Fantastic Four #42

Fantastic Four #42 picks up where issue 41 left off. The Thing has been brainwashed by the Wizard and now fights with the Frightful Four against his former colleagues. While this issue isn't as bad as the previous one, it is filled with things, mostly uses of the heroes and villains powers, that in aggregate, make this a sub-par issue.

For example, Mr. Fantastic is glued to a board by Trapster. Instead of having him stretch his nose or something, he is somehow able to increase the entire mass of his body to fill the room. The Invisible Girl is ensnared in Medusa's hair - even though Medusa was unable to hold her that way just last issue! Thing stuffs an unconscious Mr. Fantastic into a metal jar he happened to have lying around, and somehow Mr. Fantastic doesn't manage to suffocate during this imprisonment. The Human Torch liquifies some of the Sandman's body, yet this doesn't seem to hurt him. Trapster is caught in his own paste which happens to get flung back at him by Sue's force field - while I don't actually have a big problem with this, it seems that Trapster would at least try to make himself impervious to his own primary weapon. Johnny flashes everybody, but Trapster and Medusa happen to close their eyes - apparently they overheard Johnny warn Sue. Thing frees Trapster from his paste by punching him in the back! Once free again, Reed and Sue tear gas the house because Wizard happened to leave a giant canister of tear gas in the garage, along with a whole bunch of anti-grav discs which Reed is able to coat with Trapster's paste and slingshot at each Frightful Four member to make them fly away (again? Why doesn't Wizard keep those under lock and key? And why does Trapster leave paste lying around?). Somehow this doesn't affect the Human Torch as we are told he 'managed to dodge the ones near him'. Then we find out that the Wizard is powerful enough to uproot all the trees, grass and rocks and hurl them! What? Wait, why has he never done this before!?

Anyway, you get my point. The characters' powers, their limits and how they use them should have been given way more attention. As it is, this story is a preposterous, unengaging, routine superhero vs. supervillain battle.