Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. In between issues #11 and #12 of the rebooted FF, we went back to the original Fantastic Four title for the big 50th anniversary issue #600.

Gimmie a gimmick: Starting with this issue, this series becomes two series. Fantastic Four continues after this with a #601, and FF continues with its #12 issue.

We spend two pages setting the stage for all the various plot threads and characters to keep track of:

• The Inhumans on a rampage on board their floating city of Attilan.

• The High Evolutionary’s Forever City, where Ronan the Accuser and his new wife Crystal (!) have brought the Kree Supreme Intelligence back to life.

• Dr. Doom, Nathaniel Richards, and an evil alternate universe version of Reed arrive in Doom’s former stomping ground of Latveria.

• At the new Baxter Building, the young geniuses of the Future Foundation are hard at work on a new emergency teleporter.

• On “the other side of zero,” the villainous Anti-Priest is in contact with Annihilus.

• In the streets of New York, the FF, the Avengers, and assorted other heroes assemble as Kree warships appear in the sky overhead.

What’s interesting here is that the superheroes have no idea why the Kree are attacking. Sue plans to use her force fields to push the entire armada outward away from civilians. Then, fighting! The combined heroes battle the Kree through the city. Dr. Strange takes down one the Kree’s big dreadnought ships, but it crashes into the city instead of the water. The Anti-Priest, now in a NYC skyscraper, says this is not the destruction he wanted. Annihilus tells him to “access the gate,” and the Anti-Priest unleashes the Annihilation Wave (an army of monsters) into New York.

In Latveria, that group confronts Kristoff, who is ruling the country in his own Dr. Doom mask and armor. Nathaniel says Dr. Doom’s life depends on his return to Latveria. In Attilan, Medusa says the Inhumans should flee as they are outnumbered, but something in Black Bolt insists on staying. The Supreme Intelligence senses that Black Bolt, the “anomaly” it is seeking, is right above them in Attilan.

Atop the Empire State Building, Reed, Spider-Man, and Iron Man invent a device that projects Sue’s force fields through Iron Man’s armor (!) to create a force field around Manhattan. This keeps out the Kree ships, but not their ground forces already in the city. The monsters of the Annihilation Wave attack the Baxter Building, while a bunch of Kree robots attack Soho. Ben is there, hoping to get them away from Alicia’s apartment.

The Future Foundation kids activate the teleporter, sending several floors of the Baxter Building to the moon. Spider-Man swings over the building to check on the kids, fighting the monsters as they try to open the building’s Negative Zone portal. He fights the monsters, who tell him the children died (!). He doesn’t manage to stop them all, and the portal opens.

Turn the page and… it’s Johnny, back from the dead! He’s wearing some sort of alien armor, and he has Annihilus in chains (!) kneeling at his feet. He asks Spider-Man, “Pete, what the heck are you wearing?”

To be continued!

But this is a big anniversary issue, so there’s backup stories. The first one takes us to Johnny’s supposed death, where he sealed himself inside the Negative Zone to keep Annihilus’ forces from getting through to Earth. He uses his all-powerful nova flame to thwart the army and subdue Annihilus, only for more of Annihilus’ forces to show up. Annihilus seemingly kills Johnny. Cut to months later, and Annihilus still can’t open the portal. He’s contacted by Reed, who demands Johnny’s body be returned to him. He threatens to use the Ultimate Nullifier to wipe out Annihilus. Annihilus says he’s doing all this because he wants to die, and that he’s sick of always being resurrected.

We see Johnny hallucinating as the aliens rebuild his body with weird biotech. Johnny is locked up in a jail with members of the Universal Inhumans’ Light Brigade, who had been brought to the Negative Zone by the all-knowing teleporter Eldrac. (Are you getting all this?) They’re being forced into gladiator games in Annihilus’ arena, and a few days later it’s Johnny’s turn. Johnny tries to attack Annihilus instead, only for Annihilus to kill and have him come back via the biotech. Johnny then watches as Annihilus makes a deal with one of the evil alternate universe Reeds who have been running around, who will open the portal for his own needs.

Johnny convinces the Light Brigade to help him steal Annihilus’ cosmic control rod, the source of his power. Then we catch up to the present, as Annihilus prepares to unleash the Annihilation Wave while the Kree attack New York. There’s a big fight, with Johnny again using his nova flame, until he and the Light Brigade subdue Annihilus. Johnny affixes the cosmic control rod to his arm, hence his new alien armor.

Backup story number three is set in Attilan. Medusa and Black Bolt meet in some sort of telepathic space where they can converse normally. Medusa doesn’t like the idea of Black Bolt having four other wives, but Black Bolt says it was the universe’s doing and not his choice. He talks about how things have changed, and he asks her to love him for who he is now and not who he once was. Medusa then makes peace with the other wives and calls them sisters.

In the next backup, we cut to the moon, where Reed arrives in a spacesuit to meet Galactus, just standing there in a big crater. Galactus has given Reed a device called the Arc, that can summon him when needed. Galactus wants to save the Earth because, he says, there is a “Galactus seed” on the planet. This is followed by a bunch of talk about Asgard and its connection to Earth via the “world tree” which must not be severed. Galactus gives a death-and-resurrection speech similar to the ones in the Johnny/Annihilus story. He tells Reed that the Galactus seed must not emerge and to use the Arc if needed. The story ends with him asking Reed, “Have you even noticed what your son has been doing?”

The final backup follows up on Galactus’ question, flashing back to Franklin meeting a future version of himself, and reigniting his mutant powers, creating his own “baby universe.” He hides the universe in his closet (!) during all the recent events. Then he and Leech open the closet door and they fall into a void. Inside the baby universe is an alternate version of NYC, where Franklin and Leech don superhero costumes as Hyperstorm and Kid Incredible. A mysterious figure, who appears to the Franklin of the future, encourages Franklin to do more with his power, and truly make the universe into anything he wants. “If you can make everything, you can make everything better,” the man says.

Unstable molecule: The Reed/Galactus backup story is ambiguous, but it once again shows that Reed is the only Earthling that Galactus respects enough to have a casual conversation with.

Fade out: Sue using Iron Man’s armor to make her force fields more powerful is interesting. It raises questions of whether she can use this tech for more uses in the future.

Clobberin’ time: Ben succeeds in spotting Alicia among the crowd in New York. He tells her to run while he fights off the Kree.

Flame on: I’m sure a lot of readers asked if this issue means Johnny is immortal now, with a Wolverine-like healing factor. We’ll have to see how this shakes out in future issues.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Although he’s defeated, Spider-Man puts up a good fight against the Annihilation Wave inside the Baxter Building before going down.

Namor is on hand, saying he will protect the city “for love.” He addressed that to Sue of course. Sue isn’t having it, but Namor says if they’re all about to die than he has nothing to lose.

While it’s often been theorized that Medusa speaks on behalf of Black Bolt via some sort of latent telepathy, this issue makes that text by having them converse in some s

Nathaniel Richards can address Kristoff like he does because the two have a history. Remember they were both alternate members of the team during the Tom DeFalco years.

Crystal seemed all-in on Kree business now that she’s married to Ronan the Accuser. But in this issue, when the Supreme Intelligence wants extinction of all life on Earth to get at Black Bolt, Crystal responds with, “No!”

She-Hulk helps Ben out during the fight against the ground forces. Her nickname for the Red Hulk is “Big Red.” Storm, Black Panther, and Luke Cage are also on hand during the battle.

Four and a half: Franklin’s create-pocket-universes powers are officially back, and he has considerable control over them this time.

Our gal Val: Valeria calls the shots during the attack on the Baxter Building, giving Bentley-23 the order on when to activate the teleporter.

Foundational: Alex Power uses his gravity-based powers to keep Annihilus’ monsters at bay. He suggests knocking Leech unconscious to short out Leech’s power-dampening abilities. But doesn’t Leech’s powers only work on mutants? And hasn’t Leech learned to control his power by now.

Trivia time: If the Kree robots seen during the fight seem kind of retro, it’s because they’re old school Lee/Kirby creations! They are the Kree Sentries, who made their debut in our very own Fantastic Four #64. They’ve shown up a bunch of times since then, as antagonists in the Annihilation and Empyre crossovers.

Fantastic or frightful? My apologies if this synopsis is a little confusing. As all the story threads and characters from the last dozen issues are now all crisscrossing, it’s hard to keep track of everyone. Each character is given only a few panels to move their part of the story along. The exception is Johnny, as his story is a lot of fun, another variation on the Gladiator and/or Planet Hulk formula.

Next: Twice the F.

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