"I like a woman with spirit!"
From the very start, the FF are broke, bankrupt, selling all their stuff and dissolving what seems to be their business partnership. At first I thought this would be a ruse- but no. They genuinely are broke. Their once colossal wealth (at last it's confirmed where it came from- Reed's patents) is all gone, thanks to Reed's bad investments. And this is a nice touch, I think. Reed may be a genius, and may plausibly have been overconfident in his investments.
We also find that Alicia, only introduced last issue, is already a regular character, with a nicely nuanced relationship with the Thing. This sort of thing really adds depth and nuance. And yes, it may be silly that the issue starts with Sub-Mariner watching telly in his solitary undersea home... but the framed picture of Sue is a nice visual touch.
Namor, of course, is plotting to get Sue for himself, so he offer the FF... ahem, one million dollars(!), no doubt a princely sum in 1962, for a film. But the three men are all lured into traps and, well, Johnny's is vaguely racist! I love how Reed's trap seems to literally be the actual Cyclops (no, not that one, not yet) from The Odyssey.
The ending is... well, Namor's behaviour towards Sue is more than a little #MeToo from the perspective of 2026, but it's a satisfying conclusion, with the Sub-Mariner feeling honour-bound to pay up, ending the team's financial woes.
After all the bonkersness I've trawled through... well, this is still very Silver Age but it's genuinely good.
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