Still continuing my journey through Fantastic Four and I’m up to the part where Sue is pregnant. This is interesting solely for the reason that it’s 1968 and things were a little different. Even after she got a bump in her power level Sue has yet to be as active on the team as the guys (though I will say that she is always willing to face danger with them) but with a baby on the way she’s become even more useless than she was back in ‘61.

While the guys are hanging with Silver Surfer and battling baddies, Sue’s laid up in an apartment with her kid brother’s girlfriend. No one’s telling her anything because they don’t want to upset her. Even the fact that there might be something wrong with the baby (thanks to the cosmic rays that gave her her powers) is being kept from her “for her own good.” Sheesh, 1960s.

I also like that she’s now in the hospital, still waiting to have her baby (never to give birth or wait for it to be born and she’s never referred to as being pregnant) and Reed is told, by the doctors, to stop hanging around. So, of course, he runs off with Johnny and Ben to have super awesome adventures.

He is shown to be concerned for Sue and their baby and everyone is genuinely excited about the baby but there’s a weird disconnect in that no one seems to be too concerned with how Sue is doing or what she might want. I’m loathe to call Marvel or Stan Lee out on it as this was over 40 years ago and that was the prevailing attitude (or, at the very least, this was the prevailing attitude in the media of the day); it’s just odd to see in the context of today where men are encouraged (or so it seems to me) to be actively involved in their partner’s pregnancy and the birth of their child.