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Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. In issue #317, the new FF — Ben, Johnny, Crystal, and the Sharon Ventura Ms. Marvel — continue their romp through various forgotten concepts in the Marvel Universe.

We begin with Johnny kissing Alicia (who is secretly Lyja the Skrull in disguise) before apologizing for having to leave on yet another adventure. Ben gets down to business, asking the A.I.M. scientists from last issue how the name “Beyonder” ended up written in huge letters (in English!) inside an ancient alien device buried under the surface of the Earth since ancient times. Max the alien, who is one half of the duo known as Comet Man, explains that there are other aliens called “Beyonders,” and not just the one we all met in Secret Wars and Secret Wars II. These other Beyonders are creatures hired by the High Evolutionary to move his Counter-Earth into another orbit. It’s pointed out that Ben previously heard about these Beyonders in Marvel Two-in-One #63.

Max teleports the FF and the other Comet Man, Beckley, into space, first to a space station, and then aboard the Comet Man ship. They’re searching for yet another group of aliens called the Nuwali, who apparently built the machine with the Beyonders’ name on it. (I think. Geez, this stuff is confusing.)

We finally get a breather from all this alien stuff for some character moments. Ben and Sharon have a heart-to-heart, remembering how they close they were getting before Belasco attacked three issues ago. This culminates with Ben and Sharon kissing (and possibly more) on a couch. Then there’s a wordless exchange between Johnny and Crystal, who have been rekindling their attraction throughout this arc. He looks at her, and then flies away. She watches him go with a tear in her eye.

Max and Beckley have a short talk about whether they can trust the new FF, then their ship arrives at the Nuwali planet. The Nuwali, who look like big yellow bugs, say they built the machine in the Savage Land for the Beyonders, but were never paid for their work.  There’s some bit of business about adrenaline being like poison to the Beyonders, and how the Beyonders only communicated with Nuwali through a two-way artefact and never face-to-face. The Nuwali promise to work with the FF.

While Ben inspects the artefact, Johnny and Crystal have a heart-to-heart. He says that although he’s married to Crystal now, Crystal is still his first love. He then says that no matter how he feels about Crystal, he must nonetheless remain faithful to his wife. Crystal says very little during this. It appears that she’s on board with getting back together with Johnny, but it’s ambiguous.

After tinkering with the artefact, Ben deduces that it’s similar to the one from issue #51, a “radical cube” which can open a portal to the Negative Zone. With this mystery solved, the Nuwali break their truce with the heroes and attack. Another A.I.M. scientist shows up out of nowhere and reveals that A.I.M. and the Nuwali have been working together all along, with A.I.M. using the alien tech in their evil plots on Earth.

Fighting! The Nuwali’s weapons are powerful enough to knock out Ben, Sharon and Johnny. Crystal defiantly says she’s willing to give her life to protect theirs. She doesn’t get the chance, because Beckley unleashes the full force of his Comet Man power to defeat the aliens. The A.I.M. guy tries to escape, but Crystal stops him. She says the FF will travel into the Negative Zone to find the Beyonders and put an end to this conflict.

To be continued!

Clobberin’ time: Ben continues to show his smarts as team leader, figuring out what the alien artefact is. But, if he’s as strong as the Hulk now, how do the alien guns knock him out so easily?

Flame on: Johnny turning down Crystal in favor of Alicia is meant to be his ongoing maturity, being a responsible adult by not cheating on his wife.

Fantastic fifth wheel: This issue would have us believe that Ben and Sharon are officially a couple now. Let’s see how long that lasts.

The Alicia problem: It’ll later be established that Lyja studied the Fantastic Four in depth before she started impersonating Alicia, so it’s probable that she knows all about the events of Marvel Two-in-One #63.

Commercial break: Now we know what McCree was doing before he signed up with Overwatch.

Trivia time: Here’s what happened in Marvel Two-in-One #63. Counter Earth — an artificial Earth created by the High Evolutionary — turned up missing, so Ben, Alicia, and a bunch of Marvel’s space/cosmic heroes went searching for it. An alien named Sphinxor had moved the planet, and had been paid to do so by these mysterious Beyonders. Just like FF #317, the Beyonders are talked about but never shown. Further, Sphinxor describes them as the most powerful creatures in the universe, greater than Galactus, Thanos, and the Watcher combined. And this was written years before Secret Wars!

Fantastic or frightful? This issue has more character work and more action than the last few, but this entire arc continues to be unfocused and unwieldy. There’s yet another big shake-up coming soon down the line, so we’ll see.

Next week: Talking ‘bout my e-e-e-evolution.

****

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 #316 continues our tour of the more bizarre aspects of Marvel. This time the new FF — Ben, Johnny, Crystal, and the Sharon Ventura Ms. Marvel — kinda/sorta visits the Savage Land.

To recap, the FF ended up in space, where they formed a temporary truce with demonic supervillain Master Pandemonium. They then ran into Comet Man, who is actually to guys the human Beckley and the alien Max, who teleported everyone back to Earth, in a frozen wasteland. This issue begins with Alicia (who is secretly Lyja the Skrull in disguise) aboard a US Air Force plane flying toward the South Pole, as Master Pandemonium flies past them. The plane lands at a South Pole USAF base, where the FF are waiting. Johnny is delighted to see Alicia, hoping she’ll put thoughts of Crystal out of his mind.

There’s a quick roll call. Beckley and Max are here, as is Morbius the Living Vampire, who had been to the planet the FF just returned from, and has been called in as a consultant of sorts. Ka-Zar and Shanna are also here. Who are these two? They’re the Marvel Universe’s version of Tarzan and Jane, having jungle adventures in the Savage Land, a secret warm and tropical area of Antarctica where dinosaurs still exist. Except, there has been a recent disaster that destroyed the Savage Land, leaving them without a home.

This is the first time Alicia has been around Ben and Sharon since they transformed, so she asks to touch Ben’s face so she can visualize his new look. (She doesn’t even acknowledge Sharon.) This is played as a big dramatic moment, with Ben thinking of all the happy memories he once had with Alicia, and Crystal thinking about her former relationship with Johnny.

That night, Johnny and Alicia talk while he stands guard at the base. Johnny suspects that the seemingly random adventures of the last few issues might not be random, and the someone or something is pulling the team’s strings. They are interrupted by the sudden appearance of an army of ice men. Fighting! The ice men are no match for Johnny’s flame, Crystal’s elemental control over water, or Ben and Sharon’s strength, yet no matter how many our heroes destroy, the ice men keep coming. Johnny flies ahead and discovers the ice men originating from a tank-like machine out in the snow. He destroys it and captures the men inside.

The attackers are mad scientists from A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics). Ben then has all the characters sit down for what he calls a “conference,” and the rest of this issue is some of the most dense, impenetrable comic book reading I’ve come across in a long time. The gist of it that a variety of aliens visited Earth in ancient times, creating (all?) most of the “hidden continent” stuff in the Marvel Universe, including Atlantis, Lemuria, the Savage Land, and even the city of those underground cat people from a few issues back. There’s a lot of attention paid to massive underground “heaters” which allowed the Savage Land to thrive in the otherwise frigid Antarctica.

Everybody heads back into the snow to investigate the giant alien heater (I’m still not clear on why, exactly). The FF use their powers to dig deep into the ice, and then to tear open the surface of the machine. Then, to everyone’s surprise, there’s the name “Beyonder” inside the machine, like some kind of giant billboard. “No! Not again!” Ben says, no doubt echoing the thoughts of all the Marvel fans still disappointed with Secret Wars II.

To be continued!

Clobberin’ time: Filling the leadership role, Ben is not only the one who calls for the conference, but he’s the one who recounts all this cosmic “life began on Earth began thanks to aliens” stuff to the rest of the team, just as Reed might have done back in the day.

Flame on: Johnny stops and makes sure all the A.I.M. scientists evacuate their machine before he blows it up.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Sharon tells Crystal to go ahead and call her “Sharon” in public, now that she no longer has need of a secret identity.

The Alicia problem: Lyja dwells on how she’s hardly seen Johnny since they were married, and how that’s expected when one marries an adventuring superhero. Then she thinks, “I wouldn’t be human if I weren’t glad he sent for me.” Make of that what you will.

Commercial break: Hey, Hollywood, where’s our Lane Mastodon movie?

Trivia time: How did the Savage Land get destroyed? It was the FF’s foe Terminus, who battled the West Coast Avengers there. The Savage Land would later be restored to its former glory when the god Garokk sacrificed his life to bring it back.

Speaking of the West Coast Avengers, that’s where Master Pandemonium went after taking off in this issue. He believed that Scarlet Witch’s twin sons contained two pieces of his missing soul, but this was all a trick played on him by Mephisto. It’s like Mephisto can’t be trusted or something…

Fantastic or frightful? Here’s the second issue in a row that brings up a bunch of Marvel obscurities and then tries to make them interconnected where they weren’t interconnected before. World-building continuity is meant to add flavor to a story, not to be the entire story.

Next week: I am (not) from beyond.

****

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. In issue #315, we’re still in this multi-issue arc in which the new FF — Ben, Johnny, Crystal, and the Sharon Ventura Ms. Marvel — are on an impromptu tour of some of the stranger, more forgotten areas of the Marvel Universe.

At the end of the last issue, the FF hopped on a boat on the underground River of Oblivion, which teleported them to the planet Arcturus, where they ran into a villain named Master Pandemonium. Confused? This issue begins with an extended flashback meant to explain what’s happening, but only makes this all more confusing. It begins with Morbius the Living Vampire, of all people, who also once encountered the underground cat people and fled into the river. He too was teleported to Arcturus where he met a collection of freak/outsider aliens. They’d been living under the harsh rule of the evil Caretakers. The Caretakers live on Earth, so Morbius returns to Earth to kill them, leaving behind a record of his experience. Then we re-flashback to Master Pandemonium, who also fled into the same river after a fight with the West Coast Avengers and the cat people. He teleported to Arcturus and found Morbius’ record. He is taken hostage by the freak aliens. Then there’s a re-re-flashback to Pandemonium’s origin. He’s a guy who lost an arm in a car accident, and made a deal with the devil-ish Mephisto to grow a new one. But Mephisto tricked him, gave him demon-summoning powers, and scattered five parts of his soul throughout the multiverse. If Pandemonium can recover all five pieces of his soul, he gets to be human again. He wonders if part of his soul might be found on Arcturus.

We finally cut back to the present, where the FF appear in the same jail cell as Pandemonium. Everybody fights! Pandemonium demonstrates his power by summons a bunch of demons from a star-shaped hole on his chest. Pandemonium and his monsters put up a good fight until Ben, with his now Hulk-level strength, only for the freak aliens to attack. There’s more fighting, until all the freaks abruptly fall to their knees and start worshipping Ben, apparently in awe of his strength.

Pandemonium withdraws his demons, and everyone compares notes. Pandemonium offers a truce, saying he and the FF should work together to find a way back to Earth. They travel out to a series of trenches in the planet’s wilderness. (Weren’t they just in jail? I guess the freaks let them go now that they love Ben.) Johnny flies around, investigating the trenches. This catches the attention of someone watching from a distance, whose identity we don’t yet see. Just as our heroes theorize that the trenches are ancient landing platforms for spaceships, a spaceship lands one, right in front of them. Out steps Comet Man, who is actually two men.

Okay, who is this? The Comet Men are space cops, in the Green Lantern/Nova Corps vein. The main character is Dr. Stephen Beckley of Earth, who became a Comet Man after almost being killed by his psycho half-brother. The other Comet Man is Max, an alien from the planet Fortisque who keeps trying and failing to speak in Earth lingo. Ben met Beckley in the Comet Man miniseries, and they’re pals.

The FF assume Comet Man can take them back to Earth, but Beckley refuses, suddenly becoming angry. He says he can’t go back to face his brother until his training is complete. They argue about this for a while, until Max says he’ll help. Max kicks a rock (?) and everyone is teleported to a snow-covered landscape, which Max says is Earth.

To be continued!

Clobberin’ time: Ben remarks that if could get home from Battleworld after the Secret Wars, then the team should have no problem getting home from Arcturus. This also has him reflecting how Sharon used to look just like Battleworld’s barbarian swordswoman Tariana.

Flame on: Johnny continues to show some renewed attraction to Crystal. He thinks about how her FF costume “really fits her.” I wish I could say he means this in the way that her courage and heroism makes worthy of the FF uniform, but no. The way it’s drawn, he’s just checking out her butt.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Crystal uses her elemental powers to cancel a lot of Pandemonium’s demons. She uses water to fight fire-type demons and fire to fight water-types. She should play Pokemon.

Sharon is also confident in the team’s ability to get back to Earth, saying the FF survives on pure spirit as much as it ever deed on Reed Richard’s brain power. She continues to be in good spirits, saying she wanted to go on a grand FF adventure, and that’s what she’s getting — demon fights and all.

Commercial break: This book was the first appearance of Drizzt Do’Urden. All these years later, I still don’t know how pronounce the name Drizzt Do’Urden.

Trivia time: The Morbius storyline took place in Fear #20-23, which went much farther in exploring life on planet Arcturus, with a plot involving those underground cat people, some wizards, genetic engineering, and androids. Those issues never revealed how Morbius made it back to Earth, hence the continuity-fixing explanation in this one. (This week, I’m learning way more about underground cat people and planet Arcturus then I ever would’ve thought.)

I guess I should also talk about Comet Man. The miniseries was co-created and co-written by actors Bill Mumy and Miguel Ferrer. Many have suspected that this was a stealth movie pitch, which would’ve starred Mumy as Beckley and Ferrer as Max. The characters later returned for a second run in Marvel Comics Presents and had cameos in Peter David’s Captain Marvel and Civil War: Battle Damage Report.

Fantastic or frightful? Stories like these that attempt to “tie together” or “clean up” comic continuity rarely work for me. Too often writers are too caught up in continuity that they forget the basics of plot, character, etc. This issue, and this story arc, is a parade of “here’s this obscure thing from Marvel history” without doing anything with those obscure things.

Next week: So savage.

****

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. Who doesn’t love a good “hidden underground kingdom” adventure story?  In issue #314, the new FF — Ben, Johnny, Crystal, and the Sharon Ventura Ms. Marvel — find not one but multiple hidden underground kingdoms!

The issue picks up right where the last one left off, with the FF in an underground cavern, surrounded by the Mole Man’s Subterraneans, after failing to reach the Mole Man. After two pages of our heroes discussing the battle of the sexes (?), Ben decides to take the team on a tour of the Mole Man’s former kingdom… just for fun! There’s a little bit of talk about the FF being like astronauts, exploring an unseen world, and with that, they’re off.

After walking through some caves, the team finds themselves in an entirely different cave, discovering that the underground kingdom is full of teleportation portals (Cordelia: “There are portals now?”) which explains how the Mole Man and his people get around without a lot of vehicles.

In New York, Alicia (who is secretly Lyja the Skrull in disguise) is meeting with art critic, Frederick, and they’re both shocked to discover the sky above NYC filled with flames. Similarly, the FF come across an underground “firefall” which I guess is supposed to be like a waterfall but with fire. Johnny flies off to check it out, while Ben and Sharon have a heart-to-heart. Ben says that he never had someone he could relate to like he can with her, thanks to her transformation. “Ya really are still beautiful ta me!” he says.

Their moment is broken up when Johnny returns and notices Crystal is missing. Everyone assumes she went through another one of the teleportation portals. Sharon finds a hidden tunnel, leading to a huge underground castle. Johnny’s flame doesn’t work on the castle walls, leading him to deduce that the castle is magick (with a K!). Ben and Sharon use their awesome strength to bust into the place. Our heroes inside and find Crystal held captive by the demon Belasco.

Who is Belasco? He was originally a Ka-Zar villain, a one-armed demon always trying to seduce Ka-Zar’s ladyfriend Shanna. He later became a major player in the X-Men comics, by always trying to seduce Illyana Rasputin of the New Mutants. (Dude, she’s too young for you.) Now, as the FF confront him, he says he’s over Shanna and Illyana, and he plans to make Crystal his bride. A fight breaks out, in which Belasco transforms Johnny into a pig (!) before Sharon punches him out. This turns Johnny human again, with a “No more bacon!” wisecrack. The FF escape, seeing fireballs in the air not created by Johnny.

Johnny flies ahead, and then leads the team through some more portals until they run into yet another underground city. This one is the kingdom of the cat people, who Ben met during his short time with West Coast Avengers (or, as he calls them in this issue, the “Whackers”) when they were searching for a cure for Tigra. Ben assumes the cat people are still his friends, but they attack the FF on site. Then Belasco reappears, announcing that he is one of the sorcerers who created the cat people, and their loyalty is to him. Another fight is about to break out, but it’s interrupted one more burst of flame in the sky. We learn these fires are from a scene in Strange Tales #14, where Dr. Strange was battling Shuma-Gorath for the fate of the Earth. Belasco knows this somehow, and says he has to stop Strange and Shuma-Gorath, or else their battle will collapse all the nether-realms.

The FF escape down an underground river, which just happens to be right there, on a boat that also just happens to be right there. They think they’ve gotten away, but no. This is the “River of Oblivion” and it teleports them again, complete with a “teleportation” sound effect. They end up at the feet of Master Pandemonium, another demonic Marvel villain, who welcomes them to the “the fourth world of the star-sun Arcturus,” and tells them they will spend the rest of their lives in captivity there.

To be continued!

Clobberin’ time: Ben all but flat-out admits that he’s fallen for Sharon now. Action interrupts before she can give him an answer, though.

Flame on: Why does Johnny say that because he can’t burn something, it must be made of magick (with a K!)? We’ve seen him fly through fighter jets, instantly melting them into liquid, so maybe this isn’t too out of character.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Sharon continues to enjoy her newfound strength, and is now not so down on her appearance, saying it’s freeing not have men ogling her. Crystal kinda/sorta agrees with her, saying all women “tire of being put on display.” The whole battle-of-the-sexes debate that starts this issue is very confusing.

The Alicia problem: Alicia/Lyja says that being married to Johnny has helped inspire her to create new art. We can take this as another sign that Lyja has truly fallen for Johnny, and is not just faking it as part of a Skrull infiltration.

Commercial break: One hundred levels!

Trivia time: The West Coast Avengers eventually did learn that the cat people were really demonic monsters, but it wasn’t until well after Ben stopped hanging out with them. (You’d think the superheroes would compare notes on stuff like this. Maybe start a newsletter.)

Why does Dr. Strange have long blond hair in this issue? That happened after he absorbed the powers of Chaos Lord Arioch to help with the fight against Shuma-Gorath. (I guess absorbing Arioch’s powers also means absorbing his hairstyle.) As for Dr. Strange’s eyepatch, he lost the eye several issues earlier in a fight against a multi-dimensional being named Ghaszaszh Nyirh. (Dr. Strange eventually healed from all this, but only after coming back from the dead.)

X-Men readers are probably wondering what Belasco is doing with an underground fortress when he’s usually seen in the otherworldly Limbo. Back in his Ka-Zar days, though, Belasco’s base of operations was indeed an underground fortress, and his henchmen were the subterranean Children of Dis.

Fantastic or Frightful? With this issue and the previous one, it looks like they simply made a list of all the underground kingdoms in the Marvel Universe, and then decided to use them all in one story. I like digging into Marvel lore as much as the next dorknoggin, but there’s just no plot here. Other than Ben’s declaration of “it’ll be fun,” we have zero reason for any of this happening. This era of FF is supposed to when it gets quirky and weird, but I’m just not feeling it.

Next week: Panda (-monium) express.

****

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 #313 begins a multi-part story that will see the new FF — Ben, Johnny, Crystal, and the Sharon Ventura Ms. Marvel — visiting some of weirdest, wackiest corners of the Marvel Universe. To begin, we’re heading back into the world of the Mole Man.

We begin with the new FF visiting Project Pegasus. This is a crazy sci-fi science lab where Ben had a series of adventures when he was the star of Marvel Two-in-one. They’re greeted by the lab’s new leader, Dr. Devere, an ominous man who gives Crystal the creeps. Ben explains that the FF are searching for the Mole Man, and want to check out the tunnels beneath Project Pegasus. We then get more info in a flashback, sort of. We see Ben upset about Dr. Doom placing hidden cameras inside their headquarters, and from there he makes an odd leap to try to contact the Mole Man and convince him the surface world isn’t so bad.

The FF enter the tunnels, with a lot of talk about running into lava men. Instead, they’re confronted by the Mole Man’s Subterraneans. There’s a brief fight, which ends when Johnny uses bright flame to stun the Subterraneans’ weak eyes. The Subterraneans say that the Mole Man has departed his underground kingdom, leaving them leaderless. They further say they are at the mercy of vicious lava men, and another underground tyrant, appropriately named Tyrannus.

Our heroes go deeper underground, running to Tyranoids, a tougher breed of Subterranean loyal to Tyrannus. Ben and Crystal work together to destroy the power source that fuels all the Tyranoids’ weapons, and the fight is over. They learn that the Mole Man stole a suit of armor from the Tyranoids, after which he went even deeper underground, where the heat is almost unbearable. The FF follow, with Crystal promising that she use her powers to keep the heat from overwhelming the team.

They find the Mole Man, just sitting by himself in a cavern. He’s all sad, feeling rejected by both the surface world and his own kingdom. Ben reminds him that he and Mole Man were once friends, and he offers to help. Before Mole Man can answer, the oft-mentioned lava men finally attack. Johnny fights them, but Ben and Sharon have to stick close to Crystal to be protected from the heat. During the fight, two lava men grab the Mole Man and pull him down into a pool of molten rock. (We’re told that the Mole Man’s suit protects him from this, even though his head is clearly exposed.)

Crystal uses her elemental powers to dive into the molten rock and swim down in search of the Mole Man. She fights a lava man down there, and then has to escape by expelling moisture from her mouth. This propels her out of the lava somehow. (Any scientists out there care to weigh in on this one.) She is unconscious, and Johnny heals her by drawing the heat out of her and into himself. Ben and Sharon tough it out this whole time, smoldering as the tough out the heat. Johnny seals up the molten rock pit, and our heroes leave.

The team regroups the spot where they fought the Tyranoids. (I think. It’s hard to tell) Ben grouses about the mission being a failure, and that the Mole Man’s whereabouts are still unknown. Sharon reveals that she knew Ben had an ulterior motive all along — he wanted to see if the Mole Man could turn her human again. She says she no longer wants to be human, because she’s now so strong that no man can ever hurt again. Johnny, meanwhile, stands off to the side, eyeing Crystal, thinking, “It felt so good, holding Crys again!” Uh-oh…

Clobberin’ time: Ben’s friendship with the Mole Man came from issue #296, in which Ben was a bigwig living in the Mole Man’s kingdom for a while, just before he rejoined the FF.

Flame on: During the fight, Johnny references being just like Dwight Gooden. I googled it: Gooden is a former MLB pitcher who had a 16-year career pitching for a bunch of different teams. I’ll assume the lava men are to blame for him being so sweaty on his Wikipedia page photo.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Crystal again proves herself to be ridiculously powerful. She can swim through molten rock! That’s, like, Hulk-level action.

Speaking of rock, they’re definitely going for a superpowers-as-metaphor thing with Sharon, by having her rocky form standing in for her putting up an emotional shield around herself to deal with her PTSD. For as much as she says she’s all better now, I still have to wonder…

Commercial break: I always wanted one of these pins. They’re the highest quality jewelry cloisonné!

Trivia time: Who’s this Tyrannus guy? He’s an old-school Hulk villain, dating all the way back to the Hulk’s fifth appearance, most recently seen in Incredible Hulk #243. We even saw him briefly back in Fantastic Four issues 126-128. I suppose name-dropping him in this issue to show how both he and the Mole Man can both have giant underground kingdoms.

Fantastic or frightful? I’ve done some reading ahead, and this arc will go into some truly bizarre places. (Remember the Beyonder?) This issue, though, has a lighter, old-fashioned “let’s go an adventure” feeling to it, making it a nice change of pace from the uncomfortableness of the previous issues.

Next week: Still more underground action.

****

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