Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Writer Jonathan Hickman starts tying story threads together (or does he?) in issue #583.

Gimmie a gimmick: This issue’s cover has a big “Three” logo at the top with a “Countdown to casualty” counting down from four to one. This issue gets the four.

We begin in “the neutral zone,” where the High Evolutionary’s lost city had risen from underground to the surface, and the FF are in battle against its primitive inhabitants. This only lasts for one page, though, as we cut to the new Baxter Building, where young Valeria is sneaking into her father’s lab. She finds the Bridge, Reed’s doorway into the multiverse he created in hopes of solving every problem in the world that needed to be solved. She watches a holographic recording of Reed telling her (and us) all about the Bridge. This includes the Council or Reeds, made up of Reeds from other universes, who wanted him to join them at the cost of his own family. He says he promised Sue he would not rebuild the Bridge, but now Valeria sees he has.

Cut to Latveria, where Dr. Doom is in bad shape. He’s recently lost part of his genius after an encounter with Intelligencia in a recent Incredible Hulk issue, but he’s not done yet. He announces to his servant Boris that he will temporarily abdicate his throne until he can reclaim what he lost. And he wants to abdicate to Kristoff, the child genius who believed he was Dr. Doom for many years. At that moment, Valeria teleports into Doom’s throne room and says, “What’s up?” Doom surmises that Valeria’s parents don’t know she’s there. She tells him that her father built a “very bad machine” and that she found it. Then she says, “What would Uncle Doom do?”

Then, in an entirely wordless sequence, we get a flashback to Valeria entering the Bridge and catching up to the Council or Reeds. Just like we saw them last time, they’re in battle against the Mad Celestials. Four of the Reeds rescued Valeria and brought her back to Earth, checking out a map of the planet while they were there.

Valeria tells Dr. Doom that her father made the wrong choice, choosing his “personal happiness” over the good of the world. Doom asks why she’s telling him this, and she says, “All hope lies in Doom.” (Remember that this was the message the adult Franklin from the future gave Valeria back in issue #574.)

At the High Evolutionary’s city, the fight continues. Ben is exposed to radiation which causes him to evolve, growing a huge cranium (!). The evolutionary engine at the center of the city is about to reach critical mass. Sue traps it inside a force field and has Johnny unleash his all-powerful nova flame inside the field to destroy the engine. With the fight over, Reed says he will have a talk with the city’s ruling council on how to be better neighbors with the surface world.

The FF return home and are greeted by their kids, and a few of the kids from the newly formed Future Foundation. Reed asks Valeria if anything interesting happened while they were gone. Then we flashback to the rest of the meeting between Doom and Valeria. She says she can tell he’s recently suffered some sort of brain damage, and he admits he has. She offers to turn him back to normal if he helps Reed. He agrees to the deal. Back in the present, Valeria answers Reed’s question with, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

The issue ends in deep space, where the Silver Surfer has been drawn by instinct to a distant world. He finds the corpse of Galactus from the future, and he says “Unacceptable.” (Recall that this Galactus corpse was used by the New Defenders when they came to the present, starting in issue #559.)

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: This issue states that Reed rejected the Council of Reeds for his “personal happiness,” but I read it at the time more that he left them out of love for his family. Can they be considered the same thing, or is this something that will be explored more in the future?

Fade out: Sue struggles to maintain her force field against the evolutionary engine, even though we’ve seen her create city-sized force fields before. I guess this is because of all the radiation the engine gives off.

Clobberin’ time: Ben’s evolution will be a thing (heh) in upcoming issues.

Flame on: Johnny shows off his brains as he gets in on the science-talk by deducing that the evolutionary engine is about to blow.

Fantastic fifth wheel: We get a partial answer as where Kristoff has been since last seen at the end of the Onslaught crossover. We can surmise Dr. Doom found the kid after he returned from the Heroes Reborn universe, and sent him into exile until such time that he could be useful.

Our gal Val: For many Marvel readers, Valeria’s weird “relationship” with Dr. Doom is what defines her character. It really began when Doom helped Valeria be born, but their first real meaningful interaction is here.  

Trivia time: What happened in Incredible Hulk #606? Doom was attacked by the Cosmic Hulk, which is yet another Hulk robot lookalike. He tried to siphon the robot’s cosmic power, except that the Leader snuck a “poison pill” into the robot, dropping Doom’s intelligence from super-genius down to ordinary.  

Fantastic or frightful? The Dr. Doom/Valeria scenes are well written, and the High Evolutionary stuff continues the ongoing storyline about the four hidden cities the FF recently discovered, so that’s all good. I struggled my way through the last few Jonathan Hickman issues, so hopefully this is a turn back in the right direction.

Next: Human again, and mutant again.

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