"Something Old, Something New"
(But we don't learn the title until Page 12)
It is the summer of 1984, and while the Secret Wars is still being published, its effect on the Marvel Universe are in effect: She-Hulk has replaced The Thing in The Fantastic Four. The production values and story telling are also tighter than it was back in the 1970s. And this issue was written by the team of John Byrne, Mark Bright and Mark Gruenwald. Byrne, who was famous as both a writer and an artist is merely the plotter on this one, while Mark Bright does the art and Mark Gruenwald does the script. And like many Marvel annuals, this one involves both The Inhumans and a wedding, and in this case, the marriage of Black Bolt to Medusa. It is a sprawling story, with many main characters and dozen characters in the background.
But also, all of the characters we know are just supporting characters, because there is another story front-and-center. The prolog of the story starts in the past, showing a bouncing Wolverine on the moon's surface. He has wandered into a battle between two alien adversaries: a Kree and a Skrull, the two main competing space empires of the Marvel Universe, and this story is mostly the story of how these two, Raksor of the Skrull and Bel-Dann of the Kree, become (quite literal) wedding crashers. After establishing the Kree/Skrull conflict, we then see the Fantastic Four arrive to witness the wedding of Blackbolt and Medusa, which also involves filling us in on a lot of Marvel Universe gossip as we are reminded of the complicated romantic backstories of the characters. When we finally get to the ornately decorated ceremony itself, we are suddenly interrupted by buildings crashing. The two rival warriors are making trouble! After figuring out what is going on, Black Bolt and Mister Fantastic (who is, after all, supposed to be the most intelligent man on earth) devise a plan. They will corral the two warriors together, forcing them to join forces to stop the combined Fantastic Four and Inhumans. This leaves them in an enemy mine situation where they have to work together---to keep fighting. At the end, the Watcher declares them co-champions, the Fantastic Four and Inhumans all have a post-wedding luncheon, and She-Hulk dances with Gorgon.
This issue works on a lot of levels. One thing is the great art, that manages to work in so many characters, including large crowd scenes of anonymous Inhumans. The art is actually reminiscent of John Byrne, despite him being the writer and not the artist---maybe he did give Mark Bright some instructions on what style he wanted. But what works best is that this story has a plot hook. I had I had previously mentioned that a story should be ended with "a dramatic decision, or at least a clever ruse", and here we have a clever ruse. The solution is not to have a stronger ray blast than your enemies, or even to be more brave or strong---it is to trick them into peacefulness. All of the artwork and Marvel backstory gossip were nice, but what really makes this story is that the central conflict of the story is resolved in a creative way.