The Fantastic Four: Human Freaks as Monster Hunters

Examining early Marvel comics and trying to see them without the accumulation of later stories is quite a trick. It is more of a writer trick than a reader trick. And it requires several attempts to see them in a new light or rather in their original light. I have been inspired by Al Ewing's tumblr about the Hulk: https://alewing.tumblr.com/page/29

When Marvel retells the early stories, they always do so in a more superheroic style, highlighting human anatomy for example. In the eighties John Byrne famously explained his approach to drawing the Thing. During the seventies his body shape had become more anatomically human, with the shape of muscles becoming visible, in particular as drawn by George Pérez. John Byrne explained he used a star-shape figure: no visible neck, limbs larger at the joints with the body trunk.
https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/1av2xw/how_to_draw_the_thing_by_john_byrne_xpost/

In 1961, Marvel's successful magazines were monsters stories, Comics Code-approved horror stories and when Stan Lee was asked to copy DC's best-sellers, he came up with the Fantastic Four, a mashup combining superpowered adventurers and monsters. In the story these four adventurers are turned into freaks: The Thing's shape seems to change from panel to panel, Reed Richards's anatomy seems to melt, Sue Storm becomes invisible, only represented by a silhouette in dotted line, and Johnny Storm's body is utterly engulfed in flames. Those depictions of their appearances are quite different from those that will become standard a few years down the line. The characters will become more muscular, veering their look toward a more superheroic appearance.

In their original appearance, the characters were turned into freaks. The Invisible Girl produces the effects of a ghost or poltergeist, the Thing is described as a monster, the Human Torch as a flaming object. And the Human Torch says of Reed and Ben, "You've been turned into monsters... both of you!"

They decide to help mankind and they become monster hunters, fighting monsters in issues #1, #3 and #4 and monstrous aliens in #2. The shift toward traditional superheroic starts in #3 with the costumes, continues in #4 with the reintroduction of the Sub-Mariner and #5 with the appearance of a colorful sorcerer scientist as antagonist. Their adversaries at this point are scientists and aliens.

Still it will take until #13 to introduce super-powered antagonists. One is a human scientist and has the powers of a ghost, the others are apes. In #18 an alien duplicates their powers. It is only in #20 that a super-powered costumed villain appears and still he operates through a molecular ("magic") wand. The edging toward traditional superheroics has been very gradual over these first two years. The threats were mainly from science fiction or dressed as pseudo-supernatural.

Issue #25 starts a flurry of superheroes guest appearances. Costumed criminals appear regularly from #36.

But think about those early issues when a group of human freaks decided to help humanity by turning on other monsters. In hindsight it reads like minority people turning on their own minority to gain mainstream acceptance. There is unexplored territory right there for enterprising writers.