Review: Part 2 continues with the story of the team’s first meeting with The Puppet Master who of course the Father of Alicia Masters, the woman who would go on to become Ben Grimm’s girlfriend. This episode actually isn’t as bad as the opener but it’s still barely worth watching. The team are still selling those stupid books on the Dick Clark show, and features yet more terrible jokes with Ms. Forbes, the team’s ultra annoying land lady.

Part two continues with the story of the team’s first meeting with The Puppet Master who of course the Father of Alicia Masters, the woman who would go on to become Ben Grimm’s girlfriend. This episode actually isn’t as bad as the opener but it’s still barely worth watching. The team are still selling those stupid books on the Dick Clark show, and features yet more terrible jokes with Ms. Forbes, the team’s ultra annoying land lady.

The Puppet Master wasn’t an especially good villain, but he fairs a lot better than most of the other rogues in the show. His motivation is simple – he wants to take over the world. They don’t bother going into his back-story – he’s simply an old man who makes puppets that can control people’s minds. It’s worth noting however, that Neil Ross is brilliant in the role. I can never give Ross enough credit – not only is he an exceptional Green Goblin, but he voiced about 90% of the rouges in this season and did a spot on job each time. In all honesty, there were times that I feel that Ross was the only one trying. None of the writers ever tried to inject this much personality into the villains. The best-animated version of The Puppet Master is still the one from The Incredible Hulk in the early 80’s in which it is revealed that Bruce Banner and The Hulk are one and the same.

The prison riot wasn’t especially bad, but the fight between the prisoners and The FF was pretty short. It would’ve been cool to see more of their powers though, considering how diverse and potentially amazing the Fantastic Four’s powers are, you never really got a good portrayal of any of their powers in this season. It, along with everything else got better in season two, but I hope the upcoming Fantastic Four show really does showcase their powers better than this show did. I didn’t think that this version of The Thing looked incredibly strong until he had a throwdown with The Hulk in Nightmare In Green.

One of the more bizarre aspects of the episode was that Alicia defeated The Puppet Master after she accidentally threw him out of the window. Suddenly Susan, in complete ear shot of Alicia spouts out “Perhaps it’s best this way!”

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What kind of person says something like that?! Oddly enough, The Puppet Master was never mentioned again. I think a follow up to this episode could’ve been very interesting to see in the second season, but they never got around to it. In a show filled with terrible villains, The Puppet Master was probably one of the better ones this season. Two episodes in for Fantastic Four and things weren’t looking pretty. Sadly, the show only got worse.  

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