FF Week #22--A Robot Just Can't Catch A Break!

You know whom we haven't talked about yet this week?

The most important Fantastic Four member of all!


Herbie!!

You all know the tale, of course, about how someone else held the rights to the Human Torch, so when they wanted to make a Fantastic Four cartoon in the late 1970s, they needed to replace Johnny with...a robot named Herbie.

Hey, I'm sure it made sense to someone.

Eventually they incorporated Herbie into the actual comic book:

Woo hoo!!

Herbie was quite useful...

...until he was taken over by a former Tomb Of Dracula villain (no, really) and kinda turned evil!

Don't worry--Herbie managed to temporarily regain control of himself, and rather than allow himself to be a tool in the FF's death...

Awww...

Well, Reed went and made another version of Herbie, this one to monitor Franklin's growing mental powers. Sadly, there was another tragic ending for Herbie:

Man, a robot can't catch a break...

Finally, of course, we all remember the firestorm when they decided to cast a black robot in the Herbie role for the forthcoming movie...

From Fantastic Four #209 (1979), #217 (1980), and #244 (1982)