We’re at Day Eight of this year’s Jack Kirby Tribute Month, dedicated to the Fantastic Four and supporting characters. In the midst of a group of allies and supporting characters, today’s prompt is the Watcher.
The mysterious Watcher first shows up in Fantastic Four #13, “The Red Ghost and His Indescribable Super-Apes!” The FF and the Red Ghost race to be first to land on the moon, and to everyone’s surprise, near ancient ruins in the Blue Area of the Moon, they first encounter the Watcher. He explains that he comes from a very advanced world where his people roam the universe, witnessing events on all sorts of planets. The Watcher breaks a centuries-long vow of silence and steps into their conflict.
He’s sometimes referred to by the name Uatu, but he didn’t gain that name until Captain Marvel #39 in 1975. At this point and for the rest of Jack and Stan’s FF run, he was simply “the Watcher.”
The Watcher’s appearance changes a great deal during the course of Jack and Stan’s run. In his first appearance, he was colored a pale yellow, with a purple cape and tunic. Later in the run when he appeared, his proportions had changed, and his head got smaller. I elected to go with his early look (because I prefer the more “other-wordly” look with the bigger head and eyes without pupils), but his later, more recognizable color palette.
Why did his appearance change so much? I recall reading a conjecture about that which seemed pretty reasonable (though I don’t remember exactly where I read it). It was pointed out that in intervening periods, the Watcher had showed up in other comics drawn by other artists, and his appearance had been kind of altered. The theory was that Jack was trying to be consistent to what had become the Watcher’s current look, and that’s why he changed so much.
The Watcher apparently took an interest in the FF and their activities, stepping in from time to time (most notably in “The Galactus Trilogy” in Fantastic Four #48–50).
Enjoy, and feel free to return tomorrow to see who’s next!