Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Things get wackier than usual in FF vol. 2 #10, when the comic’s own creators show up as characters.

There’s so many plotlines happening, it’s getting harder and harder to recap. The Fantastic Four went on a journey throughout time and space, leaving behind a replacement Fantastic Four – Ant-Man, Medusa, She-Hulk, and newcomer Darla Deering – to run the Future Foundation in their place. They disappeared, leaving the new team on their own. An older Johnny Storm, now known as John Storm, arrived from the future with a tale of an all-powerful Dr. Doom, called the Conquering Doom, who killed the Fantastic Four in the distant future. Plans are under way to rescue them. But then, present-day Dr. Doom has made a deal with Alex Power to spy on the new FF, holding Alex’s parents hostage. I think that covers it for now.

We begin with everyone around the dinner table at, as John Storm says he can sense Dr. Doom’s presence in Alex. A fight almost breaks out. In the bathroom, Alex contacts Dr. Doom, who tells him John Storm has to be killed (!), reminding Alex that Alex’s parents’ lives are in the balance. Cut to the Franklin Park Zoo, where the new team and some of the kids are having a PR meeting with three representatives of Marvel Comics, writer Matt Fraction, artist Mike Allred, and editor Tom Brevoort, the same ones making this issue. It’s meta! The heroes are taking the Marvel guys on a trip through the microverse in Ant-Man’s shrinking ship. Ant-Man assures everyone the trip will be safe, but then he seems unsure of it.

At the Baxter Building, Alex hangs out with a bunch of the other kids on the roof. He asks if any of them know anyone who’s killed someone. Ahura says he does. In the microverse, the ship is the size of an atom, with Ant-Man showing off other atoms. Brevoort is impressed, but he says the Marvel team is more interested in the team’s monthly capers. Ant-Man gets a message stating that a tiger has gone missing from the zoo. Artie and Leech, who’s with everyone on the ship, reveal they used “Pym dust” to shrink a tiger and sneak it on board. The tiger gets loose inside the ship, causing it to spin out of control.

The heroes and the Marvel guys venture outside the ship, looking for the tiger, who has run off. The find it, only to discover it has grown to giant size, or at least giant from their perspective. They fight the tiger while keeping the Marvel guys out of harm’s way. Ant-Man says this will be a fine ending for the comic, but Matt Fraction doesn’t buy it. He says there has to be some sort of unseen surprise at the end. Ant-Man responds, “We’re the FF. Something will come up.”

Ahura takes some of the Foundation kids to the floating city of Attilan. Specifically, it’s him, Alex, Bentley-23, Onome, and Tong the Moloid. They meet with a mystery man whose eyes are hidden behind a metal blindfold. He seems to know about each of them. Ahura reveals this is his uncle, Maximus the Mad. He’s in a cell, and Maximus engages the kids in a game of twenty questions in exchange for them letting him go free.

Maximus confounds the kids with his subject, as they whittle it down to not an animal, mineral, or vegetable, but a concept. Their twenty questions are up, and he gives the answer just as his cell opens. He says, “I am free.”

To be continued!

Fantastic fifth wheel: Throughout this issue, Ant-Man communicates with a place and/or organization called A.N.T.H.I.L.L.1. We get one glimpse of this, an entire team of people wearing black and white Ant-Man gear. The Marvel Wiki has no information on A.N.T.H.I.L.L.1., except to note that this is its first appearance. I’ll assume this is also the last appearance.

Similarly, Darla’s publicist Durante joins the heroes on their micro-adventure. The Marvel Wiki has no info on him except his name.

Medusa is unimpressed with the tiger’s size, saying she’s faced bigger beasts. I’m feeling a little tired this week, so I’ll let you comb through all of Marvel history to find out what giant beasts she’s fought in the past.

Foundational: Who has Alex Power met that’s killed somebody? The Power Pack kids befriended Wolverine on multiple occasions, and we know he’ll kill if he has to. And they certainly saw murder first-hand during the Mutant Massacre crossover and the Snark-Kymelian war. None of those suit his purposes in finding a solution to John Storm, however.

Trivia time: Fictional characters meeting their own creators is nothing new. The trick has been done since way back in Dante’s Inferno (1321), if not earlier. In Fantastic Four, the characters previously met Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Steve Englehard, and now Fraction, Allred, and Brevoort. There are probably others I’m not thinking of.

New York’s Central Park Zoo, a real location, has been the site for many Marvel tales over the years, too many to list here. Interestingly, the Scarlet Spider, a.k.a. Kaine, has had multiple adventures at the zoo.

Fantastic or frightful? Of course the Alex/Maximus storyline is the good stuff, moving the plot forward, while the microverse stuff is, as the comic admits, a caper. We’re now in the second half of Fraction’s two-series-at-once experiment. It’s been fun, but by now I’m sure readers are antsy to get to the bigger picture.

Next: It’s not Margaritaville.  

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.