinnott left as well. By the end of the story, however, I was a huge fan of Gene Day's inks. His embellishments added more depth that Sinnott's.

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Fantastic Four #152 Nov 1974
"A World of Madness Made!" Guest-starring Thundra.
Thundra attacks Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man, in order

to give Reed, Ben and Johnny a chance to recover from their fight!

But in a brilliant flash of light, the powerful femizon and the monster from Machus vanish from the Baxter Building.
Where did they go? Reed thinks somewhere in the future, so the Human Torch, Medusa, Thing and Mr. Fantastic
use Dr. Doom's time machine to go forward in time...to Machus! How will the FF fare in round two vs. Mahkizmo?

Script by Gerry Conway. Art by Rich Buckler (layouts) and Jim Mooney (finishes).

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Fantastic Four #153 Dec 1974
"Worlds in Collision!" Guest-starring Thundra.
Medusa has seemingly abandoned the imprisoned Mr. Fantastic, Thing and Human Torch!
But the long-haired Inhuman has traveled to the world of
the femizons to elicit their help in the war vs. Mahkizmo!
Meanwhile back on Machus, the three remaining members of the FF plus Thundra

make their final stand vs. the Nuclear Man!


Will the femizons arrive in time to turn defeat into victory? The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance!
NOTE: Thundra appears next in Fantastic Four 177.

Script by Gerry Conway. Art by Rich Buckler (layouts) and Jim Mooney (finishes).

[Phoenixx9]

Yep, I used to wonder just what would happen in the next issue! Would the heroes win? Would the world survive? How? Who would help them? How can the threat be beaten?

Ah, they just don't make comics like that any more, lol!

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Marvel Two in One #57 Nov 1979
"The Pegasus Project Part 5: When Walks Wundarr!"
Guest-starring Thundra, Giant Man (Bill Foster) and Quasar.
Following attacks on Project Pegasus by Deathlok, the release of Nuklo and most recently the attack by Thundra and the Grapplers,
Quasar, Giant-Man and the Thing believe that someone within Pegasus must be helping with these attacks and put the base on alert.

Thing goes off to try and question Thundra again, hoping to be able to talk her into explaining what exactly happened.

As the Thing questions Thundra, Wundarr has once more awaken and has begun walking the halls of Project Pegasus.
The alien man-child's energy dampening powers absorb the nearby power sources he passes and he unwittingly frees Solarr from his cell.
When Solarr finds his powers cannot harm Wundarr, he decides to free some of the other criminal captives and try to find a way out.
He first tries to recruit Electro, but finds that the villain is all bandaged up
following his last battle with Spider-Man and leaves the electricity based villain.
As Solarr continues to look for an ideal ally, Quasar and the other heroes have the computer logs sifted through and the computer determines
that the only Pegasus employee that has been seen in the areas of all the attacks is Thomas Lightner, which does not surprise the Thing.

Meanwhile, Solarr busts into Klaw's holding cell and is furious to find only Klaw's sonic claw and furiously throws it against a wall.
This causes Klaw's body to reconstitute and regain consciousness.
As Solarr and Klaw plan their escape, Quasar, Giant-Man and the Thing go looking for Lightner.
Lightner himself has finished the Nth Projector. However, instead of using it to destroy Project Pegasus
like his masters intended, he hopes to restore his Blacksun powers and targets on himself, with unexpected results.

The heroes end up running into Solarr and Klaw and a brawl happens between the two groups.
Solarr attempts to fight Quasar one on one but finds himself hopelessly over-powered.
Meanwhile, Wundarr has made his way to the room where the Cosmic Cube has been stored,
while at the same time the Thing and Giant-Man manage to overpower and defeat Klaw.
After the villains defeat the three super-heroes begin to contemplate how the two crooks managed to escape from their cells.
Unfortunately, they fail to notice Klaw reviving, and the master of sound manages to knock them all out with a powerful sonic blast.
With the three heroes knocked out, Klaw aims his sonic claw up against the Things temple
hoping to fire at point-blank range and destroy his longtime nemesis once and for all.

Story by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio. Art by George Pérez and Gene Day.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Thundras a weird one.

Great character design, very simple. Motivations a tad weak. Her backstory on the otherhand is very dated though and has a lot of political ugliness to it. Does she manage to reintegrate society in the future when she's empress or is it still a Man hating matriarchy ?

That, to me, is a good question which I'd like to see answered but not in the comics. Instead, I'd like to see the comicbook character Thundra make her debut in the MCU as empress!

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Marvel Two in One #58 Dec 1979
"The Pegasus Project Part 6: To the Nth Power!"
Guest-starring Aquarian, Thundra, Giant Man (Bill Foster) and Quasar.
Klaw has the Thing, Quasar, and Giant Man at his mercy and is about to blast the Thing at
point-blank range when he suddenly discorporates and is shunted back into his sonic claw.
This has been caused by Wundarr who has now achieved a normal intellect and is calling himself Aquarian.

When the Thing revives, Aquarian explains to Ben that he has undergone this change after a second exposure to the Cosmic Cube.
With the help of the Project Pegasus security staff, Ben and Aquarian take Giant-Man and Quasar back to the infirmary.
There Aquarian explains to Ben that he has detected a disturbance in the very fabric of reality.

Taking the Thing down to the lower levels of the Pegasus complex, they find that Thomas Lightner has transformed
into the nebulous Nth Man, a human-shaped sentient void that is literally sucking all reality into itself.
Nth Man explains his plot to the two of them and his intention to absorb all reality.
Aquarian then tries to stop Lightner by using his energy dampening powers,
which succeeds only in turning off all the power in Project Pegasus,

including the energy bars of Thundra's holding cell.

As Aquarian continues to try and stop Nth Man, Quasar and Giant-Man revive
and meet up with Ben to see what they can do. They are soon also joined by Thundra.
Quasar tries first to stop the creature with his Quantum Bands,
but they have no effect as Nth Man can absorb even it's massive energies.
Giant-Man then decides that he is going to sacrifice himself to save the universe hoping that his size powers can "plug" the Nth Man.

When the others try to stop him, Giant-Man reveals that he had contracted terminal cancer from
his encounter with Atom Smasher and that he is doomed to die anyway and jumps into the Nth Man.
This ploy also does not work, and in a desperate measure,
Aquarian jumps into the Nth Man hoping his powers can work from the inside.

This works in the heroes favor, and Aquarian and Giant-Man are pulled out of Nth Man,
as Aquarian's very own powers causes Nth Man's absorption to reverse shunting the menace off to another reality.
Although they are victorious, Quasar grimly wonders if their victory over the Nth Man has doomed some other reality in the Multiverse.

With the battle over, Ben decides to return to the Fantastic Four and bids farewell to everyone,
including Aquarian who decides to venture on his own and try to bring peace on Earth.
The Thing departs leaving Bill to try and find a cure for his illness, Quasar resuming security
detail at the Project and Thundra going to investigate who her mysterious employers were.

Unknown to all, the masterminds behind the attacks on Project Pegasus is none other than the Roxxon Oil company,
hoping to stop the project in order to prevent a discovery of a perpetual fuel source that might cut into their oil profits.
However, the CEO of Roxxon writes off this failure as his organization has more lucrative measures in place that will soon come to fruition.

Story by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio. Art by George Pérez and Gene Day.