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The Red Ghost
Review and Media by Jon T

Episode #4 - The Red Ghost
 Original Airdate - October 7, 1967

Reed experiments on a meteor for use as a new super fuel, but with little success. He got the idea from a scientist named Professor Ivan Kragoff, and so the Four endeavour to use the fuel to get to the Moon, winning the space race before Kragoff, and to explore a mysterious blue area on the Moon's surface. Kragoff himself, known as the Red Ghost, uses a trio of intelligent apes to assist him in his rocketship. Both ships take off at the same time, and the Red Ghost's ship is bombarded with cosmic rays, giving him and his apes super powers. In the Moon's blue area, the team find an ancient deserted city, and come under attack from the Red Ghost and his super apes. Sue is taken hostage, and Reed, Ben and Johnny follow the Red Ghost for the final battle.

Notes: Based on "The Fantastic Four Versus The Red Ghost And His Indescribable Super-Apes!" from Fantastic Four #13 (April 1963), written by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby.
· This episode is only 10 minutes long, and is often paired with "Red".

Review: A more Cold War-type setting for this episode, as the Red Ghost (Kragoff) competes with the Fantastic Four to reach the Moon first and win the space race (that detail certainly dates this episode!). Having Red Ghost and his apes gain powers the same way as the FF is a clever idea, as is having all their powers different and unique compared to the FF's powers.

There's a pretty unforgivable shortcut when everyone leaves their respective spaceships into an atmosphere on the Moon! Of course, it could only have been in the Moon's mysterious blue city, but this isn't made clear.

Once again Sue falls into a stereotype, as she alone is held captive by the Red Ghost, but at least she's portrayed as being resourceful enough to escape this time. As with "Red", the episode's short running time is to its detriment, with obvious questions such as where did the blue city on the Moon come from not even being asked.

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