Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Just as the Civil War crossover divided the Marvel Universe down the middle, our heroes feel that divide at home in issue #540.

Because this is a re-read and not a first-time read, I’ll go ahead and spoil things. While the rest of the Marvel Universe was divided down the middle during Civil War, so to were the Fantastic Four. With everything else going on, Reed and Sue are separating due to the conflict. One problem, though. Because events are happening simultaneously across multiple comics at once, we get two versions of the breakup, one in Fantastic Four, and one in the Civil War miniseries. It could go either way, but I feel that this breakup is the one that happened first.

We begin with Reed and a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in his lab. They’ve apprehended Wildstreak, who you’ll remember from that time when Marvel introduced a new character in each of that year’s annuals. We’re told she’s in a containment field, about to be sent into the Negative Zone. One of the agents accidentally damages the field, and Wildstreak makes a run for it. She seems to disappear and then smashes through a window. Reed is quick to deduce that Sue used invisibility to help Wildstreak escape.

Reed chides Sue for violating the law. She chides him back about the superhero registration law being immoral. She further criticizes him for using the “I’m just following orders” attitude, comparing the situation to Nazi Germany (!). Reed raises a fist in frustration (or perhaps more?) but Sue doesn’t back down. “We are done,” Reed says. Sue responds, “You’ve got that right.”

Sue says she feels like she doesn’t know who Reed is anymore. He says he’s doing all this to protect her, and this infuriates her. She creates a force field in the shape of a cylinder, which reaches up through the building’s roof, and all the way down to its underground parking garage. She accused Reed of being too afraid to stand up to his own government, and that he’s so accustomed to following rules he doesn’t know to do anything else. She says it’s not about protecting her, but about protecting their rights and freedoms. “I think they’re worth dying for if necessary,” she says.

Sue says, “You’re not the man I married,” and Reed only responds with, “I think you should leave now.” She uses her force field to fly up and out of the hole in the roof she created. Reed concentrates on the numbers, immediately estimating repair costs. But his thoughts, in the captions, show that he hopes she’ll understand his point of view and come back. “Please let her come back,” he thinks.

Reed returns to his lab and starts cleaning up from Wildstreak’s escape. (The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are no longer around. They’re out looking for Wildstreak.) Ben steps in and tells Reed that he’s leaving the country, which means he’s leaving the FF too. He says he doesn’t want to fight his own government, but he can’t stay silent either. He plans to live out stories from his childhood and American expatriates fleeing to Paris, and now he’ll enact them in his own life. Ben assumes that Reed will try to talk him out of it, but Reed lets him go. Ben realizes that Sue and Reed didn’t just have a fight, but that Sue left.

Later, Iron Man and Peter Parker visit Reed’s lab. Reed says he wants to show them the new “holding facility” they’ve built. He opens the Negative Zone portal, and Iron Man and Peter enter it. Time passes, and they return. Peter asks to speak to Reed in private. Iron Man goes into the next room and uses his armor’s tech to eavesdrop. (He really is the villain of Civil War, isn’t he?) Peter asks Reed a simple “Why?” Reed tells Peter about his uncle Ted, an eccentric writer who was accused of communism in the 50s by the House Un-American Activities Committee. It ruined the man’s career, his whole life really.

Peter speaks of Ted with admiration, but Reed says Ted was wrong. Ted disobeyed the law. He says that without the law, people would become savages. “We have to support it, no matter what,” he says. Peter remains hopeful, reminding Reed that Reed loved his uncle. (Peter shows incredible restraint by not mentioning his own uncle.) They leave Reed in his lab, alone with his thoughts.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: The issue begins and ends with Reed singing to himself the song “Wernher von Braun” by Tom Lehrer, with emphasis on the lyrics, “Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department, says Wernher von Braun.”

Fade out: It’s left up to the reader to decide why Sue drove a force field through the entire Baxter Building like she did. My opinion? Driving a spike through their home is metaphor for driving a spike right through Reed’s heart.

Clobberin’ time: It was already a safe bet that Reed and Ben are no longer WWII vets in current continuity, but Ben musing on WWII-era (era) stories from his childhood confirms it.

Trivia time: This is the final appearance of Wildstreak, a former Olympic hopeful given a superhuman exoskeleton after a debilitating accident. In fact, her only other appearance between her debut and this issue was a single guest spot in Thunderstrike #11. Fingers crossed that Marvel can bring her back someday.

This issue pretty much spells out that a Negative Zone prison is what Reed’s been working on. It’s been mentioned off-hand in several other Marvel comics leading up to Civil War as well, and yet the main Civil War miniseries keeps acting like it’s some big mystery.  

Fantastic or frightful? One of the big problems with Civil War is that it’s meant to create this divisive issue between pro-reg and anti-reg, but it’s really hard to see things from the pro-reg side. Reed has a long and often unfortunate history of prioritizing his science over his wife and family. I’d thought that’d been resolved by now, but instead it comes to a head in this issue. But, Reed and Sue still aren’t technically broken up at this point, because Civil War isn’t done with them yet.

Next: We’ve got chemistry.

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