The Fantastic Four's friends and foes

Have you ever been lonely? Really, truly alone, so that "nobody understands me" and "nobody likes me" are more than just empty whining? The Mole Man is the loneliest character ever created. Hated by everyone, surrounded by millions (probably billions) of loyal followers, but not one of them can engage in intelligent conversation. He has an empire that's bigger than the surface area of the Earth, yet is crushingly alone. Of all the billions who live on the surface, not one has the common decency to treat him like a human being. I think his hatred of the surface world is entirely rational.

How bad was his life?

It's easy to judge him - see the panels at left, from FF 90. Johnny has so sympathy, because he says Ben Grimm had bigger problems. But that isn't true. Ben Grimm never lost his friends. Nobody ever laughed at him. Nobody ever denied him a job because of his looks (indeed, Ben's condition means he's become the idol of millions!)

Johnny also says that Alicia as a worse problem because her blindness is worse than the Mole Man's. But what is sight compared to friendship? Alicia has always had friends.

Now it's perfectly true that the Mole Man lacks any social skills. He lacks all but the crudest cpacity to love. But is that any surprise? Whenever he tries to love someone they betray and mock him (as happened with Kala, and presumably happened before he fled the surface world). Do we seriously expect a person like that to be open hearted and sociable?

It's easy to mock the misfit when you're popular (as Johnny Storm illustrates). It's easy to criticize others for not trying harder when your own life has been easy. Does that make you morally superior?

"They mocked me" - so what?

Let us look at the Mole Man's original complaints:

He tried to find love, but was mocked instead. He knew he would die alone.

He worked to qualify to earn a living, but nobody would hire him. He was already middle aged in 1961, so he grew up in the Great Depression or before. No job means no food. No food and no friends means you die. And in the worst possible way: hated and alone with all your honest effort thrown back in your face.

He follows a pattern

First appearance: FF1
We don't know many details about his original plan (other than the highly simplified "they mock me, I destroy them"). However, he starts by removing nuclear power stations. This has parallels with his next attempt.

Next appearance: FF22
He plans to harmlesly hide some cities - killing nobody - so that the paranoid surface world will destroy itself thinking the other side has attacked. His belief is that surface people kill without any justification, and his experiment (hide cities and see how they react) was about to prove him right.

Next appearance: FF31
He is very careful not to hurt anyone until he can carry out his complete plan. It sounds like the same plan as before - force the surface people to first show that they are the evil ones.

Next appearance: FF88-90
His goal now is simply to be able to come to the surface. But every time he does that he's hated and shunned. The only way he can think to do it is to make everyone like he is - almost blind, so by being blind at last mankind will see. He reveals his overall strategy - to enrage his enemies so that they destroy themselves.

His enemies follow a pattern:

Before FF1
The FF destroy his island in a great explosion. They blame him (FF1) and he blames them (FF22). Why would he destroy his own island? All we know for sure is that the Torch triggered a landslide and there was hgh tech engineering underneath, so it was almost certainly the FF's fault.

Next appearance: FF22
The FF agains destroy his island. Note that his plan was to lower cities harmlessly, but the FF choose destruction instead.

Next appearance: FF31
Once again the torch creates a heat blast that causes a chain reaction that destroys the Mole Man's home (and no doubt kills many of his subteraneans). Note that explosions in confined spaces are far worse than explosions on the surface.

Next appearance: FF88-91
In this story the FF are in no position to destroy his world, but instead Ben starts to torture him, while the Mole Man shows no fear.

Later stories

Next appearance: 127-128
The Mole Man's attack here is cruder - he happily plans to kill everyone - but only to please someone who prentended to show him love. It was never about revenge or conquest, it was always about loneliness.

Next appearance: FF annual 13
Here the Mole man makes his peace with the surface world, and creates an underground utopia. But sure enough, by his...

...next appearance: 263-4 the surface world attacked and destroyed it. Yet the Mole Man still showed compassion, and accepted the Fantastic Four's explanation and helped them.

Next appearance: 296
Here Ben Grimm befriends the Mole Man - and betrays him. Next to love, what the Miole Man wants is to see the sun again, so he tries again to build an island. (he tried ordinary islands twice berfore, but each time the Fantastic Four destroyed them.) Unknown to him, the island making machine will trigger earthquakes. But so what? The surface world has never given him a single reason to care.

Final appearance: 313
Here we see the Mole Man from the other side: the syubterraneans. They love him. he protects them (the only time many died was when Kala controlled Mole Man's life). They need him, and when the FF drive him away then the subterraneans die. We also see in this issue that despite all his disappointments, the Mole Man is willing to give mankind another chance. He doersn't hate the surface world. He's just lonely.

Conclusion

We may see the Mole man as evil - trying to kill everyone on Earth - but his strategy is always to simply unleash our own natural evil, and then he will clean up. he does sometimes try to fit in - before going underground, and after FF annual 13 fior example, but the surface world always attacks him.

Even at his worst, even when he threatens the wntire world, we should remember just one thing: any one of the billions of humans could have prevented all that destruction, by just treating him as a human being.