macmcentire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Walt Simonson’s cosmic time travel tale continues in issue #340, in which the FF confronts a godlike Celestial.

The FF, Thor and Iron Man have traveled to the future, where Galactus has built a giant device to let him devour the entire universe. Our heroes have convinced the Shi’ar Empire to send its entire fleet to attack Galactus. On Earth (future Earth, even though the previous issue made it sound like present-day Earth) the Dreaming Celestial has awakened from under his mountain and walks the Earth. Except he doesn’t hang out on Earth for long, because he immediately teleports onto the surface of Galactus’ device. Why is a Celestial a big deal? This one waves his hand through the air and doing so destroys the entire Shi’ar fleet.

Our heroes regroup aboard the Shi’ar weapon platform, the only ship to survive, and compare notes. Iron Man gives a short history of the Dreaming Celestial, saying it was meant to sleep forever under its mountain. Our heroes plot a course back to Earth to investigate this mountain. (The script conveniently forgets that the FF visited this mountain not long ago, in issue #323.)

Thor stays behind while the rest of the heroes break into the mountain and explore the high-tech complex inside it. There’s a few pages of fighting where the heroes are attacked by alien deviants who live there, to protect the Celestial. When them gone, Reed and Sue access the mountain’s computer, and get an even longer history of the Dreaming Celestial. He was once the greatest of all Celestials, but he broke their laws and was sealed inside the mountain to sleep forever, dreaming of revenge. While sleeping, the Dreaming Celestial somehow engineered this whole Galactus-devours-the-universe plot, just so the Dreaming Celestial can rule the new universe that will rise in our universe’s place.

While all this has been going on, remember that Johnny has become possessed by the mysterious blue-skinned woman who’s been following the team around. He/she finally makes a move by knocking Sue unconscious and running off with her. At this point, more Deviants attack. We’re told that there are millions of them this time, far too many to fight, forcing everyone to go back to the Shi’ar ship. Reed refuses to leave without Sue, but Ben knocks him out so that everyone can escape.

The FF and Iron Man escape aboard Reed’s time sled. Thor and Gladiator, who is running the Shi’ar Empire in the future, launch the weapon platform at Earth and destroy the Celestial’s mountain, cutting off the Celestial’s power supply. Reed, now awake again, believes Sue is dead. Reed doesn’t blame Ben, but instead puts all the blame on the Dreaming Celestial.

Reed confronts the Celestial, threatening to go back in time and tell the other Celestials of his plan while the Celestial sleeps. The Dreaming Celestial won’t have this, and chases our heroes through time. Reed outsmarts the Celestial by bringing him straight back to Galactus’ device, where Galactus devours the celestial. With his hunger temporarily sated, Galactus looks at Reed for a second with a sense of sorrow in his eyes. Then he goes back to devouring the universe. Reed says he has an idea on how to stop Galactus, adding that it is, “nothing short of insane!”

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: After he believes Sue is dead, Reed lashes out at Thor, calling Thor “windbag” several times. He later says that this was an act, acting angry so the Celestial would not see his true intentions.

Fade out: Sue uses her force fields to interact with the mountain’s computer, using them in precise, tiny ways to readjust the alien circuitry. I wonder what else she can do with itty-bitty force fields.

Clobberin’ time: Now that he’s human again, what can Ben do in a fight against the Deviants? Only pull out a freakin’ GUN and start shooting away. What, is he the Punisher now?

Flame on: While masquerading as Johnny, the mystery woman fights the Deviants as well, just to avoid suspicion.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Once again, they’ve given Sharon a lot of technobabble dialogue, hoping to portray her as a science genius as well as the team’s muscle.

Commercial break: Master the power!

Trivia time: This issue’s cover calls the Dreaming Celestial “the Black Celestial.” This is one of many names he has gone by, including “Tiamut the Communicator” and “the Renegade Celestial.” He first appeared in Jack Kirby Eternals miniseries back in 1977, and he often pops up whenever the Eternals’ enemies the Deviants are up to no good. The Marvel wiki insists that he doesn’t die in this issue, because this is merely an alternate future.

Fantastic or frightful? This issue feels like filler. Our heroes fight the Dreaming Celestial, only to start back where they began. Also, most panels only have a plain white or pale blue background, making it hard to follow who is where at any given time. On the plus side, the action and fighting are fun, and there’s the overall sense of operatic “cosmic Marvel” that we all love.

Next week: Nebulous.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #339 continues Walt Simonson’s time travel/space epic, with some classic Simonson Thor action as well.

The FF, Iron Man, and Thor have journeyed into the distant future, where Galactus is using an astronomically huge device with a black hole at its center, for the purpose of devouring not just planets, but the entire universe. The villain Kang keeps showing up, and Johnny is being mentally manipulated by a mysterious blue-skinned woman. As the heroes’ time sled is sucked into the black hole’s orbit, there are two pages of all black panels with only word balloons. Reed concocts a way to combine the power of the sled, Iron Man’s armor, and Thor’s hammer to escape the black hole’s pull.

Once outside the black hole, Johnny continues to act out of character. Here it’s finally revealed that Johnny is not Johnny. The blue-skinned woman has taken over his brain, and is choosing her words carefully so others don’t get suspicious. The discuss how they can possibly destroy Galactus’ device, and Sharon somewhat randomly suggests contacting the Shi’ar Empire, saying that the Shi’ar might have the firepower they need. Everyone’s okay with this, and Thor uses his teleporting power (which he has now) to take them to the Shi’ar.

The heroes find themselves surrounded by battleships in orbit around the Shi’ar planet. Because of the time dilation (or something) it appears that the whole planet is frozen in time. The FF and co. visit a weapons manufacturing plant and just help themselves to what they need.

On the planet, we see Gladiator, the Superman-like head of the Shi’ar’s Imperial Guard, taking notice of the disappearing equipment, he breaks through to the heroes’ time dilation and immediately picks a fight with Thor. (There’s no mention of time travel in this part, so I guess Gladiator doesn’t age, and this is him in the distant future.) Thor and Gladiator are evenly matched, with Thor getting knocked around by Gladiator, and Gladiator being one of the few characters able to survive getting smacked in the face by Thor’s hammer. Sharon breaks up the fight, reminding the two that they’re fighting around dangerous weaponry.

Thanks to Reed’s universal translator, Gladiator remembers that these are the good guys. He reveals that he is currently acting as regent of the Shi’ar, in place of the empire’s child emperor, Charles I. Gladiator orders the entire Shi’ar fleet to attack the Galactus device, even at the risk of leaving the Shi’ar homeworld defenseless. The fleet attacks Galactus, and Reed is in awe of the spectacle. The battle is felt all the way back in the present, where we revisit the mountain of the Dreaming Celestial (from back in issue #323) where the Dreaming Celestial, a robot who is so big he makes the mountains look all tiny, finally awakes and now walks the Earth.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Sue at one point asks Reed if he regrets saving Galactus’ life back in issue #244. Reed says saving a life, any life, will be his first priority. He is, however, not ruling out killing Galactus this time, if that’s what it takes to save the entire universe.

Fade out: Sue once again contributes almost nothing to this storyline. Reed asks her to keep an eye on Johnny, what with Johnny acting suspicious.

Clobberin’ time: Reed is about to give up when the team is drawn toward the black hole, but Ben is the one who talks him out of it. He calls Reed a disappointment, doing the ol’ reverse psychology bit. This is a small but interesting character turn for Ben, feeling like the result of all the times people told him, “but you’re not a monster.”

Flame on: With his mind possessed by the mystery woman, “Johnny” has several thoughts about Gladiator being handsome, and even a possible future consort. Have a lot of people taken these panels out of context for humorous purposes over the years? Yes, they have.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Sharon’s suggestion to go to the Shi’ar for help comes out of nowhere. You could argue that she’s researched them since she’s been with the FF, but the Shi’ar have always been antagonistic toward the FF, and they’ve been mostly antagonistic toward the X-Men, so I don’t know why Sharon thinks this is a good idea.

Commercial break: It’s Batman: Digital Justice, the all-CGI comic book. I’ve read it. It’s a fascinating novelty item, but it’s not “good,” exactly.

Trivia time: According to the Marvel wiki, the Shi’ar homeworld is a planet named Chandilar. However, the wiki insists that Chandilar’s one and only appearance was in Uncanny X-Men #275, which was published a year after this issue. Either the Shi’ar get a new homeworld in the future, or the wiki need updating.

Fantastic or frightful? The massive scale and outpouring of sci-fi creativity from Walt Simonson make this issue a lot of fun. Some have criticized this arc for being all spectacle with little character development. That might be true, but spectacle is what Simonson does best, so I say go big.

Next week: Celestial navigation.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Writer-artist Walt Simonson hits the ground running with a time-travel epic continuing in issue #338.

The FF have teamed up with Thor and Iron Man to travel into the future, where some sort of unknown catastrophe is endangering the present. At the end of the last issue, it appears they crashed aboard their time sled, but instead they penetrated inside the time bubble surrounding this unknown future event. What the heroes don’t know is that they are being followed by two mysterious figures, one of whom is the sexy blue-skinned lady who has been appearing in Reed and Johnny’s dreams.

The heroes arrive in future New York, where massive skyscrapers make the Empire State Building look all tiny. All the people and their flying cars appear frozen in place, due to “time dilation.” Reed’s scanner thingy picks up two anomalies. The first is a big one way out in space, and the other smaller one is heading straight for them. This turns out to be Death’s Head, a robotic “freelance peacekeeper,” also known for time traveling. (Death’s Head is a Marvel UK character, making this his first official appearance in the regular Marvel Universe. More on his history below.)

There’s a brief superhero misunderstanding fight (you know the kind) before Death’s Head and the heroes decide to work together. D.H. says he’s been hired by the Time Variance Authority to investigate the time bubble, and Reed says he’s never heard of the T.V.A. Next, our heroes run into Kang the Conqueror, who says he’s there in search of a weapon. Iron Man defeats Kang, who is then unmasked and revealed to be an alien Kang from another timeline.

With the smaller time anomaly solved (sort of) it’s time to investigate the big one. Thor uses his hammer to summon a vortex that teleports everyone into deep space. (I would ask since when Thor is able to do this, but few people know Thor better than Walt Simonson, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.) In space, the FF’s time sled approaches a huge Death Star-like construct, but much, much bigger. Reed says it’s the size of a galaxy (!) and its gravity is drawing the entire universe into it (!!).

The FF pilot the time sled into the construct where they fight more Kangs, each one from different parts of Kang’s personal time stream. There’s a big fight. Johnny is uncharistically violent during the battle, trying to murder a Kang. Death’s Head is able to blast through Kang’s force field where Thor’s hammer could not (what?) only for the last remaining Kang to get sucked into a black hole at the center of the construct. Johnny, continuing to act crazy, flies after him. The FF then spot Galactus, also grown to astronomical size, controlling the construct. He’s using the black hole not just to devour planets this time, but to devour the entire universe! What’s worse, the superheroes are caught in the black hole’s gravity, and it’s pulling them in.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed said the time sled is able to withstand the gravity of the construct thanks to its “Heisenberg neutralizers.” There you go.

Fade out: Sue does almost nothing in this issue, pointing out when Iron Man shoulder gets hurt in the fight, and watching Johnny through binoculars.

Clobberin’ time: The creators are doing a pretty good job of keeping Ben a part of the action even though he’s human again. What no one can decide is what he should wear. After several attempts at a “civilian” FF uniform, Ben is wearing in this story a trenchcoat and fedora, like an old-timey P.I.

Flame on: It’s not stated that Johnny’s newfound murderous impulses are a result of the blue-skinned woman manipulating him, though I’m pretty sure that’s where this is going.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Like Sue, Sharon says and does almost nothing in this issue. I guess that’s the result of this being a rewrite of an unused Avengers script.

Commercial break: Will you two just kiss already?

Trivia time: Yes, Death’s Head was a creation of Marvel UK, which had a habit of repackaging Marvel comics for European readers, often in odd ways. This included creating a bunch of original characters, most of whom were later added to the Marvel Universe proper. This gets further confusing in regards to Death’s Head, who was created for Marvel UK’s re-write of Transformers. To ensure that Marvel and not Hasbro had ownership of the character, Marvel UK quickly published a one-page strip titled High Noon Tex to introduce the character prior to his Transformers appearance. The character was later re-introduced as Death’s Head II in his own series in the mid-1990s, which was a big (if short-lived) success for Marvel.

Fantastic or frightful? Not a lot happens in this one, as it’s mostly here just to set up bigger things in issues to come. Still, Simonson’s artwork is great, and the ambition of the story makes it exciting.

Next week: Are you not entertained?

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. I’m out of town this week, so here are some more FF videos:

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. The great Walt Simonson takes over both writing and art in issue #337, and he swings for the fences with an extra-length 30-page issue featuring big guest stars and time travel craziness.

Can we talk about Walt Simonson? He got his start at Marvel in the ‘70s, working a number of titles, notably Star Wars. He gained huge popularity during his now-historic run on Thor, where his storytelling style was defined, with big action, eye-popping alien landscapes, and quirky humor. (Anybody remember the Thor frog?) He then had a nearly as successful run on X-Factor, further solidifying himself as one of Marvel’s best. He was the writer on Avengers during the short time in which Reed and Sue were on the team. He allegedly had a bunch of scripts written with them on the team before Marvel editorial went in a different direction. Now given the reigns of Fantastic Four, Simonson took his Avengers scripts and rewrote them for the FF.

We begin with the intruder alarm going off inside Four Freedoms Plaza in the middle of the night, and our heroes investigate. The reach a dead end, until Reed opens a secret door none of the others knew about. Inside is a gigantic chamber with a huge machine it (it’s about the size of two-story house, if were to guess). Reed announces there is a volume anomaly, and he has Sue block part of the wall with a force field. The wall breaks apart with this odd pattern behind it.

Ben deduces that the anomaly is a sort of bomb. Reed finds a fragment of the bomb, and agrees. He runs a test on it, saying the bomb has to do with a “time bubble” somehow located inside of a renegade Celestial alien. The bubble contains 15 years that cannot be time-traveled into. Reed further explains that this hidden room, which technically should lead to outside the building, is a another space-time anomaly created using the Radical Cube, which you’ll remember as the shrinking device from back in issue #51. Reed tries time-traveling an object into the future, but he can’t. From this he deduces that something happening in the future is endangering the present. He says the FF must travel 35 years into the future to stop whatever’s happening.

Later, while working in the lab late one night, Red falls asleep at his desk and has a dream about a sexy blue-skinned woman seducing him. Ben and Sharon pay a visit to the Avengers temporary HQ, located in a hidden bunker underneath a diner (!). They ask the Avengers for help in their upcoming time travel journey. Thor says he and a friend will help out. Captain America and Hank Pym are standing right there, but don’t say anything. Back in Reed’s lab, Johnny also falls asleep at a desk, and dreams about the same sexy blue woman.

Thor shows up with Iron Man. This is treated as a surprise reveal, except it was spoiled on the cover. Inside Reed’s lab, he’s constructed a new craft, the Rosebud II, which Iron Man describes as a “time sled.” Johnny gives a kiss goodbye to Alicia (who is really Lyja the Skrull in disguise) and he briefly hallucinates the blue woman in her place.

Everyone boards the time sled, and we’re off for several pages of time travel craziness. The time sled enters a space of infinite possibilities, where all unrealized futures exist simultaneously. The sled is also flying alongside hundreds of identical sleds, all from their own timelines running alongside the FF’s timeline. Reed regains control of the sled, and it pulls ahead of all the other timelines. Reed announces that there is a vortex ahead, but instead the sled crashes against a giant space wall in a huge explosion.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: By my count, this is the third time we’ve seen a hidden room inside Four Freedoms Plaza that only Reed knows about. This is odd, but it does finally give this headquarters some identity of its own. We’ll always wonder just how many other hidden rooms are in there.

Fade out: Sue is back to short hair in this issue, though there doesn’t seem to be any fan outrage over this one, as opposed to times she’s changed her hair in the past. I guess everyone’s just taking it in stride along with the new art style.

Clobberin’ time: Iron Man says he doesn’t recognize Ben now that Ben is human again. Except that they fought alongside each other during Atlantis Attacks. Yeah, Ben was wearing his Thing-shaped exoskeleton, but still.

Flame on: While Reed resists the advances of the mystery woman, but Johnny appears much more tempted by her. Is this the writer’s way of not approving his and Alicia’s marriage, or is this just because he’s the young hothead?

Fantastic fifth wheel: Sharon shares a lot of the time travel technobabble with Reed, in the ongoing attempt to portray her as a science whiz along with her being the team’s muscle.

Four and a half: There’s a scene where Sue drops off Franklin to stay with the Power family (of Power Pack fame) while the FF is away. Alex and Jack Power have cameos, and this sets up a weird Power Pack versus Galactus story in their comic.

The Alicia problem: I wouldn’t read too much into Lyja “transforming” into the mystery woman, other than it being a hallucination. Even if some Skrulls have empathic abilities, able to transform into what others are thinking of, Lyja’s training as a super-spy would prevent her from losing control in front of Johnny, even if just for a second.

Commercial break: Once again, I dare somebody to call this number:

Trivia time: The Power family’s address is shown, at West 71st Street on the Upper West Side. Pretty nice digs considering that dad Jim Power’s job is merely “inventor.”

And, yes, there’s a sled named Rosebud. Do I really need to tell you what this is a reference to?

Fantastic or frightful? Walt Simonson allegedly wanted to bring a hardcore science fiction feel to Fantastic Four, and that’s just what he does with an issue full of far-out reality-bending. It also has a lot of fun character moments, and of course the art is great.

Next week: Doc, you disintegrated Einstein!

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.