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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Writer Mark Millar continues to put his mark on the series in #568, as one mean villain keeps getting meaner.

Dr. Doom’s long-lost mentor the Marquis of Droom arrived on Earth after causing death and destruction throughout the multiverse. After expressing his disappointment with Dr. Doom, the Marquis sent Doom into the distant past. He then adorned himself with Doom’s metal mask and decided to take on the Earth, beginning with the Fantastic Four.

This issue begins with another subplot, though, where Ben shows up at the apartment of his girlfriend Debbie Green, who recently dumped him after he lost his temper on live TV. She tells him that she still loves him, but she doesn’t want to be afraid of him. But, she has a change of heart. She tells Ben to leave the “big stuff” for supervillains and keep things normal for her. He asks her if the wedding is off, and she says, “Never.”

Except then Ben and Debbie are attacked. People outside are throwing Molotov cocktails at the apartment, blaming Ben and the FF for the weird weather happening all over the globe. (The weather is actually because of the Marquis arriving on Earth, but Ben doesn’t know that yet.) Ben jumps outside and chases off the attackers while smashing up the sidewalk, while Debbie tells him that the TV news states that the weird weather is originating from the Baxter Building. Ben walks off, and we see the Marquis and his unnamed apprentice are watching him in secret.

There’s a bunch of quick hits showing the weather freaking out all over the planet. But it’s not just the weather – also volcanos and Biblical plagues of locusts. Ben shows up at the new Baxter Building to meet with Reed, Sue, and Johnny, and that’s when the Marquis and the apprentice attack. The apprentice fights with invisible force fields, and he wields a glowing green sword. The FF mistake the Marquis for Dr. Doom, but the apprentice says, “That name is dead for all time!”

The Marquis introduces himself, and he seems to use some sort of telekinesis and/or mind control to make the FF kneel in front of him. He shows them a vision of Dr. Doom in the distant past being fed to a Megalodon. Ben makes the usual wisecrack about his Aunt Petunia, so the Marquis teleports everyone to the home of the actual Aunt Petunia. He kills Petunia right in front of everyone, reducing her to a skeleton.

Then it gets even nastier when the apprentice wants to murder Sue, but the Marquis says instead she will have to decide which of her children will live or die. Reed offers to take Sue’s place, saying he’s the one who has out-strategized Doom over the years. The Marquis tells the heroes not to have hope, because hope is what he’s already destroyed in countless other universes, and this one is no different.

The Marquis shows the FF a flashback to annual #6, where the FF confronted Annihilus in the Negative Zone. He says if Reed failed to defeat Annihilus, then his son Franklin would never have been born. The Marquis says, “I will spare you and your planet if you agree to let Franklin die.” He says there are millions of alternate timelines where this happens, and that Reed will have no memory of any other possibility happening. Reed refuses to deal with the Marquis, saying, “You’re wasting your time.” The Marquis instead shows Reed a parallel universe where Ben died during the FF’s origin spaceflight, rather than becoming the Thing. Reed says, “You want my life, Marquis, it’s yours. Anyone else, it’s their choice.”

Then the Marquis teleports Reed to place called Area 87, which is a high-tech holding cell containing a man named Clyde Wyncham. The Marquis explains that Clyde is the world’s most powerful supervillain, who came to Earth from yet another parallel universe where he was the only mutant. Clyde has reality-altering powers, kept in check by a cybernetic helmet of Reed’s design. While wearing the helmet, Clyde is lost in his own pleasant dreams. The Marquis says that the day will come when many of Reed’s adversaries will join forces and attack Area 87, and Clyde will wake up with his full power.

We then see Clyde destroying all the villains and escaping to become master of all space and time, exploring the multiverse for a billion years and eventually becoming… the Marquis of Death! He says he is on his final voyage, to give one Reed Richards a chance to save all the rest. The Marquis says all Reed has to do is pull the plug on Clyde, which will kill him. Reed refuses to take a life saying there’s always another way.

The Marquis teleports Reed back to the Baxter Building, where Sue, Ben, and Johnny attack him. Johnny says, “Plug the breach!” Then turn the page and we see the outside of the building attacked by an army of Fantastic Fours from other dimensions.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed sticking to his principles in the face of the Marquis’ threats has no effect on the Marquis. The Marquis gets enjoyment at seeing past versions of Reed break down all across the multiverse.

Fade out/Flame on: At one point, Johnny accuses the Marquis of being just like every other easily-beaten supervillain. The Marquis shows Johnny a vision of all the ways Sue can be killed throughout the multiverse.

Clobberin’ time: Is Ben’s Aunt Petunia really dead? She’ll appear again in a few years, still alive and with no reference to this issue. It’s a safe bet that her death in this issue is either an illusion or yet another alternate timeline.

Fantastic fifth wheel: With the weather being out of control all over the world, Ben tells the people on the street “You want that X-Man weather chick.” That your former teammate Storm you’re talking about, Ben! To be fair, on the next page, he says he’ll give her number to the Molotov cocktail guys.

Trivia time: If you’ve never read Mark Millar’s miniseries Marvel 1985, oops I spoiled the whole thing for you. That story was about Clyde Wyncham, a young man in the “real world” who developed the ability to bring characters from the comics into his universe. When a bunch of comic villains ran amok, he then traveled to the Marvel Universe to recruit heroes to save the day. The series ended with Captain America taking Wyncham back to the Marvel Universe to get him some help.

Fantastic or frightful? While I found a lot to like in writer Mark Millar’s early issues of Fantastic Four, it’s here where the so-called “edgelord” Millar is in full force. This issue is a variation of Millar’s miniseries Nemesis, about an all-powerful supervillain tearing apart an ordinary man’s life, just for his own sick amusement. There’s a similar tone here – mean-spirited only for the sake of being mean-spirited.

Next: Cold feet.

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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 Dr. Doom’s teacher, it’s time for Doom to get some schooling in issue #567.

After wreaking murderous havoc throughout the multiverse, Dr. Doom’s long-lost master, the all-powerful Marquis of Death, has arrived on Earth with his apprentice. The Marquis expressed disappointment in how Doom has not yet conquered the Earth, so he engulfed Doom in a burst of flame. This issue begins by showing us that Doom is not fazed by this. He says through the fire, “Is that the best you can do?”

Doom fights back, with fire swirling around him and the Marquis. Doom brags about all the amazing things he’s done, such as exploring all of time and space, and escaping the fires of Hell itself. The caption tells us that this battle goes on for six weeks (!), and that Doom eventually defeated the Marquis by inventing something called the Omega Box. We’re told that other superheroes join the fight, and Reed Richards died (!!) in the battle, which Doom mourned. Then it’s five years later (!!!) in New York, where Dr. Doom’s technological advances have benefitted all humanity.

It’s a new world, with futuristic flying cars. The new Baxter Building is now the Reed Richards Memorial Building. Doom is inside, with an older, eyepatch-wearing Ben, who inspect a sculpture of the FF in the lobby. Ben says Reed would have liked the statue, and Doom says it’s too bad Reed never saw Doom save the world. Then a pregnant Sue approaches and tells Doom the Fantasti-car is fueled up and ready to take him back to Latveria. She calls him, “Darling.”

Yes, Sue and Doom are now a couple. They discuss how Johnny does not approve, and he refuses to speak to Sue. They arrive in Latveria to a cheering crowd. Sue says to Doom, “It makes me happy to see a country that adores you like I do.” Next, we see Doom inside what looks like a gigantic library. The caption tells us that this is the Omega Box. Sue joins him, and Doom says he’s dwelling on how close the Marquis came to destroying the Earth if Doom hadn’t thought up with Omega Box. “So much hinging on a single idea,” he says. “It chills the blood.”

Sue asks Doom if he’s happy, and if this life he’s built for himself makes him feel content. He says, “For the first time in my life.” Sue answers “Good. Then we’re ready.” She peels off her face to reveal she’s the Marquis in disguise. Doom says the Marquis died five years ago, but the Marquis says not even five seconds have passed. And just like that, we’re back at the start of the issue, with Doom on his hands and knees burning up in the fire.

The Marquis says he showed Doom his dream life, just to take it away. Doom’s mask has fallen off, and it is on the dirt in front of him. (We of course don’t see Doom’s face, as it’s covered with shadow.) The Marquis opens his cape to reveal his skeletal, corpse-like body. He tells Doom not to mourn for a fairy tale, but to mourn for the people of Latveria. Then we see a nuclear blast wipe out Latveria, with the Marquis saying, “This is real.”

Doom wants to continue the fight, but the Marquis says this is not a battle but a punishment. He uses his power to torture Doom by turning his blood to acid. The Marquis’ apprentice suggests sending Doom to the past, so the Marquis sends Doom into the Pliocene Age, dumping him into an ocean filled with megalodons. There’s an entire page devoted to Doom about to be swallowed by one of the megs.

Back in the present, the Marquis says he’s disappointed, and that he hoped for better from Doom. The apprentice says it’s time to initiate the slaughter, and destroy the Earth like all the worlds they’ve destroyed. Instead, the Marquis says his honor must be restored by rectifying his failure with Doom. He says this begins with the Fantastic Four. The Marquis picks up Doom’s mask and puts it on his own face, saying “Let us see how they fare against the new Doctor Doom.”

To be continued!

Unstable molecule/flame on: Reed and Johnny appear only on the cover, where they appear to be dead. I assume this is aftermath of the battle in Doom’s alternate reality.

Fade out: This is the third time there’s been a suggestion of a Sue and Doom romance. The most well-known is when Reed was trapped in Doom’s armor and had to pretend to be Doom, going so far as to stage a fake wedding with Sue. Just prior to that, we saw an alternate universe where Sue and Doom were a couple, and parents to the first Valeria Richards, who later joined the team as Marvel Girl. The comics hinted at maybe Reed was Valeria’s real father, but this was never followed up on.

Clobberin’ time: Look closely, and you can see that future Ben has not just an eyepatch, but a missing arm. We’ll likely never get the story of how, specifically, he got these injuries.

Trivia time: Nobody doesn’t love megalodons! The giant prehistoric fish has appeared on occasion throughout Marvel history, most notably in Where Monsters Dwell, but also in Uncanny X-Men, A-Force, and a little-known Lockjaw miniseries.

Fantastic or frightful? You’d think this issue would be the perfect time to get into who the Marquis is, his history with Dr. Doom, and why no one’s heard of him before this. Instead, it’s yet another multiverse romp, and more multiverse versions of classic characters. People are clearly into multiverse stuff these days, but does this issue really need it? Feels like a roadblock to the main plot, rather than continuing the narrative.

Next: Stormy weather.

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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. After several issues teasing the concept of Dr. Doom’s master, we finally get to meet the guy in issue #566.

We begin on a beach in Thailand, where Reed asks a local, “Who found the body?” Turn the page and the Watcher is lying dead on the sand, his chest and guts ripped open for some spectacular gore. Reed assures the local authority, Agent Nong, that this is indeed the Watcher. As for who or what killed him, Reed answers, “You don’t want to know.”

Cut to Latveria, where all the people have come out in a massive celebration as Dr. Doom returns to the throne. (The last time we saw Doom in Fantastic Four, he was imprisoned in the Hague. To find out how he got Latveria back, you had to read about the deal he made with Norman Osborn in Dark Reign.) There’s a reference to weather all over the Earth being screwy, and Doom says this is a sign that his master is approaching and will arrive within hours. A little girl attending to Doom asks him what he learned from his master. Doom responds, “Everything.”

In New York, we catch up to Jason, the ex-boyfriend of Ben’s fiancé Debbie Green. He’s written a book about how she dumped him for Ben, although the interviewer calls him out on this, saying Debbie broke up with him six months before she met Ben. Ben himself smashes his way into the studio and threatens Jason. Debbie is also there, and she gets Ben to stop. She reminds him that Jason is not a supervillain, but an ordinary man. She says, “You’re scaring the hell out of me,” and she tells him to go home and “act like a normal person.” This is all captured on live TV.

Sue joins Reed at the Baxter Building as he performs an autopsy on the Watcher. He goes back on what he said earlier, in that this is not Uatu, the Earth’s Watcher, but an Uatu from a parallel dimension. Sue concludes that this had to do with Doom’s recent threats that something huge is on its way. They speculate on who Doom’s teacher might have been, and that this dead Watcher might have seen something he shouldn’t have. In Latveria, there’s more celebrating in the streets as Doom’s master is about to arrive. He warns his attainers to shield their eyes, and he welcomes “the Marquis of Death and the new apprentice.” And here they are:

The Marquis tells Doom to ask his question. Doom doesn’t know what question that is, and Marquis says the question is whether he’s happy with Doom’s progress at becoming the greatest villain who ever lived. The Marquis says the answer is “No,” and causes explosions to happen all around. The Marquis says he can hear and smell all the times Doom has been defeated by his enemies. He concludes, “Your foes deserve a new menace, Victor.”

Turn the page, and there’s Dr. Doom being engulfed in flame.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed examines the dead Watcher while wearing some glowing green goggles. No idea what these are or how they’re helping him.

Fade out: Sue plays the role of co-scientist as Reed autopsies the Watcher. She’s shown carrying a bunch of papers, suggesting she’s been out researching.

Clobberin’ time: How far would Ben have gone in his threats against Jason? The comic would have us believe Ben is so pushed to the edge that he would have hurt or even killed the guy.

Flame on: Johnny appears in only panel of this issue, flying over the ocean. Sue later tells Reed he was in England (why?) and will arrive to help with the Watcher situation in about 90 minutes.

Trivia time: There’s some question as to whether the reporter Alex in this issue is the same reporter named Alex who appeared in Captain Marvel #55. That Alex was a blonde male based in Denver and the one in FF appears to be a blonde female (we only see the back of her head) and is based in New York. Maybe they’re the same character, but it’s unlikely.

This is the only appearance of Agent Nong, and his one-sentence entry in the Marvel Wiki doesn’t state who he works for, whether he’s a local, or with something like S.H.I.E.L.D., or part of Reed’s rarely-seen science staff.  

Fantastic or frightful? Here’s where we start to see some of Mark Millar’s so-called “edgelord” writing come into play. The dead Watcher, complete with his ribcage and guts exposed. Ben being so driven with rage that he threatens to kill an ordinary person. Dr. Doom ordering his goons to shoot any revelers who do not spend at least an hour applauding for him. All this is supposed to be cool and shocking and provocative, but instead it feels like trying too hard. We’ll see where this goes.

Next: Burn, baby, burn.

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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. Before we get into the storyline about Dr. Doom’s mentor, it’s finally time to look back at the first Dr. Doom. That means this week we’re reading… DC Comics???

Most comic book fans have heard occasional whispers that DC also has a character named Dr. Doom, but just who is this character? He first appeared in Detective Comics #158 in 1950, more than ten years before Marvel introduced its Dr. Doom. I’ll give Stan Lee and Jack Kirby the benefit of the doubt, assuming they were unaware of one old comic book rather than them stealing from DC. Either way, just who is DC’s Dr. Doom?

We begin with Batman and Robin entering the Batcave’s trophy room, with various items they’ve collected in their crimefighting adventures. They’re celebrating having collected their one-thousandth trophy, the sound of a musical note trapped in glass, which, if heard, is able to kill a man. They give themselves a little tour of the other trophies, including the giant penny and dinosaur, as well as giant dice, a chessboard, an experimental helicopter, a harpoon gun, and even an empty trophy case that was once instrumental in establishing a man’s innocence. Robin jinxes things by saying that after a thousand trophies, maybe he and Batman can take the night off, but then they get an alert from Commissioner Gordon.

Gordon, via the Batmobile’s radio, tells Batman that a “smuggling-leader” named Dr. Doom was spotted at Gotham City’s Pier 16, where a ship, the Queen Maude, has just arrived. Batman says he’s been pursuing Dr. Doom for a long time, but the villain has been too clever, so that Batman can’t nab him in the act. At the docks, we get our first very tiny glimpse of Dr. Doom:

Batman deduces that the Egyptian antiques on the ship are fakes, being used to smuggle jewels illegally into the country. Dr. Doom, with his cigarette in his mouth, dives into the ocean. Turns out his cigarette holder his breathing tube, allowing him to survive the ocean depths. Commissioner Gordon believes Dr. Doom is dead, while Doom instead sneaks back onto the docks and hides inside an empty mummy case. (Not a sarcophagus, only a “mummy case.”) Gordon knows that Batman likes to keep trophies from his cases, so he lets Batman keep the mummy case as trophy number 1,001. The Dynamic Duo place the case inside the Batcave and leave. Then, finally, seven pages into the story, we see Dr. Doom’s face in closeup for the first time:

Doom wants to take over the Batcave and make it his headquarters, except that he’s locked inside the trophy room. He plots to use the other trophies as deathtraps for Batman, and then he short-circuits the Batcave’s alarm to get Batman’s attention. The alarm goes off, so Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson but their bat-suits back on and return to the Batcave.

As the heroes investigate, the container holding the giant dice activates, throwing the dice at Batman. Batman ducks out of the way while Robin deduces the dice mechanism had a cut wire. Then the giant penny almost drops on Robin, and the harpoon gun fires at Batman. Fortunately, our heroes are skilled enough to avoid these dangers.

Robin wonders if all their old enemies have returned, but Batman does detective stuff, checking the Batcave’s security cameras. He’s reminded that the mummy case arrived earlier that day. They check the case, only to find it empty. But, Batman finds water inside the case, deducing that Dr. Doom hid inside there after surviving being in the ocean. While they’re figuring things out, Dr. Doom watches them from his hiding place inside the robot dinosaur.

Then the dinosaur attacks, under Doom’s control. It fights Batman and Robin on the giant chessboard, for some classic Silver Age whimsical weirdness. Batman uses the experimental helicopter to fight the dino, cutting the wires that control it. With the dinosaur now useless, Doom escapes it and grabs a grenade, which is trophy #44. He pulls the pin, despite Batman’s warning that it could destroy them all. (Batman didn’t disarm this thing before he put it in the trophy case?) Doom hurls the grenade to the center of the room while he hides safely inside the mummy case.

Batman smothers the grenades blast by using another trophy, a small mansion that was once home to a group of miniaturized people. Batman says now that Dr. Doom is inside the mummy case, they know where he is, and they can take him to the police. But then, Batman discovers that the grenade blast sealed the mummy case shut, with no air inside. Batman tries to chisel the mummy case open, but it’s no good. He can’t get it open, and Dr. Doom suffocates to death (!). The mummy case, with Doom’s corpse inside it, is placed inside the Batcave as trophy number 1,001. Batman ends the story on a grim note when he says, “The one that brought death into our hall of trophies – death that recoiled on its plotter!” (And people say these Silver Age comics were all kid-friendly and squeaky-clean.)

That’s it for that story, but this comic book is a 52-page monster. The next story is “Impossible But True,” the adventures of Roy Raymond, a.k.a. the man of 10,000 facts, who is the host of a TV science show. He and his girlfriend Karen investigate a scientist named Dr. Wellington, who claims to be able to combine aircraft and teleportation, only to have someone die aboard a test flight. There are lots of twists and turns before Raymond uncovers the real killer.

In the next story, we have Robotman, star of Doom Patrol, in a solo adventure. Some crooks pose as charity fundraisers, who then take their donations to spend at a fun day at a carnival. Robotman, in his “plastic disguise” as human Paul Dennis, catches onto them. There’s a lot of comedic antics as Robotman and the crooks chase each other around the carnival, before ending with a fight atop a roller coaster and the final confrontation in the house of mirrors.

Then there’s “Dover and Clover,” a comedy story about two identical twins who are bumbling detectives. They accidentally stop a jewel store manager stealing from his own store, but not after they go the zoo and back. This is followed by a text piece called “Winner Take All No. 2” with guidelines for some sort of trivia game readers can play at home. It makes no sense. Then there’s a one-page gag comic, “Little Pete,” where the titular kid refuses to take a swing in his baseball game for fear of breaking a nearby window. The final story is the unfortunately-named “Pow-Wow Smith,” a Western about a Native American tribesman who gets a world-class education and returns to his tribe to confront his childhood rival.

Dark knight: This is a good one for people who say Batman is the “real” character and Bruce Wayne is only an act he puts on. Batman is Batman throughout this entire issue, appearing as Bruce only in one panel.

Boy wonder: Robin keeps saying he wants a night off to relax, only for Dr. Doom’s machinations to keep calling the heroes back to action over and over.

Man of steel: There’s a one-page in-house DC promo in which Superman scolds some kids for being anti-Semitic. He grabs the kids and flies them to Iwo Jima (!) to teach them a valuable lesson about World War II. This is heavy stuff.

Commercial break: Air combat!

Trivia time: This is the only canonical appearance of DC’s Dr. Doom, although DC reprinted this story many, many times over the years, no doubt adding to the popularity of the idea of the Batcave trophies.

What other DC and Marvel characters have the same name? The most well-known is Captain Marvel. Both versions co-existed for decades as the lawyers fought it out. Eventually, Marvel Comics got the name, and DC’s Captain Marvel can only ever be known as Shazam from now on. The two companies both had a character named the Scarecrow, but DC won that one, so Marvel’s Scarecrow is now named the Ragman. I’m sure there are others.

Continuity! As Batman and Robin look through all their trophies, they reference the cases the trophies came from, and each of these corresponds to a previous Batman comic. The DC Wiki has the complete list, so I won’t repeat them all here. What’s missing is the giant Joker playing card, even though it should be here because it was established as part of the Batcave in Detective Comics #114 in 1946. A Joker mask, however, is seen as a trophy in this issue.

How to tell Dover and Clover apart? Dover wears the blue necktie, and Clover wears the red one.

Fantastic or frightful? There are all these stories about censorship in the ‘50s making DC comics child-friendly and bland, but here we see the villain dying horribly in this story, as well as other semi-adult themes in the other stories. (Marvel’s Dr. Doom would have come up with a way to survive.) Other than that, it’s fun to see an entire story set inside the Batcave.

Next: It’s no day at the beach.

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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. The Dark Reign event was all about Norman Osborn throwing his weight around, and that’s what does for our heroes at the end of Dark Reign: Fantastic Four.

Recap: Feeling overwhelmed by all the violence and ugliness of Civil War, and now with Norman Osbourne running the Avengers, the Initiative, and a new version of S.H.I.E.L.D., Reed constructs the Bridge. This is a portal-type machine that allows him to see how these events played out in alternate universes, in the hopes that he can change the world for the better. Meanwhile, agents from H.A.M.M.E.R., Osborn’s new version of S.H.I.E.L.D., attacked the Fantastic Four to arrest them after Osborn declared them suspended from the Fifty States Initiative. When H.A.M.M.E.R. tried cutting power to the building, it made things go haywire, sending Sue, Ben and Johnny on an adventure in other universes.

Issue #3 is mostly set in compressed space-time, where Sue, Ben, and Johnny are bouncing around various other realities. We see other versions of them on a pirate ship battling pirate Skrulls on another ship. Then it becomes a Western, with Sue as a super-cool gunslinger. Things shift again, as the cowboy and pirate characters end up in an alternate World War II, Reed, meanwhile, continues to explore other universes where Civil War still happened, but differently. Valeria and Franklin are alone inside the Baxter Building, basically under siege with Osborn’s troops outside.

Issue #4 begins as Osborn shows up at the Baxter Building’s front entrance, demanding to see Reed, while Franklin and Valeria stall him over the intercom. Inside the Bridge, Reed breaks down. He says his mind has processed one billion alternate timelines (!), and he can find no circumstances in which Civil War and Osborn’s reign could have been avoided.

Osborn enters the Baxter Building with the Avengers’ “Spider-Man,” who isn’t Spider-Man at all, but secretly the Mac Gargan version of Venom. There’s some comedy bits where Valeria plays the part of Reed’s secretary. She says the papers they were served say that only one person may meet with Reed, not an entire squad of soldiers. Osborn plays along, and goes off with her alone. Valeria says her parents are away on superhero business, but someone else wants to talk to him. That someone else is Franklin in a Spider-Man mask.

Inside collapsed space-time, where Sue, Ben, and Johnny are lost, they’re not in the WWII from last issue, but on another planet where Reed is in place of the Kree’s Supreme Intelligence. He talks about how all societies will eventually fail, while attacked by Skrulls with Venom symbiotes. The cowboy, pirate, and WWII versions of our heroes join the fight.

Still alone in the bridge, Reed snaps out of his doldrums and says there’s always a solution. He muses on how one single moment is all someone needs to look at things in the right perspective with complete honesty. He says his successes in the other universes were when he acted alone, and not alongside Tony Stark or Hank Pym. He wonders if this is arrogance or the truth.

We get a couple of pages of the alternate universe battle against the Skrulls while thinks about hiding his genius behind false humility, and having to do whatever it takes to solve the problems of the world. Reed shuts off the Bridge, which returns Sue, Ben, and Johnny to Earth. Everyone’s glad to be reunited, until Sue asks where the kids are. Turn the page and we see Franklin and Valeria running from Osborn as he shoots at them with a gun (!).

The kids hide inside an office while Osborn monologues about how he has no hesitation about killing kids, saying he’s a believer in “corporal punishment.” (I’m no lawyer, but I find it hard to believe corporal punishment gives someone the right to shoot little kids. Let’s just assume Osborn is exaggerating for dramatic purpose.) Then the FF jump out, ready for a fight, as Sue says, “Get away from my children!”

Issue #5 begins right away with Osborn’s answer to Sue, “Make me.” Sue disarms him with a force field, but that only sends a message for Gargan and the H.A.M.M.E.R. troops to attack. She stops them by surrounding the FF with a force field, and Osborn inside it with them. This would appear to put Osborn at a disadvantage, but he instead withdraws his gun again and aims it at Reed. Except Osborn is shot in the arm by… Franklin! His toy gun now has real bullets, apparently.

Reed stands up to Osborn, telling him to leave. Osborn makes more threats, saying the FF will never stop him, and he’ll come after them when they least expect it. Norman leaves, taking all his goons with him. The whole family is reunited. Johnny asks if Reed found what he was looking for inside the Bridge, and he says it’s hard to say, but he thinks so.

Sue asks for more details, and Reed says he might know how to fix everything. She asks if anything else happened. Then we get a flashback. Just before Reed shut down the Bridge, he asked for one final projection. He asks how many Bridges have been built in by other Reeds in other universes, and the computer tells him there are 141 of them. He then sees a bunch of mysterious figures emerging from the other side of the Bridge.

Back in the present, a shifty-looking Reed tells Sue that nothing else happened. She tells him to destroy the Bridge, because it endangered everyone. He promises to take it apart, piece by piece. Then we see more of the flashback, where the mysterious figures tell Reed they can help fix things in his universe. He asks who they are, and they say, “We’re just like you,” and “We’ll be here waiting when you’re ready.”

Reed keeps his promise to take the Bridge apart, only to then put it all back together in secret a week later. He says this is his crossing-the-threshold moment, and that everything that’s gone wrong from Civil War onward has been his fault all along. He enters his private thinking room, with his mathematic equations written all over the walls. He thinks, “I know what I have to do to fix it.” We see that he’s written on the wall, “Idea #101, solve everything.” The caption says this is to be continued in Fantastic Four #570, but our heroes must deal with Dr. Doom before that. Speaking of which…

To stay caught up with events in Fantastic Four, we’ve also got to look at what’s been happening in Dark Reign proper. Secret Invasion: Dark Reign #1 takes place immediately after Secret Invasion ended, with Osborn forming his own version of the Illuminati made up of Loki, Namor, Emma Frost, the Hood and our very own Dr. Doom. They’re called the Cabal. With the exception of the Hood, each of these characters are in a down place in their lives. Working with Osborn will put them back on top. Remember that when we last saw Dr. Doom, he was locked up in the Hauge.

Then, in Dark Avengers #1-4, Osborn formed his own team of Avengers, with a few washed-up heroes and a bunch of villains posing as classic Avengers. He even got an Iron Man suit of his own and named himself the Iron Patriot. His team got their first mission when Morgana Le Fey kept time traveling from the Arthurian era (era) to the present over and over to attack Dr. Doom and claim Latveria for her own. Osborn’s Avengers saved the day, and Osborn used his new political powers to restore Dr. Doom to the Latverian throne. And THAT’S where the next issue of Fantastic Four picks up.

Unstable molecule: If you know your Fantastic Four history, you’ve probably already guessed the figures inside the Bridge are the Council of Reeds, a controversial subject we’ll get to sooner rather than later.

Fade out: The Western version of Sue is named “Black Sue,” which is maybe not appropriate. It’s because of her all-black outfit (based on Black Widow, maybe?).  

Clobberin’ time: The Elizabethan version of Ben, called “Chamberlain Grimm,” also joins the alternate FF on their adventures, often hesitant to join the fight until the others encourage him to do so.

Flame on: Even though Franklin saves the day by shooting Osborn, Johnny is the one who is quick to snatch the gun away from Franklin and tell him guns aren’t for kids.

Fantastic fifth wheel: The newly-rebuilt H.E.R.B.I.E. robots are seen in one panel helping Reed dismantle the Bridge. Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.   

Four and a half: Franklin’s cowboy outfit from the start of miniseries pays off in the final confrontation, as he says a bunch of tough-guy Western lines to stand up to Osborn.

Our gal Val: We were initially told that the FF were going to keep Valeria’s super-genius a secret. But now that Norman Osborn knows, it’s safe to assume everyone knows.

Sue-per spy: The 2019 Invisible Woman miniseries revealed that Sue had a double life as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent all along. In the pirate universe, that version of Sue was revealed to be “Agent Storm,” secretly reporting to that reality’s version of the Illuminati.

Trivia time: Why is Loki a woman during Dark Reign? It happened just before this, in Thor vol. 3 #5. After Thor came back from the dead following Ragnarok, he went on a quest to find other reborn Asgardians. He found Balder and Loki still alive, held prisoner by a reanimated Destroyer armor. Loki says she (the Marvel Wiki gives her female pronouns during this time) was changed by the Fates upon her rebirth. She promises peace with Thor, only to secretly join the Cabal. Loki remained female for quite some time, even becoming the new Scarlet Witch for a while. She’ll die again in Siege and then be reborn again as Kid Loki in Journey Into Mystery.

Fantastic or frightful? A lot of the alternate timeline stuff in Dark Reign: Fantastic Four has little to do with the plot, and feels like it’s only there for artist Sean Chen to go wild with new designs and big splash pages. The confrontation with Osborn is the big moment, and it’s frightening how he has so much political power that he can shoot at children and get away with it. An enjoyable read, but a slim one.

Next: No day at the beach.

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