* 1st APPEARANCE "SALEM'S SEVEN" (Brutacus, Gazelle, Hydron, Reptilla, Thornn, Vakume, Vertigo)


Several hours after their defeat, the Fantastic Four awaken in a New Salem dungeon, where Agatha Harkness and Franklin are also imprisoned. Sue is happy to be reunited with her son, and Agatha apologizes for involving them all in the affair. Reed asks why she took Franklin away, and she answers that she had hoped his special powers would protect her from the New Salem Witches, who sought to return her to the town against her will. Unfortunately, it turned out that Franklin's power was gone, but she did not know this, and there was nothing she could do to prevent her abduction. Reed describes how they traced the Eliminator to New Salem and had to battle the witches' gargoyles and then the witches themselves. Sue asks who all these people are and how they acquired their powers but before Agatha can answer, Nicholas Scratch, the leader of the witches, enters, accompanied by a hooded bailiff and a blonde-haired witch. The bailiff pronounces sentence on Agatha, declaring her guilty of treason and ordering her public execution.

At this point, Ben and Johnny promise to lay waste to the entire town if Agatha is harmed. Scratch replies that even though such action would be quite useless, he believes they will try to make good the threat, so he uses his power to teleport Franklin away out of Sue's arms. Nearly hysterical, Sue is calmed by Reed and Agatha, who assures her that her son is quite safe. It is, she says, New Salem's way of insuring that the Fantastic Four will not interfere in what will happen. Agatha then departs with Scratch and the dungeon door shuts behind them.

Through the barred window, Scratch informs the teammates that when the old woman is slain, he will return to pass sentence upon them. Back at the Baxter Building, the Impossible Man sits engrossed before the television watching a rerun of Casablanca. Suddenly, two figures enter the room behind him and knock him unconscious with a sonic blast. There is much to be done says one, and little time to waste.

Nicholas Scratch, the bailiff, and the blonde witch escort Agatha up a stone stairway to a huge altar where, Scratch says 'justice will be done." It is what she deserves, he says, for deserting her people and him. She says that she only sought to live among normal men once more, but Scratch replies that now she must pay the price. All the people of New Salem are gathered there, bearing torches and six guards stand at the altar as Scratch declares that she has been tried by the people among whom she once dwelt. She has been found guilty of betraying the secret of their existence, he continues, and she knew when she left that the penalty for doing this is death. Agatha replies that the law under which she stands sentenced is archaic and the "trial" is a mockery of justice. Mockery or not, says Scratch, when the order of the court is carried out, she will be just as dead.

Meanwhile, Ben paces around the Fantastic Four's cell, shaking the building with every step. The first thing they must do is get out of their cell, so Sue shapes her force field into a narrow bar that she slips through the window in their door and loops around the head of the posted guard, then she slams him senseless back against the door. Using his auto-extensors Reed stretches his arms and grabs the guard's keys and the Fantastic Four quickly open the door and escape. But when they reach the head of the stairs, they find seven New Salemites awaiting them. Johnny imagines that, since the witches are unarmed, they will not present much of a problem.

But suddenly, they all mystically change into unhuman warriors—Salem's Seven.

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