Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! As the super-long act 4 scene 4 continues, the farce is over and all the secrets have been revealed. Time for the confrontation.
Polixenes has removed his disguise, revealing his kingly appearance to everyone at the festival, and to show his disapproval of his son’s romance with farm girl Perdita (with no one knowing Perdita is the long-lost princess of Sicilia). He goes on quite a tirade, full of venomous insults that an actor can really go nuts with. He makes accusations of witchcraft, he says hanging is too short a punishment for Florizell, and he says Florizell is now out of succession.
Witchcraft, you say?
The big question is, where does this explosion of anger come from? Polixenes has up to this point been shown not be like his fellow king Leontes, who is the one full of suspicion and rage. But now we see Polixenes in a similar light, letting loose his anger over the romance (or perceived romance) that he does not approve of. It’s going to take a close re-reading of the play to see whether any of Polixenes’ scenes earlier in the play foreshadow this in any way.
I learned this week that “Polixenes” is also the name of this type of butterfly.
Polixenes compares Florizell to Deucalion, a figure from ancient Greek mythology. Let’s get into it. Deucalion’s story is similar to the Biblical tale of Noah. There’s not a great flood, but a great deluge, and Deucalion survives by sealing himself inside a chest. Versions of the story vary, but the gist is that Deucalion repopulated the Earth by tossing stones over his shoulder, which transformed into new humans in his wake. Polixenes brings this up to tell Florizell he will be just as alone and isolated as Deucalion once was. (There’s also a character named Deucalion from the Teen Wolf TV series, but I don’t see much of a connection between him and either Greek myths or The Winter’s Tale.)
The classic over-the-shoulder shot.
Polixenes leaves. It’s a lot of drama as Perdita wanted to be the one to tell the king, and she instead tells Florizell to get his own affairs in order. The shepherd has something of a breakdown, fearing that now he will be banished or even hanged for his role in this royal scandal. I suppose that if you’re playing The Winter’s Tale as a broad comedy, then the shepherd’s speech here could go huge and over-the-top for laughs, but I see this part of the scene as breaking the tone from all the singing and dancing earlier to now where things get real.
The power of belief.
Camillo tells Florizell not to go after Polixenes. Florizell then has a lengthy speech about his willingness to forego succession to become king someday in favor of his love of Perdita. Shakespearian romance (and romance in general) tends to favor the female characters, but this speech is some great insight into Florizell’s character. He’s no lovesick teen in over his head like Romeo was, but instead he’s someone who truly believes he’s making the right decision.
Alleged costume design for Camillo. Looks like something from Thor comics.
Florizell and Perdita do not exit, but “walk aside” according to the stage directions. This gives Camillo a chance to talk to the audience. He says Florizell is unshakable in his decision, but Camillo sees an opportunity in this. He says that after all this time, he can return to his homeland of Sicilia. He also wants to reunite with Leontes, whom he “thirsts” for. That term takes on a whole new meaning in 2024. So Florizell thinks he’s said it all, but Camillo’s not done with him yet.
Next: The convincing.
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Fantastic Friday! In issue #581, we’re time traveling back to college. No Triple Lindy, though.
To recap: Reed has recently formed the Future Foundation, a sort of combination school and think tank composed of genius kids and others. Some time earlier, Valeria was contacted by a time-traveling future version of Franklin, who warned her about an upcoming conflict between four cities. This is likely a reference to four seemingly unrelated hidden cities the FF recently discovered.
This issue begins with future Franklin on another time travel jaunt, seeing images of the FF and Dr. Doom, culminating in him telling young Valeria “All hope lies in doom.” He says the mission was a success, and we see an adult Valeria telling him he better be sure. Turn the page and we see they’re both working for Reed’s long-lost father Nathaniel, also a time traveler. He tells them that, success or failure, they’re committed to their path. Valeria travels through a portal, telling Nathaniel to let her worry about the past and focus instead on his own future. Nathaniel prepares for a mission of his own while Franklin uses his powers to create a pocket universe as a cosmic escape hatch. Nathaniel enters a portal and disappears.
Cut to “years ago,” when Reed is in college, taking an ethics class. He argues that actions in one’s best interest begins with the self, then with family and friends, then the community, and then all mankind. The teacher praises this answer, but young Victor Von Doom stands up and argues that the only right action is one that promotes survival, evolution, and ascendance. Later, Reed commiserates with young Ben about Doom, when the two of them walk into some cosmic energy, right into Nathaniel, just traveled there from the previous scene. Reed hugs him, proclaiming, “Dad!”
Reed is somehow not full of questions about how and why his father disappeared, and instead it’s all jovial as he introduces Ben to Nathaniel. Nathaniel tells a story about how, in the future, he fought a man with a powerful quantum machine inside him. He failed, and the resulting explosion unstuck Nathaniel through time, and pulled all other Nathaniels from all other alternate realities into one. That man became Immortus, who founded the Auditors, a time police force. A war broke out between all the Nathaniels and all the variants of Immortus. Immortus won, and insisted that all but one Nathaniel had to die in a big Hunger Games/Battle Royale type of death sport. Now there are only two Nathaniels left and they’re hunting each other throughout the timeline/multiverse.
Nathaniel says this visit is his last chance to say goodbye to Reed before the end, but Reed wants to save his father. He then does the unthinkable and goes to Victor for help. Victor has been developing weapons (!) including some big robots. Later, we see Ben outfitted with a high-tech mech suit. It enhances his physical strength, and he says, “I could get used to this.” Not to be outdone, Victor dons a suit of armor of his own, like the classic Dr. Doom armor. Nathaniel opens a portal and says, “Time to go.”
Cut to the present, where the new Baxter Building’s alarms go off, announcing a “timequake.” A portal opens in front of Sue, and adult Valeria steps out. She fills the room with some sort of glowing blue energy that she says is for privacy. There’s a brief fight, until Sue realizes who Valeria is.
Then we cut to the future, in the ruined city of Chronopolis. Nathaniel leads young Reed, Ben, and Victor through the ruins, with a giant fortress in the distance. They enter the fortress, and Nathaniel and Victor both sense Nathaniel’s enemy nearby. Turn the page to see the alternate Nathaniel floating in air above them, saying, “Let the great hunt come to a close.”
To be continued!
Unstable molecule: Again, it’s interesting that Reed is happy to see his father, but Reed doesn’t ask any questions about where Nathaniel has been or how he just teleported into Reed’s dorm room wearing a suit of future tech.
Fade out: I thought at first that Sue was hand-washing dishes when Valeria appears, but upon a closer look, we can see she’s simply making herself some tea.
Clobberin’ time: Back in college, young Reed wants to spend the weekend in the lab, but young Ben encourages him to come to a party and meet a girl. I wonder how this weekend would have happened without Nathaniel showing up.
Fantastic fifth wheel: Nathaniel Richards’ first appearance, the “Warlord” storyline from Fantastic Four #271-273, is one of my all-time favorite FF stories. So I’d gotten a little tired of Nathaniel’s following appearances never referencing it. Then this issue introduces the fortress at Chronopolis, which is the same design as the Warlord’s fortress from that original story. The Marvel Wiki states that Nathaniel’s time as the Warlord happened just after the great hunt depicted the past in these issues.
The alarm graphic on the FF’s computer screens is the face of H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot. Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.
Four and a half: Future Franklin has controlled his mutant power to create pocket universes, while we the readers have seen those powers start to reemerge in the present.
Our gal Val: We get a future/alternate timeline version of Valeria, but no reference to the first version of Valeria we met, who was Marvel Girl from an alt. future.
Trivia time: In true time travel fashion, some of the images future Franklin sees at the start of the issue haven’t happened yet, but they will in upcoming issues.
Fantastic or frightful? It’s yet another issue of setup, promising big things to come. I’m reminded of Chris Claremont’s years on X-Men, where storylines would be introduced and then paid off years later. Is writer Jonathan Hickman attempting a similar long game with Fantastic Four? We’ll see.
Next: It’s time to pay the price.
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Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. The super-long act 4, scene 4 continues, with equal parts romance and duplicity. The usual for Shakespeare.
After spending all this time with Autolycus, the shepherd’s son, and Mopsa, the scene now shifts back over to the shepherd and Polixenes, the king of Bohemia currently in disguise as a farmer. A servant (likely the same servant who’s been running around throughout this scene) describes some “men of hair” who want to come and dance, describing their dance as amazingly precise. These men are the “herdsmen” who come out dressed as satyrs, who perform a dance in front of everyone.
Satyr? I hardly know her.
There’s a lot to go over here. First, the servant also calls the men “saultiers” meaning jumpers or leapers. This is either a joke on the word “satyr,” or, as some believe, a mistake on Shakespeare’s part. But why satyrs? In myths, they are famously beast-men with goat legs, but more than that. They represent nature and wilderness, but they’re also chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous. So-called satyr plays were scandalous back in ancient Greece for their ribald humor. For The Winter’s Tale, they fit right in with the winter-to-spring metaphors that run through the play. In a straightforward comedy version of the play, this satyr dance could be a bunch of slapstick gags. But I’ve also been picturing a far-out epic fantasy version of the play throughout these blogs, so in that case the satyrs could be otherworldly creatures and this could be a big magical sequence.
Dance of the satyr.
Polixenes, still in his disguise, asks Florizell, his own son, about the romance between Florizell and Perdita. This is following a short aside where Polixenes says, “Tis time to part them.” He asks Florizell about showering Perdita with gifts, but Florizell says she’s above such trifles. He then professes his love directly to Perdita, who doesn’t speak in response. Shakespeare leaves it all up to the actresses’ interpretation of the scene.
She says it all with a look.
Polixenes asks Florizell to further profess. Florizell says that if he were to be crowned monarch (which he will be someday), it wouldn’t mean as much without Perdita. She finally pipes up, only to say “I cannot speak so well.” The shepherd promises to combine his own humble fortune with whichever family she marries into. Polixenes asks Florizell what his father thinks of the romance, and Florizell says his father doesn’t know and will never know about it. Uh-oh.
Daddy doesn’t approve.
Polixenes asks Florizell if this father of his is infirm or bedridden, and Florizell says no. Polixenes then makes his case about the importance of a father being present at his son’s wedding. Florizell says he has his own reasons. Polixenes is insistent, telling Florizell over and over to tell his father the truth, and Florizell keeps refusing. Finally, the whole scene shifts as Polixenes removes his disguise and says, “Mark your divorce, young sir, whom son I dare not call.”
Not suspicious at all.
Whoa, drama! But how is this to be staged? Based on my research, this disguise is usually a fake beard and/or a wig. In an epic fantasy retelling, this could be all sorts of magical transformations. Throughout these blogs, I’ve been imagining a wild version where the Sicilians are demonic types and the Bohemians are angelic types. In this version that exists only in my head, here’s where Polixenes could bust out the big angel wings from his back. (I don’t know where I’m going with this.)
Let’s everybody get angelic.
Next: The hammer falls.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Annual #32 offers killer cyborgs, shrinking into a microscopic world, and… fears of parenthood?
The great Bryan Hitch is back on pencils, with Andrew Currie on inks. But the really big deal is that it’s written by Joe Ahearne, creator of the cult-fave 1998 TV series Ultraviolet, and director of several episodes of Doctor Who.
We begin with a woman named Amy Brys walking in on the Fantastic Four conducting an anti-gravity mine training, where they’re floating around in a room filled with similarly floating mines. Johnny had given her an all-access pass to the new Baxter Building, and now she’s here wondering where he’s gone because he hasn’t answered any of her phone calls. Johnny shows up and says he didn’t call because he really likes her, and it’s dangerous to be in a committed relationship with a superhero. (What?)
An alarm goes off, and Reed says he’s picked up an energy pattern that’s a variation of the cosmic rays that gave the FF their powers. Sue says this is a concern, because it’s this same variant from the Negative Zone that almost killed her when she was pregnant. Johnny, just having returned from the Negative Zone, puts two and two together and believes he’s gotten Amy pregnant.
Later, Amy and Johnny try to talk things out on the sidewalk outside, where she insists she doesn’t need his help, when they’re attacked by alien creatures. The FF join the fight, deducing that these are cyborgs based on microscopic organisms. After fighting the creatures off, everyone returns to HQ, where Johnny says he didn’t even kiss Amy, let alone get her pregnant. (Why did he wait until now to say this?) Reed has Amy in his lab, saying the cyborgs were likely after her baby, because it might be born with vast powers.
Reed is going to use shrinking tech to make Sue microscopic and enter Amy’s body (ew) to conduct a paternity test. He tasks Johnny and Ben to go to the nightclub where Johnny met Amy to conduct a temporal scan and see what really happened that night. Using the scanner, they see a mystery woman following Johnny, followed by the microscopic versions of the cyborgs entering Johnny’s body (ew) while at the club. Similarly, Sue is attacked by more cyborgs while microscopic. She defeats them and she and Reed remove them from Amy’s body (so much ew).
The microscopic cyborgs (do these things have a name?) used Johnny’s DNA to impregnate Amy with a superhuman child. Now Sue and Ben shrink down microscopic to enter Johnny’s brain. In the lab, Reed says the cyborgs look familiar, and Johnny insists that Psycho Man is behind all this, with his history of both shrinking and cyborg/robot/android tech. (Remember that the original Psycho Man was a teeny-tiny guy in a huge robot suit.) Inside Johnny’s brain, Ben and Reed find the real culprit: Psycho Woman!
Psycho Woman uses a new version of Psycho Man’s original emotion modifier to overwhelm Sue’s mind, all while she makes a big speech about feeling trapped by parenthood. Reed hands Amy a syringe full of green liquid and tells her to prepare to make an injection. He then shrinks down to join the fight inside Johnny’s brain. All the cyborgs in the lab come back to life, so Johnny fights them. But he can’t flame on for fear of harming the others inside him.
It’s all Fantastic Voyage and/or Innerspace as Psycho Woman chases and fights Reed, Ben and Sue up and down Johnny’s veins. She overwhelms Ben with feelings of disgust, and she shuts down Sue by making her emotionless. With Johnny’s help, they contact Franklin and Valeria to restore Sue’s emotions. Psycho Woman lets out a blast so powerful it blasts Johnny through a window outside the building. He won’t flame on for fear of harming his teammates, so Reed tells Amy to jump after him. She catches up to him in midair, Point Break style. He flames on and flies her to away to save her life. The others survived thanks to Sue’s force fields. Johnny destroys the rest of the cyborgs along the way. Everyone reunites back in Reed’s lab, where Ben reports that Psycho Woman is “toast.”
Later, Reed fires up his personal time machine, saying Johnny can go back to that evening at the nightclub to prevent Psycho Woman’s plot from happening. Johnny doesn’t want to mess with the timeline, even though Reed says this will be a minor change only. Fearing that supervillains all over the world will want her super-powered baby, Amy swipes the time machine’s remote control and jumps into the portal, disappearing. With no knowledge of where or when she went, Johnny wonders if the child survived, and could be out there, anywhere, all grown up.
Unstable molecule: Is Reed’s time machine based on Dr. Doom’s original one? Or is it still the original one? It looks entirely different, but one still enters it by standing on a specific spot on the floor.
Fade out: At one point, Sue sends a message to Johnny by turning a spot on his chest invisible. Reed says that at this size, it’s as if Sue is turning the sun invisible. Can we assume that’s an exaggeration?
Clobberin’ time: Ben overcomes his feelings of disgust, simply because these are feelings he’s used to.
Flame on: Johnny appears overwhelmed by the thought of becoming a father, but Reed assures Amy he’ll be fine. Reed says Johnny is used to dealing with the unexpected.
Fantastic fifth wheel: There’s no mention of how Ant-Man is a former FF member, but we know he introduced a lot of shrinking tech to Reed and the others during that time. Before Ant-Man the FF could only shrink when inside their Reducto-craft. I can only conclude that his influence helped all the shrinking in this issue.
Four and a half/Our gal Val: All it takes to restore Sue’s emotions are the two kids saying, “Mom, are you there?”
Foundational: The Marvel Wiki insists this comic takes place between issues #580 and #581, yet there’s no mention of the newly-formed Future Foundation. I guess all the kids are off working on their special project to cure Ben.
Trivia time: This is the only appearance of Psycho Woman, so we’ll likely never know where she came from or what her relationship with Psycho Man may or may not be. The Marvel Wiki doesn’t even have an entry for her.
It’s also the only appearance of Amy Brys, although the wiki adds the detail of her baby surviving, having been kept safe from all the FF’s enemies.
Fantastic or frightful? Leave it to a guy who worked on Doctor Who to want Fantastic Four to get as weird as possible. This is a lot to take in, with the shrinking stuff, the emotion stuff, and the fears-of-parenting stuff. I don’t know if it all holds together, though. Like, why isn’t Psycho Woman’s emotion manipulation tied into the parenting stuff more? This would be better served as a seven-issue arc rather than an annual, but the necessities of comics publishing might have prevented that.
Next: Spill the tea.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. But it’s been a hectic week, so instead let’s get to know one of our new Future Foundation members, Dragon Man!
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! As Act 4, scene 4 continues, it’s more talk of music and songs, but it there something more to it?
Picking up from where we left off, there’s more tomfoolery between the shepherd’s son (or the clown, as he’s called in some editions) and Autolycus. This includes a lot of talk about the son buying ballads in print from Autolycus. My sources are a little sketchy on this, but I think the idea is that travelling musicians back in Shakespeare’s day used to sell written song lyrics, which could be applied to commonly known tunes, so anyone would be able to sing them. Mopsa, the son’s doting love interest, says she loves printed ballads “alife” (meaning “dearly”). She adds that because the lyrics are printed on paper, she believes they must be true. Interesting sentiment from Shakespeare the writer.
Rock out!
Autolycus describes the story of the ballad with some perplexing word soup. It’s about the wife of a “usurer,” which the internet tells me is a money lender who profits from huge interest rates from his clients. Shakespeare uses this phrase a lot to connote trickster and rogue types. A real knave, as it were. He says the woman was “brought to bed” with “twenty bags” at once. My sources are ambiguous about this, but it seems to mean that she was born already in huge debt. Then Autolycus makes her monstrous, saying she eats snakes and toads. Autolycus swears the story is true, saying he got it from Mistress Taleporter, and the audience laughs because “taleporter” is another word for “gossip.”
The original Mistress Taleporter.
These jokes fly over Mopsa and the son’s heads, as they consider buying the ballad but want to see more first. He tells her an even more incredulous story, taking place on “the fourscore of April,” which is like saying “April 80th.” It’ about a fish that magically appeared on shore, “forty thousand fathom above water,” and sang a song “against the hard hearts of maids.” Autolycus says some believe that this was a woman transformed into a fish as punishment because she would not “exchange flesh” (wa-HEY!) with her lover.
The coldest fish.
What’s interesting here is that Autolycus calls her a “cold fish.” And now we get to play a game of Did Shakespeare Invent This? Calling someone a cold fish is like saying someone acts distant and unresponsive, especially in a romantic and/or flirtatious setting. A lot of the nerdy grammar sites do indeed attribute the phrase cold fish as originating in The Winter’s Tale. Others, however, argue that the saying is older than that, referring to fish being sold at markets, still alive but sad and limp when laid out on ice. The 2010 movie Cold Fish, from famed weirdo director Sion Sono, is about two rival tropical fish store owners who are also both serial killers. Not sure how this might parallel The Winter’s Tale.
What if they were the shepherdesses?
Autolycus says five judges have sworn that the fish story is true, and that it has more witnesses than his case can carry. Based on whatever prop they’ve given the actor for a case, that number is likely zero. Mopsa asks that ballad to be set aside as well, and she asks for a merrier story. Autolycus offers a ballad than can be sung to the tune of “Two Maids Wooing a Man.” I found a bunch of classical music sites with songs claiming to be this, but I can’t speak to their authenticity.
Just imagine The Winter’s Tale, but set inside a maid cafe.
Autolycus sings the song’s male part, while Mopsa and fellow shepherdess Dorcas play the two women. The lyrics are simple, as the man says he’s leaving and the two women want to know where he’s going. The shepherd’s son interrupts, saying that his father is approaching with serious business. He promises to the buy the songs and finish singing them later. Suggestively, he leaves not just with Mopsa, but all the shepherdesses.
Don’t forget that these characters are… Bohemian.
Okay, this is all some fun silliness, but why is it in the play? Could this be calling back to the conflict between Leontes, Hermoine, and Polixenes? Maybe Hermoine, daughter of a king forced into an arranged marriage, is the usurer’s wife burdened with debt. Maybe she’s the cold fish, at least from Leontes’ perspective. Are Leontes and Polixenes the two “wooing maids” wondering where Hermoine has gone? Or… maybe I’m just reaching.
Everybody do the ballad!
Next: Creature feature.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Now that we’ve met the Future Foundation, issue #580 gives us our first look at what they’re up to.
To recap, Reed and the FF have assembled, either by design or by accident, a group of brilliant young people to live at the new Baxter Building. They are now a combined school and think tank (!) called the Future Foundation. As this issue begins, Reed is meeting with some of the kids who have presented their first project as an attempt to solve a scientific conundrum Reed has struggled with for years. Franklin, not technically a member of the Foundation like his sister is, keeps interrupting Reed. The Impossible Man is not only back on Earth, but he’s about to introduce his new toy line (!) at a public event that afternoon. Reed promised Franklin they would go together, but now Reed is too busy with the Foundation.
Instead, Johnny takes Franklin to the toy show, with Leech tagging along. There’s all sorts of Marvel merchandise on sale (art imitating life?). Johnny comes across supervillain Arcade and is ready for a fight, but Impossible Man appears and says the two of them are working together. Arcade has turned over a new leaf, going into legitimate business with toys, collectibles, and video games. He promises that he’s given up on his elaborate death traps, but Johnny doesn’t buy it.
Then there’s a big presentation, where Arcade and Impossible Man introduce the toys, with Impy saying that a little bit of his “impossibleness” is infused in each one. Impossible Man cuts the ribbon, letting a crowd of kids at the toys. Then we see Arcade going back on his promise when he whispered “Okay, maybe a tiny little death trap.” All the toys come to life and attack the kids, punching out Leech. Impossible Man tries to fight back, but he’s overwhelmed by his own toys.
Energy swirls around Franklin’s head, and a dinosaur display then also comes to life, controlled by Franklin. It snatches up Arcade in its teeth, and Franklin tells Johnny to burn all the toys. He does, and then there’s some jokey business about Impossible Man crying that he’s ruined, only for it to be an act. He says he’ll keep an eye on Arcade until the police arrive.
There’s another two pages of revisiting Nu-Earth, where we see what billionaire Ted Castle and the other Nu-Earth characters are doing 500 and then 600 years in the future. Back at the Baxter Building, the Future Foundation kids have invited Ben to join them. Turns out he is the scientific conundrum they’re working on, and they say they can cure him and make him human again. He doesn’t buy it, after all the times Reed has tried and failed, but then Reed admits that the kids have outsmarted him.
The kids explain that Ben can’t ever be fully cured, but his powers can be switched off for a time, about one week per year. Alex Power is the one who hands Ben a vial of glowing green liquid, saying to Ben, “You get to be human again.”
To be continued!
Unstable molecule: Reed says he doesn’t know if he should be proud or insulted (!) that the kids chose a more personal subject for their project rather than something that could help all mankind. Strange choice of words, there.
Clobberin’ time: Rather than a cure, Ben suggests the kids make him super-boots, a robot assistant, or a personal cooler.
Flame on: Franklin and Leech initially say their favorite superheroes are Spider-Man and Iron Man, but by the end of the issue, they admit that Johnny is now their favorite.
Fantastic fifth wheel: The issue remembers that Impossible Man was once a member of the FF, during the short-lived “Fantastic Seven” of the ‘70s. He greets Johnny with a hug when they’re reunited.
Four and a half: We get another look at Franklin’s mutant powers reemerging, but we don’t know what form they’ll take this time.
Our gal Val: Valeria seems to gloat when she gets to work on the project with Reed instead of Reed spending the day with Franklin. She’s much more empathetic with Ben, apologizing that he can’t be human for longer.
Foundational: Reed assumes that Dragon Man came up with the idea to cure Ben, but Mik, one of the Moloids, takes credit. Bently-23 gets his first-ever line of dialogue when he suggests they test the cure on a clone of Ben. This is of note because Bently himself is a clone.
Trivia time: Once again, Arcade is a villain-of-the-week type of character, so much so that this issue isn’t referenced at all on his Marvel Wiki entry. It was shortly after this that he upped his game in an attempt at making the supervillain big time as the main antagonist in Avengers Arena.
Fantastic or frightful? A comedic and kid-friendly issue, making me wonder if that’s what the Future Foundation era (era) will be like. My memory is that this was a fun and exciting time for the Fantastic Four, but my concern now is that this new direction for the series will be too “kiddie.” We’ll see.
Next: A hot dad!
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Speaking of starts, this is a brand-new one for Fantastic Four and for Marvel in general as the Heroic Age begins. You might say this time in comics is… foundational.
What’s all this, then?The Heroic Age was a crossover that’s not a crossover, but more of a soft reboot for Marvel. Fans had spoken up loud enough against all the violence and darkness of Civil War and its follow-ups like Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. Plus, the Marvel movies were in full swing now, so Heroic Age gave us a new Avengers series from heavy-hitters Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr., intended to get movie fans into comic bookstores. It’s also a new direction for Fantastic Four, albeit one that the creators had been building up to for a while.
Recap: After some foreshadowing about four cities in conflict, we eventually encountered them – the High Evolutionary’s underground kingdom, a lost tribe of Atlantis living in isolation in Antarctica, an offshoot of the Inhumans living on the moon, and the former Negative Zone prison now ruled by Annihilus and his insectoid army. We’ve also met a bunch of new characters, children who’ve come to stay at the new Baxter Building – mutants Artie and Leech, three intelligent Moloids, and a young clone of supervillain the Wizard.
We begin with Reed speaking at the Singularity Conference. He said when this annual conference started ten years earlier, it was just a few scientists with a plan to solve not just today’s problems, but the future’s. It has now grown into a huge event with its own campus in Colorado. Rather than praise the scientists, though, Reed criticizes them for growing too old and stale, and not thinking big enough. Rather than debate population control, Reed urges them to look to the stars. He announces his resignation as a member, saying there are more discoveries to be made.
At the Baxter Building, Alex Power, formerly of Power Pack and now somewhere around 18-ish (let’s not get into how comic book characters age), is arriving with all his bags packed. He says he’s seen “the roster” and he fears he’ll be the dumbest person there. Reed says Alex brings experience and perspective, which will be invaluable. In Old Atlantic deep beneath the Arctic, Sue acts in her role as ambassador, as the Old Atlantean king says his people are now free to explore the entire Earth’s oceans at will for the first time. He brings out two children and says, strangely, “You will have what you asked for.”
Then it’s back to HQ, where we catch up with the Moloids. Turg, who has been reduced to a head in a jar, is their voice of reason. Korr and Tong have taught themselves to read English, while Mik is busy calculating a confluence that links the four cities. Oh boy, it’s going to be tough keeping these Moloids’ names straight.
Then we cut back to Nu-World, which was originally a perfect recreation of Earth, only for all kinds of dystopian sci-fi stuff to happen there. Case in point, the next few pages take us further and further into Nu-World’s future, following its founder, Ted Castle, and the superheroes of that world and all the changes they go through over 300 years. Your guess is as good as mine by this point.
Back at HQ, there’s some comedy bits with Franklin, Ben, and Johnny, while Valeria uses her genius to fix up Dragon Man. She says she can make him smarter. (Dragon Man, who is not a dragon but an advanced robot, has been docile and friendly for some time now.) Franklin is learning martial arts, and he spars with Artie and Leech. Valeria loses control of Dragon Man, but she manages to fix him with the help of Artie’s holo-projecting powers.
Then we cut to P.A.V.L.O.V., location alone, which is described as a “metahuman psychiatric facility.” Reed is there to check in on the Wizard, who is in a rabid state, ranting about creating clones of himself as a divine calling. Reed gives the Wizard his old helmet back, assuring the doctors that it is now harmless. This makes the Wizard a little more coherent. Reed tells him that the Wizard’s young clone, Bently, has come to live with the FF. Coldy, Reed tells the Wizard that Bently will grow up to become something better than the Wizard.
At the Baxter Building, Reed has set up a classroom. He says to his students that there will be only one class in this school, and it’s pass or fail. He says, “Welcome to the Future Foundation,” and “Together, there is nothing we can’t do.” And with that, we see our new team, the Future Foundation, assembled for the first time.
To be continued!
Unstable molecule: Not only has the Singularity Conference never been mentioned before this, but it seems it never will again. The Marvel Wiki has no entry for it. This is also the only appearance of the P.A.V.L.O.V. psychiatric facility, perhaps wisely.
Fade out: We don’t see what Sue said to the Atlantean king to request that the two undersea kids join the Future Foundation, but the king has no problem handing them over.
Clobberin’ time: Ben and Johnny give Franklin pointers on how to come up with an action hero catch phrase. Franklin decides on, “Time to die, buttheads!”
Flame on: While Franklin practices his martial arts, Johnny dresses for it, in a replica of the yellow suit with black stripe, famous for Bruce Lee in Game of Death and/or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
Fantastic fifth wheel: She-Hulk makes an appearance at the conference at the beginning, having lectured on science and law. Reed praises her efforts before belittling the rest of the group.
Four and a half: Curiously, Franklin is not in the Future Foundation classroom at the end. I had assumed he’d be a member. He’ll certainly interact with the Foundation a lot.
Our gal Val: Valeria dons her own “4” uniform for the first day of class.
Foundational: For the record, here are the starting Future Foundation members:
– Valeria Richards of the Fantastic Four.
– Alex Power, formerly of Power Pack.
– Artie and Leech, regulars from various X-Men series.
– Four highly intelligent Moloids – Tong, Turg, Korr, and Mik.
– Two children from the lost Old Atlantis kingdom – Vil and Wu (not named in this issue).
– Bently Twenty-Three, child clone of the Wizard.
– Dragon Man, now with increased genius.
Trivia time: Is there any Marvel character with more hard-to-follow continuity than Dragon Man? Despite occasional stories about him become docile and childlike, he’s mostly used as a henchman for whatever supervillain acquires him. Prior to his recent appearances in Fantastic Four, he was seen in the Negative Zone prison during Civil War, but somehow also attended Stilt Man’s funeral during Civil War. The Marvel Wiki says he was “relinquished” to the Fantastic Four’s care following the collapse of the Negative Zone prison, which is where we catch up with him now.
Who are Artie and Leech, you ask? Leech (no other known name) was born a green-skinned mutant, whose mutation is the power to render other mutants powerless. He grew up among the underground Morlocks in NYC’s sewers. After the Mutant Massacre crossover, he went to live with X-Factor and became a regular in the X-books ever since. Then there’s Artie Matticks. A mutant whose scientist father experimented on him, Artie is mute but can communicate by projecting holograms. After his father died in a mutant battle, Artie went to live with X-Factor. It’s there that he and Leech eventually became inseparable pals. Note that Artie lost his powers during the House of M crossover, but now wears a high-tech helmet that lets him project holograms as he did before.
Fantastic or frightful? There’s not really a story in this issue, just a lot of place setting as we establish the new status quo. It’s a lot of juggling as the team grows from four members to around eighteen. Writing a comic series with that many regulars can be tricky, but the likes of X-Men and Legion of Super-Heroes have done it for decades. Now it’s the Future Foundation’s turn.
Next: Where’s Buzz and Woody when we need them?
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Reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! Time for some comedy (naughty comedy!) as more characters join the already-stuffed act 4 scene 4.
The attention shifts to the shepherd’s son (or the clown, as he’s called in the Pelican and Oxford editions) and a servant. The servant describes a peddler with a tabor (a small drum) at the door who is there to perform ballads. Even though there’s already been plenty of music and dancing in this scene, the shepherd’s son wants to invite the peddler in.
I said tabor, not Tambor.
The servant goes into a very R-rated description of the peddler’s songs, which contain a certain word that you’d think was more modern. The footnotes confirm that this word (you’ll know it when you see it) means the same thing in Shakespeare’s time that it did today. Upon hearing all this filthiness, Polixenes interrupts to joke, “This is a brave fellow.” The servant then offers a long list of items the peddler sells, bragging him up as something amazing. The shepherd’s son says to invite the peddler in, with Perdita chiming in to tell the peddler not to use “scurrilous words” in his songs.
So scurrilous!
Okay, how to portray all this? An unnamed servant is suddenly a main character. It’d be easy enough to have this character travel alongside the other Bohemians throughout the play. But then, everyone in the scene, from the king to the young lovers, steps aside and pays attention to the servant’s announcement. Therefore, the servant must go big and broad in this moment, to command the attention of the entire group. I’m picture some sort of head-of-the-house butler type, who makes fancy announcements upon entering a room. Or, if this is a far-out epic fantasy version I’ve been imagining, the servant could be some sort of crazy creature, to come in and get the audience’s attention quick.
Or a robot butler, maybe.
The peddler enters, and of course it’s Autolycus (the king of thieves!), here to enact his sneaky plot from act 4 scene 3. The stage directions note that he’s wearing a false beard. Most productions will make this beard very obviously fake, for a big laugh. He performs a song that lists all the items he’s selling as a peddler, along with the uses for each item. The list is jokey and broad enough that an actor could probably go ahead and say the lyrics rather than sing them outright, if needed.
Would you trust that beard?
The shepherd’s son announces that he is in love with Mopsa, one of the shepherdesses who have been dancing about during this scene. She’s only had one line before this, but suddenly now she’s a main character. If the dancing earlier in this scene is to be a big production number, it’d be easy enough to establish Mopsa as an important character then, by having her dance with the shepherd’s son.
Victorian-era (era) depiction of Mopsa.
Time for more naughty jokes as the shepherd’s son says he wasn’t going to buy anything from Autolycus, but his love for Mopsa has inspired him to buy some ribbons and gloves for her. He describes this as his “bondage.” What is this, Fifty Shades of Mopsa? Their flirtation banter contains even more speaking in double entendre, as he has a joke about the women being demure in hiding their faces, but their dresses having other openings (wa-HEY!). He then reminds her (and us) that he was recently “cozened” of all his money. None of my Shakespeare books have a footnote for “cozen” but the dictionary comes through by saying it means losing money through trickery or deceit. This is a reference to Autolycus ripping him off in their earlier scene. Autolycus plays along, saying they must be wary of cozeners about, with the audience knowing he’s talking about himself.
Shakespearian? Maybe. Comedy? Not so much.
Next: The cost of a ballad.
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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We’re going all the way back to the beginning with Mythos: Fantastic Four.
What’s Mythos? This was a series of one-shots allegedly created to bridge the gap between Marvel Comics and their movie adaptations. They were meant to appeal to movie fans looking for a jumping on point for the comics. Whether this was successful is open to discussion. Besides Fantastic Four, the others in the series were X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk, Ghost Rider, and Captain America. The whole thing was written by Paul Jenkins and had fully painted art by Paolo Rivera.
We begin in the middle of some sort of government hearing, where a bunch of suit-wearing politicians are questioning the Fantastic Four, to determine if “what happened” could be a threat to national security. Reed says it all started at breakfast, and then we cut to a flashback of him, Sue and a human Ben aboard a space station orbiting Earth. This not only confirms we are in retelling-the-origin territory, but the station setting also evokes the 2005 movie.
The four are astronauts, and it seems they’ve been living aboard the station for a while, given their playful sitcom-style bickering. Johnny is outside on a spacewalk for some adrenaline rush thrills. Ben dons a spacesuit to fly after Johnny and bring him back. While they’re doing that, Reed’s instruments pick up an unusual solar event. The station is struck with a huge energy wave. There’s an interesting bit where Johnny and Ben hear the “tac-tac-tac” sound effect inside their helmets.
Back in the present, one of the politicians asks Ben if the station’s communications could have predicted the solar event. Ben, whose monstrous rocky hide is partially hidden under a hat and trench coat, does not say anything in response. In the flashback, there’s a lot of action, as the station is wrecked by the solar event. Sue tries to hide, while Reed struggles to reach her. Ben was angry and didn’t want to die, and Johnny could only think of how he felt like he was burning up.
The station’s escape shuttle flies back to Earth and lands at an airport, all while on autopilot. Emergency crews open the shuttle. They believe Ben is severely burned, and he and the other three are helped off the ship. The crews then find a radiation leak, as the ship’s reactor is damaged. In the present, the politicians doubt that the damaged shuttle could have flown itself home while the four were unconscious inside. Reed and Sue argue that this was an anomalous event and that there’s way to know what really happened up there.
Cut to a hospital, where Sue and Reed observe with fear as Ben is in a coma while doctors run Johnny through a series of tests. Ben wakes up and freaks out upon seeing that he has become a monster now. There’s a lot of action as he trashes the hospital while the others try to calm him down. This activates Reed’s and Sue’s powers in response. They get Ben to calm down, only for Johnny to burst through the door, fully flamed on.
In the present, the politicians say Ben is dangerous because of the damage done to the hospital. He says it’s because he was scared, and that anyone would have acted the same way. Reed says that no matter what these powers are or where they came from, the four of them will use them only for the right reasons. As the four of them leave the hearing, Sue asks Reed what will become of them. We get an image of the FF with a lot of their villains and supporting characters in the background, and Reed says, “Even I can’t predict the future.”
Reed announces that he’s purchased the Baxter Building in New York, and he wants the other three to join him there, saying their adventure is only beginning – and it’s going to be bigger than space itself. We get the classic image of the four of them joining hands. As they head off toward their new life, there’s a joke about Johnny wanting to hit a local karaoke bar on the way.
Unstable molecule: This issue has Reed speaking in a lot of math/science gibberish about calculus and Euclidean probabilities.
Fade out: Sue corrects the politicians that she and Johnny are siblings, and not married. What is this, Star Wars?
Clobberin’ time: Ben comments to the politicians that they should not accuse him of being like a monster until after he actually acts like one.
Flame on: Johnny complains about feeling cold, even after flaming on in the hospital.
Trivia time: The space station is named the Pegasus. My guess is this is a reference to the mad scientists of Marvel’s Project Pegasus.
The FF does not get their powers from cosmic rays, but from a solar event producing a combination of alpha and theta waves. Does this officially rewrite Marvel continuity? No, because the Marvel Wiki confirms that the Mythos series takes place in yet another alternate timeline.
Fantastic or frightful? I don’t know how this would go for someone who has never read Fantastic Four comics before. We get the explanation of how they got their powers, but we don’t see them in action on their adventures. That part is only suggested. The best part is Paolo Rivera’s excellent artwork. The space stuff looks terrific, but he’s also great with faces and body language in the dialogue scenes.
Next: A firm foundation.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
