Fantastic Four (1961 series) #16

Human Torch is flying home to the Baxter Building at high speed because no-one answered his signal, and when he gets there he can't find anybody until he notices a tiny hand waving at him on a very long thin blue-clad arm. Mr Fantastic, Invisible Girl and Thing are all very small and in danger of being sucked into an air vent which he quickly melts shut. The 3 then grow to normal size but don't know what's happening. They all, including Johnny Storm, then admit that it's happened to them separately before, and a voice from nowhere laughs at them and gloats that he has them in his power.

They compare notes. Johnny was customising his sports car when he shrank and nearly got sucked into the fan, but he flamed on which restored him to full size (but unfortunately melted the car). Ben Grimm was weight training when he shrank and the weight fell through the floor, and he hid in a guinea pig's cage out of embarrassment until he grew again. Sue Storm was being interviewed on TV when she shrank and they assumed she'd gone invisible but she had to keep dodging their feet. Reed Richards was testing an improvement to the Fantasti-Car when he shrank, and had difficulty stopping it from crashing. They all didn't mention the experiences!

MrF thinks Ant-Man might help but the others aren't sure he exists, and Reed doesn't know how to contact him. But a nearby ant relays the message to Henry Pym in his lab. He tells his new partner Wasp that he has to go help the Fantastic Four. He releases a gas which shrinks him to ant-size and fires himself from a 'cannon' aimed at the Baxter Building. When he gets nearby he lands on the backs of 2 waiting flying ants which take him through a window to land on a table before  our heroes.

Reed places a crystal magnifying box over him so they can see and hear him more clearly. They explain what's been happening to them and Ant-Man donates 2 drops of his size-changing fluid and says that the 1st drop will shrink them and the 2nd will make them grow. Then he leaves on his flying ants. Reed wonders if AM could be the villain but Sue thinks he's too cute, which causes Ben to opine that it was bad enough her mooning over the Sub-Mariner.

But they don't use the substance immediately. Next day Ben's visiting his blind girlfriend Alicia and lifting a piano so she can clean under it. Reed dashes in with a new serum to turn Thing human and pours it down his throat, which makes him drop the piano and break it. Alicia feels his face and is distressed that it's not the craggy visage she knows. Ben tells Reed that Alicia loves him as the Thing and he loves her so he doesn't *want* to be human. Reed assures him that this early version won't have a permanent effect. Then they hear a faint female voice from nowhere telling them to beware of Dr Doom. Johnny is showing off for kids in Glenville when he hears the same voice. The same thing happens to Sue while she's experimenting with perfumes to stop dogs detecting her when she's invisible. The others arrive and they compare notes again.

Reed suggests that Doom may have survived after they saw him shrinking out of sight at the end of #10 (a victim of his own shrinking ray), so they need to use Ant-Man's shrinking potion to go after him. Reed has divided the potion into 4 portions and they each drink a shrinking drop which immediately makes them way smaller than it does AM, so Reed gets everyone to drink the enlarging drop to slow their 'fall' and they discard the vials.

They land in a micro-world surrounded by armoured soldiers and with Dr Doom on a throne expecting them. Thing lunges to attack but Doom presses a button on his throne which shrinks them further to about the size of his foot. Now he has them 'helpless' he takes time to tell them how he became ruler of this world. His shrinking in #10 left him here in a medieval world that was disgustingly peaceful. He gained the trust of the King and his daughter Pearla by making simple gadgets so they made him the Royal Scientist. He used that position to reconstruct his molecular shrinking ray and shrank the 2 Royals and took over their world. Then he devised a way to watch the FF in the world above, and to toy with them by shrinking them and speaking to them.

Now he tells his soldiers to seize them. But Mr Fantastic's malleable body squirms out of their grasp, still fairly strong Thing picks 1 of them up and throws him at some others and Human Torch welds 1 soldier's iron boots to the floor. Meanwhile Invisible Girl sneaks up to disable the controls on Doom's throne, but it sets off an alarm and the villain traps her in a jar. And then he sprays them all with sleep gas.

They awake in a dungeon with the King and Princess Pearla, all still shrunk. The other 2 tell them that this dungeon is immersed in a 'sea' of acid, and the fishes swimming in it are mechanical watchdogs. Johnny turns on his flame and swears that the FF will get them out of here. But he frightens the girl so he flames off and bows to kiss her hand. Sue realises that it must have been Pearla who tried to warn them and she confirms it. She also says that Dr Doom wants her to marry him (possibly to legitimise his rule but probably just because that's what Marvel villains tended to do). He's contacted the Lizard Men of the nearby planet Tok and will let them have this world if she refuses him. But meanwhile he's offered them the superhuman foursome as slaves.

Back on Earth Ant-Man has returned to the FF's HQ and deduces that our heroes have taken his reducing serum. So he takes a dose to follow them. Arriving the same size as the micro-world inhabitants he fights off armoured guards but they overwhelm him and take him to Doom who just adds him to the list of slaves for the Tokians who are on their way.

Down in the 'dungeon' Sue has an idea. She says the walls must be acid proof, and Reed catches on that they can use the material to construct an escape craft. Thing rips of the inner layer of the walls without of course letting the acid in. MrF and IG assemble the stuff into something that looks like a capsule that returns astronauts from space, with a flexible bag on the bottom, while Torch welds the seams. They all gets inside as the acid eats through the weakened wall. Then Thing's mighty lungs fill the bag with air which floats the capsule to the surface.

Doom and captive Ant-Man await the arrival of the Lizard Men from Tok. But Pym feels someone undoing his bonds and guesses it's Invisible Girl. The FF have already used Doom's enlarging ray and Torch is now helping the still-miniature King and Princess out of the escape capsule. (It turns out that the miniature prison was only in a small artificial pool of acid.) Thing uses a 'little' control tower as a bat to send the Tokian spaceship back into space. Freed Ant-Man surprises his guards. Invisible Girl grabs Doom's gun and shoots at him with it but he escapes via a trapdoor and uses his enlarging ray to return to the large world. Without Doom it's easy for the FF to deal with his troops and the enlarged Royals take over again. Pearla asks Johnny to stay but he says he might return some day. And the 5 heroes return home.