Hey all,

I figured I'd do another one of these "review" threads. They're fun (for me), and what else am I gonna do? Write another musical???

So I thought I'd look at the comics collected in the two-volume "Heroes Return: Fantastic Four" TPB set. Back before it was a yearly event for Marvel series to relaunch with a new #1, this series was only the THIRD FF comic to start with its own #1. The first had been the original in 1961, and the second one was in 1996, I believe, the "Heroes Reborn" issue by Jim Lee and Brandon Choi (recently looked at by the Kayfabe lads). After 13 issues of the "Heroes Reborn" experiment, Marvel did "Heroes Return" in 1998, which led to another relaunch!

The first TPB, which I've got in front of me right now, collects issues 1 through 15 of the 1998 series, and also a "1/2" issue, I guess? The 1998 annual is reprinted here and so is a crossover issue, Iron Man 14 (written by Uncle Rog!). So, 17 (and a half) comics in one TPB. Nice and hefty. I like a TPB with a lot of stuff in it, and this one qualifies. This is not one of those slender volumes reprinting a single decompressed five-issue Bendis story. These comics are dense, especially once you get to issue 4, because ...

... that's when Chris Claremont takes over! AWWW YEAAAAHH. The Claremont FF run is pretty universally reviled, which I understand somewhat as it gets off to an odd start.

Scott Lobdell writes the first three issues, with Alan Davis on art, and then for whatever reason that team leaves very abruptly. In issue 4 (mid-storyline), the creative team switches to Chris Claremont and Salvador Larocca, who do a double-sized issue in order to finish off the plot that Lobdell left only halfway done. Clearly something unusual went down. And CC has said in interviews that he had no ambition to write the FF; he just got plugged into the gap because someone was needed last minute. As such, the first CC issues are definitely not the most inspired work (though they're fun if you're a fan of Claremont's Excalibur). Personally I think CC found his footing pretty quickly on the series, but I am biased.

Curiously, not only did CC take inspiration from his own Excalibur comics, but he also draws from the Excalibur issues written and drawn by Alan Davis, AND he has some cameos by characters from Davis' "ClanDestine." That always seemed odd to me, because he wasn't writing this comic for Davis to draw. Davis was gone before CC showed up, so ... why the evocations of Davis comics? Was CC hoping to seduce Davis back onto the series, by tempting him with appearances by characters he knew Davis liked (or in some cases, had created)?

At any rate, CC apparently eventually warmed to working with Sal Larocca. The two of them continued to work together on a ton of X-Men comics, after their FF run ended with issue 32. (Issue 32 is the last issue in Volume 2 of this collection, so by looking at both volumes, we'll get the entire CC run in there. WOOOO)

Anyway. That's the preamble. But the Claremont/Larocca stuff is still in the future. First, we have to get through the work by Lobdell (ick) and Davis (yeah!).

Next: Fantastic Four #1 !!!!

Fantastic Four #1


We open with a somewhat odd five-page scene with the Mole Man. It seems to be there simply as a joke. (Were these five pages originally published by themselves as Fantastic Four 1/2? If not, I'm not sure what material in this TPB is from that issue, which I assume was some kind of slender, free promotional pamphlet that came with a Wizard issue or something.)

The Mole Man and his mole creatures are about to go forth and take over the world -- then they find out that the Fantastic Four have just returned from their time in the alternate reality that was the setting for the "Heroes Reborn" run -- and the Mole Man sheepishly decides that he won't invade the Earth after all. Obviously it's a nod to the fact that the Mole Man was the villain in the original FF #1 (and in the Jim Lee one too, although that was an alternate-reality duplicate of the real Mole Man), but I remember taking it to just be a joke and nothing more when I first read this comic. But it's actually seeding an eventual FF vs. Mole Man story, which Lobdell will begin a few months later, then leave for Claremont to conclude.

Anyway, it's fine as a joke scene, and the double-page spread of the monsters under the ground by Davis is awesome.



Then we get to the real story, which is about the FF fighting a team of original villains created by Lobdell and Davis -- THE RUINED. I like that name for a group of supervillains ... very evocative. It's not quite clear by the end of this issue why they're called that, though.



That said, while this story does leave some loose ends to explore for when the Ruined eventually return (which they will, during the CC run), it's kind of neat that it tells a full story over the course of this ("double-sized"!) issue. The Ruined show up in Paris, refugees of some sort from another reality. They begin to transmute Earth into a world that is fit for them to inhabit. The FF show up in Paris and fight them, foiling the plan and sending them back to whatever dimension they came from. A character named Yvette Diamonde who was transformed by the Ruined, is the only person who remains changed after the rest of Paris reverts. She now quite possibly has some superpowers or something, but she exits the scene before that thread can be investigated.

Overall, the story is fairly banal, but matters are elevated by Alan Davis' art. Davis is the real star here. Scott Lobdell -- who as I recall was a stand-up comedian before he got into comics -- likes his quippy dialogue, and some of the jokes land pretty well.



There's a bit where the Thing is harassed by a bunch of Parisian kids for no apparent reason, then after they run away, Davis pans up to reveal that the Thing is on "Rue de Yancy." I like that gag a lot.

Still, Lobdell is the writer who took over the X-Men back in 1992 when Claremont left, and made me realize as a young lad that I wasn't a fan of the X-Men so much as I was a fan of Claremont's X-Men. As such, I'll always be a little irked by some of his writing tics, the same tics that drove me away from the very franchise that made me a comics fan in the first place. His ham-fisted attempts at sentimentality are one that bugs me (like when Sue calls Ben a hero in this issue, and Ben starts to cry ... it's supposed to be sweet but it's awful), and another is when he has characters make these amazing intuitive leaps for exposition purposes, and tries to soften how forced it is by putting a question mark at the end. Example in this issue:

"It almost feels as if the energy is conscious, saving me for ... something important?"

You know ... that feeling you get when you see energy and realize that it's conscious, and it's saving you for something important. It almost feels like that right now!

One other irritation, a double irritation, I'd say, is that he tries to do that meta-thing of dissing other comics via double-meaning dialogue. In this case, he throws shade at the whole "Heroes Reborn" concept of farming out the classic Marvel characters to Image creators like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portacio, those hotshots of the early 90s. How so? By having hotshot Johnny Storm saying that Reed should update their tech to look "more nineties," and Reed replies:

"Image isn't everything, Johnny. I would have thought the last several months had taught you ... sometimes there's no improving on the original concept. If something works, you stay with it."

Besides being annoyingly on the nose, it's an irritatingly hypocritical sentiment coming from Lobdell, who actually scripted several of the "Heroes Reborn" issues, including Portacio's Iron Man #1, which updated the origins for both Iron Man and the Hulk. I'm pretty sure he scripted at least one issue of Jim Lee's FF too, the comic he's now dissing. P.S. This dialogue throwing shade at the idea of relaunching a classic concept like the FF with a new, rebooted series is taking place in THE FIRST ISSUE OF A NEW, REBOOTED FF SERIES.

I'm not a fan of Lobdell.

But, to be fair, the issue is a decent adventure story, with beautiful illustrations and storytelling by Davis and inker Mark Farmer.



Lobdell's crummy low-rent dialogue will always keep this from being a classic, but he's competent enough that, with Davis doing the heavy lifting, the issue is a breezy and enjoyable read. For all this issue's faults, it probably did feel like a fresh start at the time, and maybe even a true return to form, after the "Extreme" version before it, and the utterly awful Tom DeFalco issues of FF that came before that.

Next time: Issue #2!

Thanks for the images, Hanzy!

Fantastic Four #2

Hey, this is more like it. We're still with Lobdell scripting, while we get the amazing storytelling and visuals from Alan Davis and Mark Farmer.

I had no complaints about the visuals last issue, but I do think that they're better in this second outing. Lobdell seems to have warmed up as well. I still find his sentimental moments a bit forced, such as this issue's material between Reed and Franklin ... but it gets the job done.

Overall, this issue feels like the standard Fantastic Four formula. We get a good number of pages dedicated to seeing the team just hanging out and being a family, then we also see them each on their own doin' their individual thangs. And then a threat shows up and the team re-convenes to fight the villain. It's once again a done-in-one, which is nice, though as in the last issue with the Ruined, we once again get a brand new villain (the Iconoclast) who leaves a lot of loose ends when he's finally defeated/banished.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that anyone ever followed up on what the deal was with the Iconoclast, which is kind of a shame because Lobdell creates a pretty good mystery around the character, and the stakes implied by the character's dialogue seem very high. I wonder what Lobdell had in mind? (Actually, as I recall, Lobdell doesn't really plot very far ahead; he said once he likes to just introduce elements that are a mystery even to him, and then let the stories develop organically. Fine way to do it if you can pull it off. I'm not sure he ever does, though.)

So, a little frustrating that we know the story with this villain isn't going to go anywhere. But that's my only complaint about this issue. Everything else works pretty well.

STATUS QUO
I didn't really mention the cast we're dealing with last time, because it's the classic FF team, but as the cast starts to build (as it will, nigh-exponentially, during the Claremont issues), it might be worthwhile to track it. So, for right now, we've got our four main guys: Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben, as well as:

Franklin Richards. Son of Reed and Sue. Lobdell acknowledged very obliquely in issue 1 that Franklin's mutant powers were responsible for the FF's disappearance into the "Heroes Reborn" alternate reality. It seems to be the intent with this relaunch to downplay Franklin as an all-powerful mutant, and write him more as just a normal kid (at least in terms of temperament). Claremont will eventually integrate some of the "Heroes Reborn" threads back into the series, which will make Franklin's "not a typical kid"-ness a little harder to ignore, but for right now that's how he's being played.

Billie the mail-woman. Introduced in this issue. She's the cute new mail delivery person that both Ben and Johnny crush on in this issue. Claremont will reveal her to be related to Willie Lumpkin, which is probably implied here by the Billie/Willie similarity, but Lobdell doesn't make it explicit.

Then we've got the new headquarters: Pier Four Warehouse. The idea is that it's quite a bit more small and humble than the Baxter Building or Four Freedoms Plaza. The former is ... well, I don't know why the former ever stopped being their headquarters. But as for the Four Freedoms Plaza, at this point in the continuity, it's the headquarters for the Thunderbolts, who took up residence there while the FF were lost in "Heroes Reborn." Since the warehouse is very small from the outside, Claremont will eventually do a little Dr. Who homage, and make the warehouse a bit Tardis-ish (Tard-ish doesn't sound good), with a tesseract that makes it "larger on the inside."

META
Someone has acquired Alicia Masters' old sculptures and is using them for a special "Heroes Reborn" exhibit, causing the Thing to say that the phrase "Heroes Reborn" is a stupid phrase, and must have been created by some dumb "marketing" people. Once again, Lobdell's meta-game is weak. What is he implying, that the Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld comics were super awesome, but the Marvel marketing people made it sound stupid with a trite name? Once again, I don't understand Lobdell throwing shade at an event that he willingly participated in, and probably made quite a lot of bank on. The entire year's worth of comics was a huge marketing stunt that he benefited from, and now he's dissing the "marketing" people who came up with "Heroes Reborn?" 'Tevs.

STATUS QUO REDUX
Speaking of Alicia Masters, a foot-note tells us that she is currently a supporting character in the Silver Surfer comic. The Surfer and Alicia will be showing up in the comic soon.

SUBPLOT
A one-page cutaway subplot page introduces one of the Red Ghost's Super-Apes. Lobdell seems to have an affinity for those guys. He did a Beast serial for Mavel Comics Presents that featured the Ghost and the Apes as villains. (Come to think of it, that serial also featured a gag about a female mail-delivery person; does Lobdell have a fetish like Kristen Bell's character in "The Good Place"?)

The Ghost and the Apes certainly make more sense to show up in FF than they did as antagonists for Hank McCoy. Issue 3 will feature them as the main antagonists.

CHARACTER ARC
In issue 1, Lobdell made a point of having Johnny give Reed a bit of a hard time over how the latter's absent-mindedly-brilliant personality often manifests in the form of thoughtlessness, a lack of consideration toward his teammates. This issue sees Sue doing the same spiel, and she even gives a variation on that tired line, "The FF are more than a team. First and foremost, we're a FAMILY." So that's a characterization bit that Lobdell clearly has plans to explore. Claremont will definitely pick up on it, and it will ultimately become the overarching character piece for this entire collection of issues in the two-volume "Heroes Return" set. The whole thing will end up as a character piece for Reed, and the push-and-pull between the coldness of his analytical mind, versus the warm, compassionate side of him that motivates his heroism. I think that some readers may see that as an overdone theme for Reed, but I like the way CC explores it, and it works out nicely that Lobdell seeds it right from his first issue. It means that the two-volume TPB duology actually does have a thematic motif threading through its entirety, and it's more than just an arbitrary collection of FF comics slapped together into a set. But we'll get more into that as we go.

FINAL THOUGHTS
My criticisms aside, I think this one is really solid. The gags and slapstick during the opening bit -- involving Reed having invented psychic furniture -- work surprisingly well given the silliness of that premise, with some nice verbal punchlines from Lobdell while Davis handles the logistics of superhero farce with the same skill he always did in those early comedy-heavy Excalibur issues ten years earlier. I think this issue more than the first one shows that the Lobdell/Davis pairing had legs. (Had the two ever worked together before this?) They were starting to develop some synergy here, and perhaps if they'd both stuck with the series, their run could have developed into something memorable. Maybe even -- what is the expression you Americans use? -- "second only to Lee and Kirby"!

But srsly, this was a good one. I dug it.

Fantastic Four #3.

This is the last issue to have illustrations by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. It's also the last issue to be scripted by Scott Lobdell, though Lobdell's name will remain in the credits for issues 4 and 5, as the plotter whose story is being dialogued by Mr. Chris Claremont.

MY MEMORY WAS OFF
I had it in my head that issue 3 was the start of a two-parter that was left for Claremont to resolve in issue 4, and that was why issue 4 was double-sized, because CC -- in his wordiness -- needed twice the pages to resolve what Lobdell was going to resolve in a normal-sized issue. There may be some truth in my assumptions, but my memory of the structure of this transition was off. Any way you look at it, though, this is an oddly structured issue.

THE STORY
The main story is nice and straightforward, picking up from the one-page teaser from issue 2 about the Super-Apes. Here we get the full deal, which is a simple pot-boiler about the three apes planning to kill a bunch of Times Square New Year's Eve revelers with nerve gas. The FF learn of the plot and manage to stop them. Ba-boom. Very simple story, albeit well executed by Lobdell and Davis. A very fun sequence, with Davis and Farmer drawing some truly awesome-looking super-apes.

STATUS QUO
This issue establishes that Reed Richards is working as a "consulting professor" at Empire State University, which I think will be grist for some of Claremont's upcoming plots. He'll certainly acknowledge that gig, at any rate.

CHRONOLOGY
Minor point of observation: Issue 2 came out in December, and actually showed the FF's "Pier Four Warehouse" headquarters decorated a bit with Christmas tree and like-such-as. Now issue 3, the January one, is set explicitly on New Year's Eve. So that's a thing that isn't really that important.

THE SUB-PLOTS
This issue sees Lobdell developing or introducing FOUR distinct sub-plots. Four of them. On this ... his last issue of the series. What happened? Man, this cannot have been an amicable parting of the ways, right?

So what are these four threads that Lobdell lays on us right before quitting the title?

1 Iconoclast
The guy from last issue. We open this issue with Reed investigating that loose end, but certainly not resolving it. We're told one tantalizing thing: That he is a "single-celled organism." That's certainly an intriguing notion, given that the character appeared to be a normal-sized humanoid with super-powers, like any other typical comic-book antagonist. I'm certainly curious to see where Lobdell was going with that, but alas, we'll never hear from Iconoclast again. (Will we? I'm assuming not, but maybe some writer picked up on it at some point.)

2 Red Ghost and the Super Apes
While their evil plot is foiled, Lobdell clearly has more story he wants to tell with these guys too. For one thing, the super-apes are now super-intelligent while the Red Ghost is now acting like the dumb one from that book about the two dudes. Lenny? "Tell me about the rabbits, George." That guy. I'm blanking on everything about that book, including the author and title. Hemingway? Of Mice and Men? That sounds right. Not a favorite book of mine.

Anyway, the Super-Apes used to each have one of three powers, while the Red Ghost had a fourth power ... all thanks to exposure to cosmic rays, the source of the FF's powers as well. So in this issue, we learn that all the apes now have ALL the powers. Reed observes all this, and thinks that something similar might happen to the FF: that their powers will start to merge, and also their personalities might bleed together. I guess this means that the Super-Apes getting smarter is the Red Ghost's intellect "bleeding" into theirs, and Red getting stupider is him getting the personalities of the apes? Lobdell is vague on that point, but probably deliberately because he wants to leave some mystery for later.

Bottom line, this is Lobdell seeding another plot thread that is pointless because this is his last issue.

3 The first appearance of Crucible
We get a full three pages devoted to Isabel and Gord (a pair of innocents that will probably need the FF to rescue them) and a new villain called "Crucible." We then get a footnote saying "More about this guy in issue 5," which seems like an odd footnote. Usually Marvel footnotes point your toward past issues so you can learn more about something you might have missed but has been referenced in the dialogue of the current issue. I mean, am I right? It seems odd to have the editors say, "This subplot we've introduced will be resolved two issues from now, just in case you were worried." I guess this is our first clue that those first two subplots ain't goin' nowhere. There weren't no footnotes for those two threads, no how.

4 The Mole Man returns
Again, his appearance in issue 1 seemed like mostly a joke, while also being a nod to the "tradition" of FF first issues. But no, apparently (maybe?) Lobdell had plans for the Mole Man. He shows up at the end here to make some vaguely ominous speechifying, and then suddenly we're To Be Continued.

This will be the storyline that Claremont resolves in a double-sized fourth issue illustrated by the new art team, Salvador Larocca and Art Thibert.

STRUCTURE, IN SUMMARY
So. We have what's actually a totes fun "FF vs. the Super-Apes" battle, which is wonderfully staged by Lobdell and Davis, but that's only about half of the total comic, with the other half devoted to introducing or developing subplots that Lobdell won't stick around to pay off. Not exactly a great note to go out on, for this first creative team. I mean, the idea of a team coming in to only do a three-issue run before moving on is fine by me. And the template they set up -- done-in-one action stories but always leaving some loose ends to explore -- is very nice. This almost could have worked, but ... when you look at these three issues, it feels like too much flash and dazzle and not enough of anything really substantive. Not a solid run on its own, even if it is a solid beginning of what could have been a great run if it had went on. Wha' happen, guys?

FINAL THOUGHTS
Issue 2 was definitely the best of the three Lobdell/Davis/Farmer issues. This one isn't bad either. The main part of the issue is incredibly enjoyable, I'd say. And even the subplot pages are fine ... at least CC and Larocca will resolve the Mole Man and Crucible stuff. It's just a weirdly haphazard note on which to end a creative team's run, and it's frustrating that the Iconoclast and Red Ape subplots are going to be completely forgotten.

Next: Issue 4! Claremont! AT LAST

Fantastic Four #4
(Release date: February of 1998)

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTE
My memory failed me again ... I was thinking this FF run began in 1998, but no, the first issue was released in November of 1997. That makes sense, if "Heroes Reborn" began in 1996 and was 13 issues long, then the characters were relaunched again for "Heroes Return," then "Return" would have started in 1997.

So. NOW we're at 1998 for realz.

NEW CREATIVE TEAM
Though this and the next issue will give credit to Lobdell for the plot, we're seeing a new creative team debut here. Lobdell/Davis/Farmer are out. Claremont/Larocca/Thibert are in!

DOUBLE-SIZED
This issue is double-sized! I wonder if Lobdell had conceived this story as a two-parter, and Claremont was just impatient to get the Lobdell stuff over and done with, so he said, "Nah, let's double-size this bad-boy so it can be taken care of in a single month." Issue #1 was also a double-sized issue. It sees unusual to see two double-sized issues of the same series only three months apart. That's got to be a rarity in Marvel Comics' publishing history.

THE STORY
A new incarnation of Terminus emerges from the earth, its body actually made up of thousands of individual moloids, stolen from the Mole Man's underground kingdom. This mass enslavement of a species' life-force was so horrible that it actually summoned the Silver Surfer, who -- along with Alicia Masters -- arrives on the roof of Four Freedoms Plaza, presumably to seek out the aid of the Fantastic Four.

At this point in the continuity, the Plaza is no longer the headquarters for the Thunderbolts. It's actually been trashed (the footnote says it happened in Thunderbolts #10), which is why the FF are now living at the Pier 4 Warehouse. Fortunately, Ben Grimm spots the Surfer's arrival at the Plaza, so the FF are still able to rendezvous with the Surfer, at which point they let the Surfer lead them to the source of the horrible disturbance he detected.

That takes them to Yorkton, a town in Canada where the new Terminus has chosen to emerge. The expected battle ensues, and ultimately it's the Surfer who is able to free the moloids, thus defeating Terminus.

CHARACTER STUFF
At this point in the continuity, longtime Ben girlfriend Alicia Masters has hooked up with the Silver Surfer (a development that makes sense to me, certainly, given how his first appearance played out in the original Lee/Kirby Galactus story). Claremont uses the Surfer/FF team-up here to draw a line underneath the Ben/Alicia romance. Ben is heartbroken of course, but nonetheless tells Alicia that he's happy as long as she is happy. Awww ...

Billie the mailwoman returns, her proper first name given as "Wilhemina" (li'l Dracula nod) and she's said to have an "Uncle Willie." We still aren't explicitly told that her last name is "Lumpkin," but that's the implication of course.

Sue mentions at one point that she doesn't like the way superheroing so often takes her and Reed away from their son, Franklin.

Seeing his moloids exploited by Terminus makes the Mole Man realize that he's always done the same, treating his "subjects" as mindless labor. He vows to change his ways after this adventure, having realized that he cares about the moloids. It's a lovely Claremontian bit, my favorite thing about this issue.

SUBPLOTS
Claremont keeps the "Crucible" subplot from the previous issue going. The character is still mysterious, but he's a product of the same monastery that produced Dr. Doom. He has kidnapped Gord and Isabel, the two civilians introduced in the previous issue. They are journalists, and at the moment the only motive for keeping them alive seems to be so that they can chronicle Crucible's story, but there may be more to it than that. We get the two characters' full names: Gordon Clay and Isobel Aguirre. (Claremont changed the spelling of the lady's first name.)

At one point, the FF's flying car malfunctions due to what Reed identifies as a computer virus. I want to say the "malfunctioning FF equipment" subplot will continue but I don't know if CC ever resolves it. (Unresolved plot threads are definitely a motif for this run. Kind of a Claremont staple, really.)

THE FANTASTIC X-FOUR
One complaint some have/had about this run is that it feels like Claremont turning the FF into stealth X-Men comic. There's grist for that mill in CC's earliest issues for sure, but it's certainly not true of the run overall. Issue #4 is an FF issue par excellence: the Mole Man, the moloids, Silver Surfer, Alicia Masters, Terminus? (Granted, it's from a plot by Lobdell, so CC maybe can't take the credit for the ingredients of the story, only for the execution.)

That said, I suppose one must be fair and point out that Terminus (a John Byrne creation?) was used by CC in an Art Adams-illustrated X-Men annual, the 1988 one to be exact. That was one of my first X-Men comics, and it's awesome. I always think of Terminus as an X-villain because of that comic even though he's really not one. But if he were, then this would be the first example in Claremont's FF of an X-character turning up. (Again, though, that criticism is really only true in the first six months to eight months or so of Claremont's run, after which the X-influence on the series is minor to non-existent.)

ANEC-DOOT-AL
I never said whether I was reading this stuff for the first time or re-reading it. Answer: I only read pieces of this run years ago, and then only recently I bought these trades and finally was able to read the entire collection in its entirety ... but I got distracted by my Wild Cards re-read. So, some of these comics I've read multiple times; some I've read only once before; and near the end, we'll get to some that I've never read at all.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Man, I sure do love Claremont's writing. I love his narrative captions from this era; very dense, adding an entire layer of depth to the story that we don't see in the visuals. Arguably that's always been a feature of his work, but it's very noticeable to me in this FF run. The opening sequence has a nice synergy between the text and the visuals, with Larocca giving us a semi-comical image of the Thing in a bathrobe, "FF"-emblazoned boxer shorts and fuzzy novelty slippers, while Claremont gets into a long narrative digression about Ben's father, and how New York City has changed in the years since Ben was a kid. The sequence has a wonderful sense of warmth, and creates that sense that the FF are relatable as people, moreso than any of the Lobdell-written issues really did. (In my opinion, of course.)

And the Mole Man having a revelation that he truly cares about the anonymous moloids is such a sweet and wonderful turn; I can't imagine any other writer pulling it off so nicely.

While most artists will suffer in comparison to Alan Davis' expert-level superhero work, I'm pretty impressed with this debut from Larocca. It's a totally different style from Davis', but it also has a nicely organic quality to it. It's a lot quirkier than Alan Davis, but it still conveys the character and story quite clearly. And a lot of it looks cool as well, particularly his take on the Surfer's visual.

This is a pretty dang cool issue. While the ultimate pairing for this run of FF would have been Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, this issue by Claremont and Larocca is very promising. As a double-sized package featuring Terminus, Mole Man AND the Silver Surfer, it feels like either an "anniversary" issue or perhaps the first issue of yet another reboot. Instead it's ... issue #4, which is sort of strange. But it's basically the double-sized debut of the new creative team, and as such it's a very promising start.

Next: Issue 5!

I didn't know The Vont had ever written the FF.

I'll be reading this thread with a modicum of interest.

Oh yeah, I had all these issues. The storyline gets complicated near the end. Too many characters get introduced. Which plagues the FF to this day.

I don't think I've read a regular issue of the FF since the ones with Lyja impersonating Alicia Masters and giving birth to an egg...at which point I bailed. I'd been reading the FF non-stop since the days of John Byrne at that point but those issues - The DeFalco/Ryan ones - just killed it for me. They were dreadful.

I bought them but didn't read them all. Then I bought the Heroes Reborn FF and didn't finish all 13 issues. I looked at the art of all these comics, though.

As noted in the issue 1 review!

It's plagued other Claremont series too. Sovereign Seven had exponentially more than seven main characters.

On Sovereign Seven Claremont's artist, Duayne Turner, couldn't draw the emotion Claremont needs to be successful.

Yeah, that wasn't an ideal pairing.

Fantastic Four #5
Released in March of 1998

CREDITS
Lobdell's name appears on the credits one last time, though this issue feels Claremont through-and-through to me. But it's continuing the "Crucible" story that began in Lobdell's last issue, so perhaps that is whence the credit. I'm not sure that anything of Lobdell really is in this issue, other than that it features a villain created by him, employing a pair of unwitting servants (Gordon and Isabel) that were created by Lobdell as well.

THE STORY
Reed and Ben fly to Stockholm for a science conference. There, they meet up with a new addition to the cast, Alyssa Moy, an old flame of Reed's. She's an adventurous sort, who owns a flying car a la SHIELD. (She's an element of this story that makes it feel pure CC to me. She's a Claremont female, through and through.)

The three of them go to the big conference where there's a bunch of other scientist-types. But the whole she-bang is crashed by Crucible, who looks a little (but not a lot) Dr. Doomy.

He's there to use some magical device to -- the good guys presume -- steal the scientific knowledge of all the people in attendance. Like a brain-absorption type of dealio. Crucible is beaten before he can do that, but it's implied that he did manage to steal the smarts of one guy: a certain Reed Richards. Aw man.

Though Crucible is defeated at the end, his two unwitting accomplices Gordon and Isabel escape to do ... something.

SPELLINGS
Isabel was introduced as Isabel in issue 3, then was given the last name Aguirre in issue 4, but her first name was spelled "Isobel" for some raison. In this issue, she is Isabel Aguirre. We'll get this locked down at some point, I'm sure! Even Gordon Clay is having his nicknames played with. Isabel called him "Gord" in issue 3, but now she's taken to calling him "Gordo."

SUB-PLOTS
Alyssa Moy believes that reality is in jeopardy, although the specifics are vague. Basically she's worried that the structural integrity of space-time has been weakened too much by the various reality-bending events of recent times: "Age of Apocalypse" followed by "Onslaught" followed by "Heroes Reborn" followed by "Heroes Return." There might be some meta in that, with CC throwing shade on the X-title crossovers that happened after he quit. But it's subtle if so -- at least when compared to some of those Lobdell moments in issues 1 and 2 of this series.

The whole "reality might collapse" deal will eventually be resolved, although Claremont definitely stretches it out ... as is his wont. I want to say it won't be until the series is into the 20s that we'll finally get the payoff.

CHARACTERS
Alyssa Moy is not just a one-off character introduced for the sake of this story. She's basically joining the cast as of this issue.


THE FANTASTIC X-FOUR
During the plane-ride to Stockholm, Reed and Ben foils a hijacking by terrorists from Genosha. That's an X-reference. Claremont created Genosha back in 1988, in issues 235-238 of Uncanny. (One of the all-time great X storylines.) It's a fake African nation, and the original storyline let Claremont do a whole "apartheid" metaphor, and it was great. After that, the country became a setting for lots of developments. I'm not sure exactly what the status quo of Genohsa was in 1998 (since that's long after Claremont had left the X-universe). But the terrorist attack in this issue isn't just an arbitrary nod. The whole "Crucible" storyline will actually end up staging its climactic sequences in the country of Genosha, with Claremont bringing a lot of elements from his X-run into play.

REED RICHARDS, INC.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. I only kind of sort of have a vague idea of what that means, but we IMWANers have pointed out that John Byrne was clearly putting himself into Reed Richards during his time writing FF. Byrne's old partner Claremont ends up doing the same, I think. The FF series starts to feel a bit like it's the Reed Richards show, and the large cast that gets built up around Reed are sort of his team of associates. When my friend was reading this run alongside me in college, he pointed out that the series shouldn't have been called Fantastic Four while CC was writing it, but something more like "Reed Richards, Inc." (taking a cue from Alan Moore's FF pastiche "Mystery Incorporated").

Marcus made a point that I hadn't considered, which is that latter-day takes on the FF have gone this route. Claremont was somewhat ahead of the curve in this way, one could argue. (I shall argue it.) Jonathan Hickman made Reed the central figure of FF, and ... was Hickman also the one to turn the Fantastic Four into "Future Foundation"? Not exactly "Reed Richards, Inc." but awfully close in spirit. People said that Hickman wrote FF a bit like Alan Moore's Tom Strong, with Reed as the central "Tom" figure. But of course Claremont does something similar, and his FF actually precedes Tom Strong. CDEF. (Claremont did everything first.)

Anywho, the "Reed Richards as central figure" approach begins here. Reed is absolutely the central figure in this, the start of Claremont's long-running story with the Crucible character that Lobdell created. Ben and Alyssa are the secondary characters, while Johnny and Sue are completely sidelined.

Claremont even does the trick that Moore used so much in Tom Strong here, alluding to Reed Richards having had a whole bunch of adventures even before FF #1. A very brief flashback shows him as an Indiana Jones figure, having pulp-style adventures with Alyssa.

Sidebar: Claremont likes the idea of "Indiana Jones meets Bonny and Clyde," i.e. Indy but with a female partner. He alluded to the same thing in his WildCATs run in 1994. But curiously, I don't think he's ever just gone ahead and wrote a story like that. I guess the allusion is enough to sate him. But it didn't sate Marvel, who ended up doing a "Reed Richards: Before the FF" three-issue mini that expanded on the idea of Reed as Indiana Jones. Peter David wrote that mini. I bought it at some point, since I dig PAD. It's not a bad supplement to the "Heroes Return" material. If I can dig up my copies, I'll write those up for this thread as well.

Bottom line: Claremont really builds up Reed Richards a lot in this run. Personally, I dig it. The opening sequence, with Reed and Ben taking care of the hijackers is delightful, and the whole energy of this issue -- the chemistry amongst Reed, Ben and Alyssa Moy -- is marvelous. The ending is rather powerful too, with Reed (who has lost some of his intelligence to Crucible's magic device, though he doesn't know it yet) resorting to defeating Crucible through brute force rather than his mind. He ends up just giving Crucible a savage beat-down, which is quite striking behavior from Mr. Fantastic, and very visceral in execution. Some good work by Larocca here.


FINAL THOUGHTS
I mentioned in an earlier post, this run of comics is certainly not compressed, in terms of its narrative style. Lots of captions, lots of dialogue, a lot of things going on. Each issue is DENSE. I like it ... lots of content for your buck ... even if it does mean that a single volume containing seventeen full issues is an intimidating sort of experience.

This issue feels to me truly like the beginning of the Claremont run, even though it's his second issue scripting (and the name "Lobdell" is still hanging on in the opening credits, albeit for the last time). The build-up of Reed Richards as the central hero -- a little bit Indiana Jones mixed with an "ur-Tom Strong" energy -- will be a motif that lasts through all of CC's tenure, and issue 5 is the start of it. The first appearance of Alyssa Moy -- who will be a fixture for the rest of the CC tenure -- adds to that "inaugural" sort of feel. (Sidebar: Mark Millar later did a run on FF that incorporated Alyssa Moy. In a nice example of giving CC his due credit, Millar said in an interview that he originally wanted to create a new character -- a fiery, adventurous woman from out of Reed's pre-FF past -- but then realized that Claremont had already beat him to that idea. Nicely gracious, MM!)

And it's a good one! It's old fashioned in many respects, most notably the opening with the heroes (Reed and Ben, in this case) pulling off a generically super-heroic rescue. Yet it feels somewhat futuristic as well. Reed is a stuffy academic and throwback, but he's also still a cutting-edge intellect, which is pretty nifty. I love the logistics of that opening rescue. There's an overall sense of large-scale adventure to this issue that comes through beautifully.

The past is prologue, as someone once said and Claremont says often. In this case, the first four issues of "Heroes Return" are pretty much that prologue. Issue 5 is where Claremont really gets his show on the road, and it's a strong start.

Fantastic Four #6
Released in April of 1998.

CHRONOLOGY
I noted that the December issue (#2) made a point of having Christmas decorations in the visuals, and then issue 3 in January had a plot based around the New Year's Eve celebrations in Time Square. I didn't think there would be much to track beyond that, but the quasi-"real time" of the Heroes Return FF continues, as the April issue is literally titled "April Is the Cruelest Month." So, for what that's worth.

THE STORY
Reed and Sue celebrate the anniversary of their first date. While they obliviously have a romantic evening, back at Pier Four Alyssa, Franklin and the Thing are attacked by Gatecrasher and the Technet. They're after Franklin Richards, so Ben sends Alyssa running off with Franklin, and she promises she'll keep him safe. That leaves the Thing alone to take on the Technet. (Although one of the Technet, Ferro2, goes chasing off after Alyssa and Franklin.)

The Technet end up winning the fight, and capturing Ben. TO BE CONTINUED!

STRUCTURE
Lobdell had established this "done in one but with loose ends" type of structure for the new series, which was kind of cool. But Lobdell's name is now permanently off the credits, and so CC gives us our first true multi-parter of the relaunch, starting here with Part 1. I've read these early issues before but I am now writing them up an issue at a time, so I'm going by memory as far as what is in store for future episodes. That said, I'm pretty sure I remember this being a three-parter, running through issues 6-8.

STATUS QUO
Alyssa seems to be taking up residence at the Pier Four headquarters as of this issue? It's never explained exactly why ... and maybe I'm just misinterpreting. But Ben gives Alyssa a tour of the headquarters, and there sure is a sense that he's giving her a tour to a new roommate. Maybe later issues will make this clear.

GUEST STARS
That said, this is not exactly an issue characterized by narrative clarity. We open in "the skyscraper headquarters of Oracle, Inc." And ... what is that, exactly? If this were the DC Universe, I'd have guessed it was the headquarters for the Birds of Prey, but in the MU, I don't know from Oracle.

Anyway, we're at the headquarters of Oracle Inc. and we get a scene that I do like ... Sue Richards is being taught the martial arts by no less a sensei than Danny Rand himself, the Iron Fist! Also on hand are Luke Cage, Colleen Wing and Misty Knight. It's a Netflix-riffic gathering, indeed! She-Hulk is there too, and she and Janet van Dyne will later accompany Sue to a dress fitting.

We're told that Luke and Danny are the "Heroes for Hire" and that Knight and Wing are partners in an organization called "Nightwing." (Hey, I just got that!) And She-Hulk is the lawyer for Heroes for Hire (sure, why not?) and that She-Hulk and Luke are both former members of the FF. That's a lot of exposition, though for the average MU fan, it's all SOP. (Actually I either forgot or never knew that Luke was once in the FF, but I can roll with that.)

The martial arts sequence is fun, with Sue almost winning a mock martial arts duel with martial-arts master Danny Rand. Sue Richards? More like MARY SUE Richards, am I right? (To be fair, she cheats by using her powers.)

Then later, she goes for a dip in the pool, and suddenly the Sub-Mariner is there. He and Sue do some pretty steamy flirting. It's a nice scene, and I guess CC figures that most FF fans know the backstory with Sue, Namor and the FF and everything. The dialogue does make the outlines of the old love triangle clear enough. That said ... he just shows up out of nowhere. So then I says to myself, I says ... "Does Namor own Oracle, Inc.? Is this his building? Cause if not, how did he get into the private pool room to go swimming with Sue?" So I says to myself, "That must be it: Oracle must be a thing from Sub-Mariner, maybe the Byrne days when he was rich and owned a company." But then I says, "Wait, so ... why is this where Danny is giving kung-fu lessons to Sue? Do the Heroes for Hire work out of the Oracle building?"

There's a piece of info missing here. Is Oracle just a building that superheroes rent out? And why was She-Hulk watching the practice session anyway? Like, if I was giving kung-fu lessons, I don't think I'd have my lawyer observing every lesson. Then again, as I type that out, it actually sounds prudent.

Anyway. Later, Sue gets a dress fitting, like I says earlier. The dress designer is "Kay Sera," but before you blame Claremont for the pun ... Kay is actually a member of the ClanDestine, the Marvel series conceived/written/drawn by Alan Davis which I think had been cancelled by '98.

SPEAKING OF ALAN DAVIS
Gatecrasher's Technet are from Captain Britain mythology. Alan Davis had a hand in the creation of all the members of the team who appear in FF #6, having crafted all these visuals. The oldest visual for this team is, I believe, Thug. Thug looks exactly like Legion, a member of the Special Executive, from the Alan Moore/ Alan Davis era of 'Tain 'Tain. Gatecrasher herself showed up later, when Jamie Delano had taken over the writing of the 'Tain 'Tain serial. Scatterbrain is also from the Moore era, although she was originally called Fascination.

When Claremont and Davis teamed up to continue the adventures of Brian Braddock in Excalibur, Gatecrasher and the Technet were the very first villain team to show up, back in the squarebound 48-page special edition. At that point, Claremont and Davis added a bunch of new members, and that's the incarnation we see here, in FF #6.

Then there's Hard-Boiled Henry, a Tweetie-Bird homage (calls himself "Hawd -Boiled Henwy" you see), who was added to the team post-Claremont, when Davis was both writing AND drawing Excalibur, circa 1992.

OH, I FORGOT
Ohhh, and I forgot! There's an *extremely​* brief reference in FF #5 to the "Warwolves" having escaped from the London zoo. That's also from Excalibur. The Warwolves made their first appearance in that selfsame squarebound Excalibur Special Edition. They were agents of Mojo, two or three of whom ended up in the London Zoo at the end of Excalibur #2, published in 1988.

WHY ALL THE ALAN DAVIS NODS?
I wonder if Claremont thought when he first took this assignment that Alan Davis was going to be staying on as the artist, and it got him thinking of how to incorporate characters from other Davis stories, not just the earlier Claremont/Davis collaborations, but also stuff that Davis did himself, like the Clan Destine? And then when Davis was replaced by Larocca, was Claremont just too taken with his initial ideas to conceive of anything else?

I actually quite like Sal Larocca's work on this Claremont run of FF (and CC did too, presumably, as he continued to work with Sal for years afterwards on various X-projects). But it would certainly have been neat to see this early arc illustrated by Davis. This whole arc from issues 6-8 feels like the FF deposited directly into an Excalibur comic, and it feels strange that Davis isn't along for this party.

FRANKLIN RICHARDS, GOD
I mentioned earlier that Lobdell tried to downplay the fact that Franklin Richards is the most uber-powerful character in the FF cast. Which is funny, considering that his ultra-god-like power is behind the whole premise of "Heroes Reborn" and "Heroes Return." Claremont continues to write Franklin so far as a normal kid. We're six issues in and he's never used his powers. That said, CC is making Frankie's power a plot point as of now. This whole thing of the Gatecrasher trying to kidnap Franklin back to their home dimension because he's too powerful a being to just be wandering about the multiverse ... is basically a reprise of those early Excalibur issues when they were trying to kidnap Rachel "Young Phoenix" Summers, for the same reason.

SIDEBAR: Rachel and Franklin have long been associated with each other, of course; as adults, they're a romantic couple in the "Days of Future Past" dystopian future ... and the adult couple was kinda sorta reunited in the "Days of Future Past" crossover from 1990. Rachel is the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from an alternate future, which I mention because that "daughter from the future" trope is going to be rearing its head soon here in the FF. Mr. Claremont has certain tropes he loves to return to ...

ONGOING THREADS
After Crucible messed with Reed's intellect in the previous issue, FF#6 opens sometime later, and no one but Alyssa Moy is sure that he's changed. It's noted that Reed underwent various evaluations to make sure he was okay, and they came up clean. But he's acting strangely: He makes romantic plans with Sue to celebrate the anniversary of their first date, AND he takes his son to a Yankee game. Ben is the voice of reason as Alyssa expresses her concerns. As he points out, a guy takes time out of his schedule to treat his son to a ballgame, and his wife to a romantic dinner, and we're supposed to take that as a sign that he's got something wrong with him?

I did wonder how CC would resolve this story initially. Obviously the idea is that there IS something wrong with Reed, but how do you solve this without making Reed into a huge jerk. "Whew, I've got my intellect back! No more lame dates with the wife!" But rest assured, it's resolved quite satisfactorily. And this is even a continuation of a character arc introduced by Lobdell in the earlier issues, where Reed's tendency to become distracted by his intellect (and sometimes rude and thoughtless as a result of that) was forefronted. So CC is playing the game by the rules laid out by the previous writer. Can't be more fair than that. For now, though, he creates an interesting conflict. There's something "wrong" with Reed, but it seems to have made him a better person. What does that say about the true Reed?

ARTWORK
CC and Sal seem to still be working out the kinks in their storytelling collaboration. There are some weird things in here. I mentioned the lack of clarity above in some of the use of guest stars. There are also some odd moments near the end. CC seems to want to contrast the tranquil serenity of Reed and Sue's romantic dinner with the freneticism of the Thing's fight with the Technet, so he has Larocca cross-cut between the two scenes. But the panel placements are sometimes odd, as are some of Sal's "camera placements," which create an odd flow at times. Sometimes the jarred pace seems deliberate ... but other times, it feels unintentionally juddery.

That said, I do enjoy SL's style more often than not. His MILF-y Sue Storm in her Kay Sera-designed crazy dress is pretty great, and he handles all those wild Technet designs admirably.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The slew of guest stars in this issue is badly handled, as CC assumes that we're all up to date on the status quo of all these folks, and won't have any questions about who they are or why they're all hanging out. The biggest one for me is how/why Namor shows up in the big indoor pool while Sue is taking a dip. Does he live at Oracle??? I know I already ranted above, but every time I think about it, it drives me mad anew.

But the stuff with Reed being a great dad and a suavely romantic husband is actually pretty wonderful, I think. Alyssa as the outsider being the only one to be perturbed by the new Reed is a nice angle. Ben is the voice of the rest of the FF, basically saying, We've been telling Reed to be more like this for years. Now he finally is, so why complain? Only an outsider who lacks that context can see that there is something objectively askew about Reed's behavior. That works out nicely, and justifies Alyssa's presence in the story -- even though it's another point of lack of clarity that we don't even know why she's there. Is she visiting NYC for a couple days? Is she moving into the headquarters with the team permanently?

Oh, there's another scene I love, BTW: Ben cooking diner for Alyssa and Franklin, just before the Technet show up. Claremont really nails these scenes of domesticity. It's such a tired cliche whenever someone actually says in dialogue "The FF are a FAMILY, first and foremost!" But when it's just shown and not told, it's wonderful. It reminds me of Byrne and Stern mocking Claremont for wanting more scenes of the X-Men in "jeans and T shirts," just hanging out. Those are the scenes that really sing in a Claremont comic. It doesn't have to be jeans and T shirts: With the FF in this case, it's either designer clothes or the Thing in an apron ... but still, when CC writes these characters as normal people doing normal things, it's always pure delight.

The first time I read this issue, I really didn't like all the Excalibur stuff showing up in the FF. It bothers me less these days. The weirdness of the Captain Britain mythos is actually not a bad fit for the FF team, really -- characters who visit alternate realities and dimensions and what-not. Plus, this version of the FF does really remind me of Tom Strong retroactively ... so the idea of Tom Strong characters dealing with the Alan Moore-saturated Brian Braddock mythology feels fairly intuitive to me now. So as a reader now I'm perfectly happy seeing the Technet show up as antagonists for the FF. It works very nicely for me.

Some points off of this one for the lack of clarity at certain points, and the abundance of unnecessary guest stars ... But overall I think this is a successful issue. (Those less enamored of Captain Britain and his wacky world might disagree.)

Fantastic Four #7
Released in May of 1998

THE STORY
Continuing on from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, with Alyssa Moy and Franklin on the run from Ferro2. The rest of the Technet had just taken the Thing prisoner, and so they're all set to join the chase for Franklin.

Happily, Alyssa uses her super-smarts to jury-rig an "FF signal." Reed, Sue and Johnny arrive in short order, around the same time that the rest of the Technet catch up with Ferro2. We get the requisite team vs. team fight. Reed manages to free the Thing, so the FF are up to full strength by the end. They're more or less ready to completely kick the Technet's @$$es, when Gatecrasher changes the theatre of war on them. She transports them all from Timeline 616 to Timeline 1, where the FF have to deal with ... THE CAPTAIN BRITAIN CORPS.

'TAIN 'TAIN
Claremont doubles down on making this an Excalibur story. As if Gatecrasher and the Technet weren't enough (along with the Warwolves, who also make an appearance), the cliffhanger brings us Captain Britain himself, albeit alternate reality versions.

Alan Moore created the Captain Britain Corps back in the early 80s, in the same story that established the whole idea of the omniverse, with its alternate numbered realities each one having its own version of Captain Britain. The overall team is called the "Captain Britain Corps" (a nod probably to the Green Lantern Corps), even though most of the individual Captains have "alternate" names: Captain England, Captain Albion, Captain Britannica, etc.

It's in those old Captain Britain stories from Marvel UK that Moore first named the mainstream Marvel Universe as reality number 616. Crazily, that designation has stuck, for like forty years now. Mainstream comics are so wacky sometimes.

THE WARWOLVES
I'm a beat behind in tracking this whole "Warwolves" arc. Issue 5 was the one that had an oh-so-brief narrative caption that mentioned the Warwolves escaping from the London zoo (following up on the end of a story from Excalibur that had been published ten years earlier). Issue 6 actually forwarded that subplot, again in a blink-and-you-miss it way, when Sue goes jogging and at one point suspects that a police car is actually tracking her. When she arrives back at Pier Four, the cop car is forgotten.

But the cop car returns in this issue, during the initial chase scene between Ferro and Alyssa. The cop car is actually a London Police Car, and its filled with three seeming British cops who are actually the three Warwolves in disguise. They attack Alyssa for unknown reasons, but Alyssa and Franklin escape.

The idea of a villain disguised as a quaint British Isles police officer is a Claremontism for sure, going back to the Proteus Saga. And speaking of Claremontisms, we also get:

A SUPERHERO MONTAGE
Another one going back to the CC/JB X-Men ... some major psychic "thing" happens, and we get a montage of different superheroes reacting to it. The first time we saw CC do this was in X-Men 135, I believe. It might have been Byrne's idea? Spider-Man's spider-sense goes off, Dr. Strange senses psychic emanations, and the Surfer's power cosmic makes him think something is going down. The trick gets reprised in X-Men Annual 14, I believe, "Days of Future Present," with Rachel Summers causing a similar reaction. I think Spidey and Stephen Strange are there in that one too? I don't recall if there's a third guy in that one, though there must have been, right? Two superheroes a superhero montage does NOT make.

Anyway, once again Franklin is our uber-powerful substitute for Phoenix. He puts out a psychic distress call at one point, and once again we get our montage of reactions. Peter Parker and Steve Strange -- partners in Ditko-ness -- appear of course. Jean Grey gets to be IN the montage rather than causing it this time. And the Watcher pops his head in to remind us that while he can sense the SOS, he ain't gonna do sh*t about it. He just gonna watch, y'all.

Also part of the montage is Roma, the daughter of Merlin, who inherited stewardship of the omniverse in those same Alan Moore Captain Britain comics, after Merlin was killed. (Alan Davis brought Merlin back to life circa Excalibur 44, when he was writing an drawing the comic ... I can't remember if he killed him off again, though? Certainly he never shows up in these FF issues.)

CLAREMONT CREATED CAPTAIN BRITAIN, BTW
In all my talk of the 'Tain 'Tain comics by Moore, Davis, Delano, et al, I didn't note that the original Captain Britain comic is a creation of Chris Claremont with artist Herb Trimpe, from around 1976 or so. As Claremont tells it, he wasn't too thrilled by his own work with CB. He ditched the series after writing the first ten installments and forgot about the character. But then he got excited about the mythos again when reading the Alan Moore/Alan Davis stuff, which is how all that stuff eventually got imported into Claremont's X-universe via the Excalibur series beginning in 1988.

Anyway, Roma is actually a Claremont creation from the very first CB comic, although she isn't named there. She's just a floating god-head alongside a male god-head, also unidentified. It was a later TainTain writer who called the two Merlin and Roma, and made them father/daugther. Then Alan Moore killed off Merlin, which made Roma a much more key figure in the CB mythos going forward.

CC even made Roma a key character in a major X-Men storyline in 1987, just prior to launching Excalibur. He digs that lady, clearly.

SUBPLOTS
During the early part of the comic, with Alyssa's protracted chase threw NYC pursued by Ferro2, she accidentally interrupts an altercation among two apparent criminal gang factions. One faction is "the Bacchae," some warrior women (Claremont digs those) who had previously shown up, I believe, in a Spider-Man annual plotted by Claremont and scripted by some other fella. I keep meaning to track down that annual and see what these Bacchae are all about, but I keep on not doing that. One day I'll read that comic.

Claremont seemed to have designs for the Bacchae, but I don't know that they went anywhere. They occasionally get cameos like this in Claremont comics from this era. (Now that I think about it, FF #7 might be their first appearance, and the Spider-Man Annual comes later?)

The other faction in this gang war is led by someone named Lao Wei Chung, who thanks Alyssa for her inadvertent assistance by kissing her. This seems to be seeding a plot thread for a future story, though I think it gets lost in the shuffle. (That'll happen when you read a CC comic.)

Oh, and finally, there's the Warwolves thing. We get one last figure showing up in that montage with Spidey and Jean and everybody: But the figure is unidentified. We get a sense that he's the mastermind currently pulling the strings of the three escaped Warwolves. (Back in 1988 they worked for Mojo, but that's explicitly no longer the case.) But apart from that, we don't know who he is or precisely what his agenda might be. Who is this guy??? (I genuinely don't remember.)

THE REED RICHARDS THREAD
After last issue showed that post-Crucible Reed Richards was an awesome dad and romantic husband, now we finally get our first true inkling of the problematic side of Reed's transformation: At a critical moment during the battle with the Technet, Reed is stymied by a problem, and literally can't think of what to do. Trouble is brewing ...

FINAL THOUGHTS
Well, the subplots are starting to pile up, and this is only CC's fourth issue of the series. That's a little worrisome. But if we don't care too much about that and just go with the flow, this is an enjoyable issue. I like Alyssa, so the focus on her is cool with me ... That said, the best part of the story is when the FF finally come to her rescue. CC has some fun with the "Kung-Fu Sue" version of Susan Richards that he introduced in the previous issue (ret-conning matters in the narration captions to say that she's been taking lessons from Iron Fist for "a long time"). Sue is definitely the spotlighted member of the FF here, which makes sense given that CC loves to write those female heroes. But all four of the FF look great as drawn by Larocca for their big fight with the Technet. Only Johnny Storm feels neglected at this point in the run, but CC and the editors seem aware of that. (Issue 8's cover will spotlight the Torch.)

We're getting a little bogged down in subplots that may or may not pay off, but when CC and SL focus in, we get some solid FF material here. And the hint of Reed's "broken" mind is nicely handled as well.

An enjoyable issue, albeit not necessarily a favorite of mine from this run.

Fantastic Four #8
(June, 1998)

THE STORY
While Reed, Sue and Ben fight the Captain Britain Corps, the Human Torch is the one to figure out that Gatecrasher has the answers. He grabs her and takes off, scaring her into revealing who has employed her to kidnap Franklin.

The two of them head to the Citadel of Roma, where Johnny meets both her and Opal Luna Saturnyne, the "Omniversal Mastrex." Roma explains that Franklin must be put into her custody so that she can guide him in the use of the celestial-level power he demonstrated during the "Heroes Reborn" event. Johnny argues that the FF -- being Franklin's family -- are better equipped to guide and teach Franklin. On behalf of the other FF members, Johnny promises that if they fail to control Franklin's power, then Roma can have custody of all of them -- not just the kid, but the four adults as well. I'm not sure what she would do with them, but Roma and Saturnyne both seem to like the cut of Johnny's jib, so they agree.

On the last page of the issue, the FF are transported back to their own reality. The next issue will make clear that quite a bit more happened with Johnny in that last transition than we were shown. But I guess we'll get to that.

THE "BROKEN REED" STORY THREAD
It's implicit in that it's Johnny Storm, the hothead junior member of the team, is the one who solved the problem through intellectual debate with a higher power. That's usually Reed's deal. Also, when the team makes it back to Earth, Reed is so surprised and thrilled that he passionately kisses Sue. Sue digs it, but the undertone is that it's maybe a smidge immature of a reaction for Mr. Reed Richards.

CAMEOS
Galactus makes a cameo in this issue. He's just chilling with Roma and Saturnyne at the Omniversal Citadel, along with Eternity and Infinity -- those personifications of abstract concepts that I want to say first appeared in Ditko's Dr. Strange?

'TAIN TAIN
Roma, her citadel, Opal Luna Saturnyne, Gatecrasher, and the Captain Britain Corps, are all from the Captain Britain UK comics. I talked about most of these elements in the write-ups for issues 6 and 7, but I may have neglected Saturnyne. She first appeared in the Dave Thorpe/Alan Davis era of the Captain Britain serial. She was an authority figure from the start ... addressed by underlings as "Your Whyness," a cute touch that Claremont also uses here, in FF #8.

But as I recall, she wasn't quite as high an authority in the Dave Thorpe stories as she became. Alan Moore kind of promoted her once he took over the writing from Thorpe, and made her a major figure as far as the overall "omniverse" was concerned. I don't think she's called "mastrex" or "majestrix" or anything like that until Moore takes over. I could be wrong, but that's my recollection.

When later writers take over from Moore, they start bringing in alternate-reality versions of Saturnyne, in the same way that Moore had already introduced alternate Captain Britains. The most notable is Sat-Yr-9, a villainous "cosmic Nazi" version.

When Claremont takes back custody of the Brian Braddock and his now very large supporting cast, he brings back the love interest he had created for Brian back in the earliest CB strips, Courtney Ross. In the earliest issues of Excalibur, we learn that Courtney is the 616-version of Saturnyne. Which is kind of silly, but in a kind of cool way. Early on, Courtney Ross is killed and replaced by Sat-Yr-9. CC proceeds to do absolutely nothing with this subplot apart from having the new "evil" Coutrney quasi-seduce Kitty Pryde (hottt). Alan Davis eventually brought some resolution to this subplot in Excalibur 55-56 (I think), although that two-parter ends with Sat-Yr-9 free to return another day.

Eventually after Grant Morrison has Emma Frost join the X-Men, CC has his evil version Courtney join the Hellfire Club as the new White Queen. Which makes a certain amount of sense, one evil blond ice-queen replacing another. Almost like it was planned all along! But again, I don't know that anything comes of this. I get the sense CC had a notion that Sat-Yr-9 would eventually be sort of seduced by the good side, and become heroic like the original Courtney was. I don't know if that ever happened though.

None of which is important here, but I just love Captain Britain continuity.

As for the "real" Saturnyne of Earth-1, she sends Gatecrasher and the Technet to capture Rachel Summers which leads to Excalibur coming together in the original Special Edition. The plot thread takes a while to wrap up, as most CC threads do, but eventually Excalibur do come face-to-face with Saturnyne herself in Excalibur #24, and convince her to rescind the order to kidnap Phoenix. It's a bit anti-climactic and the implication is that Saturnyne has a hidden agenda, which I believe Alan Davis will also clarify in his later run as writer on the series. It's around this time that Saturnyne and Roma become more closely affiliated. The idea is that Roma is the ruler of the multiverse, but Saturnyne is pretty much the second-in-command. Maybe the liaison to the mortal world, since she's not a goddess like Roma. More to the point, Saturnyne isn't even a mutant or superhuman. She's just a human being with lotsa moxy.

One example in this issue: She threatens to destroy reality 616 in response to Johnny Storm's insolent behavior. The method depicted in FF #8 (with the crystals and what-not) is another bit right out of the original Moore/Davis serial, where a reality infected with madness was destroyed in the same manner. Looking at it now, I wonder if Moore and Davis were influenced by the Donner Superman with this bit. The whole thing of activating stuff by inserting crystals and stuff seems like what they did in the Fortress of Solitude.

But I digress.

ARTWORK
CC really asks a lot of Larocca. There are some big setpieces in this one, and the artist does rise to the challenge. The big Citadel looks nice in the splash page that introduces it, and I like the panel with Mr. Fantastic making his hands big enough to just start scooping up Captain Britains and flinging them out of his way.

OTHER CONTINUITY
When Roma talks about the whole "Heroes Return" bit, she has a chessboard in front of her, with pieces representing all the characters who were placed in the alternate reality by Franklin. The warwolves are also there (we still don't know how they fit into this). This is, again, from the Moore/Davis Captain Britain, which saw Roma and Merlin playing chess at one point, their doing so guiding the actions of the main characters. I loved this motif so much I stole it for my most recent libretto, "Isle of the Femizons." (I love warrior women as much as CC does!)

Claremont stole the bit too, when he had Roma show up in the "Fall of the Mutants" issues of X-Men, issues 225-227, published in late 1987, just before Excalibur first got underway.

FINAL THOUGHTS
CC had been neglecting Johnny Storm, so it's nice that he gives the character the chance to "save the day" at the conclusion of this three-parter. The ending is abrupt, though, as if Claremont ran out of pages at the end. (Next issue's events will corroborate this theory.)

This is definitely the era in which we're seeing the truth of CC's admission that he didn't have any story ideas for the FF when he first took over writing the series. This whole sequence from issues 6 to 8 feels a bit like flailing from one idea to the next, and the whole thing doesn't really come together as well as it could have. Since I'm a big Captain Britain fanboy, I find myself forgiving a lot of this story's flaws just because it's fun to see this deep plunge into CB continuity. But ultimately, issues 6 through 8 don't exactly add up to a classic FF adventure.

Fantastic Four #9
(July of 1998)

First off ...

FANTASTIC FOUR #1/2
I finally reached it! It was indeed some kind of Wizard giveaway, and it was only five pages as I guessed ... but it wasn't the first five pages of Lobdell and Davis' issue 1, as I thought it might be. Instead it's, some kind of sampler, preview of an FF comic that maybe was going to come out but didn't? I don't know. It's inserted randomly in the TPB between issues 8 and 9 even though it seems to have its own continuity going on. It's good, written and drawn by someone called "Ladronn"? It's very visually appealing, so much so that I almost couldn't read it without imagining the fingers of Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor pointing out li'l details here and there.

THE RETCONNING OF ISSUE 8
The previous issue had the transportation of the FF from Earth-1 (what CC calls the "Core Continuum," which also abbreviates to CC, how crazily confusing!) back to Earth-616 happen very abruptly, right in the middle of their fight with the Captain Britain Corps.

This issue retcons that, suggesting that at some point before the FF returned home, the entire team (most significantly Reed Richards) met with Roma and Saturnyne, I guess to hammer out the whole custody arrangement, whereby if the Fantastic Four screw up in raising Franklin, they all have to come back and live with Roma forever, I guess ...?

In any case, while Reed was meeting with the Omniversal Ruler and the Omniversal "Mastrex," Johnny met the Earth-1 version of Alysande Stuart. The 616 version of Alysande is yet ANOTHER character from Excalibur. Claremont introduced her somewhere early on, maybe during the "Inferno" issues of Excalibur. She was the twin brother of Alistaire Stuart, who got MUCH more screen time. Alysande was part of the "Muir Island X-Men" who existed for three issues (Uncanny 253-255) and then she was eventually refrigeratored by Alan Davis, who had the evil Sat-Yr-9 kill her in Excalibur 55-56. She and Alistaire were also both affiliated with WHO, the "Weird Happenings Organization," with the acronym also being away for Claremont to acknowledge the debt that Captain Britain's wackiness owes to the wackiness of "Dr. Who." Claremont seems to be something of a fan of that wacky British program.

Presumably CC decided that Earth 616 NEEDS an Alysande, so along comes this alternate-reality version of her. In the "Core Continuum," she's a Scottish Highlander who was apparently enslaved by an alternate-reality Britain. Kind of dark stuff. When Johnny sees her being abused by her masters, he decides to free her, and then somehow he manages to smuggle her back to Earth-616 at the same time that the rest of the FF are transported home. CC leaves that bit off panel, wisely, because how could that possibly have worked?

Anyway, with the ending of Issue 8 having been completely rewritten by this flashback in issue 9, we can get to the main story of issue 9.

MORE EXPOSITION!
This is a pretty low-key one. It clarifies some of the continuity for readers like me who didn't know every single deal of the 1998 Marvel Universe. Specifically, what's up with Four Freedoms Plaza. The Thunderbolts took it over, but then the Thunderbolts left and the building seems to be still intact, so what's the problem?

Ben gives us the necessary exposition here. Even though the building is now vacant, the Thunderbolts set up a bomb before they left, and so now the city has to do a bunch of inspections and such before it can be certified as safe to be lived in. And once they do that, there's still no guarantee that it will be given back to the FF. So our heroes are gonna be stuck at Pier 4 for a while. Speaking of Pier 4 ...

THE STATUS QUO
This is the issue to reveal that the warehouse that we see from the outside is not the "real" warehouse. The entire current FF headquarters actually exists in a tesseract in an English telephone booth that Reed acquired at some point from a "Doctor" friend of his. As if the Weird Happenings Organization wasn't already incredibly on the nose ...

I note that Alyssa Moy is still hanging out at Pier 4 as though she lives there. Why does she live there now? Did I miss the explanation?

THE STORY
ANYway. What is issue 9 about? Well, first it's established that there's some kind of weird creature haunting the abandoned Four Freedoms Plaza, and the city has hired Kraven the Hunter to take care of it. I thought Kraven died back in "Kraven's Last Hunt"? I think this is meant to be the son of the original Kraven. That's not ever exposited here, but I suppose that's not really CC's responsibility. If you're enough of a Marvel zombie to know Kraven died famously but not enough of one to know that his son turned up at some point and assumed the mantle, then that's on YOU, DUDE.

Johnny brings Alysande to Four Freedoms Plaza so she can camp in one of the abandoned rooms while Johnny talks to Reed about the new stowaway. Along the way he runs into his old pal, Spider-Man. When the trio arrive at the place, they cross paths with Kraven. During the fight, Alysande is able to clothe herself in armor, at which point she calls herself Caledonia. Kraven eventually decides he's not getting paid enough by the city to fight a bunch of superheroic types, so he scrams. This leaves the trio to find the mysterious creature, who turns out to be a teleporting giant puppy-dog. The dog's largeness and tell-tale goalposts-on-the-forehead mark him as a member of the same species as Lockjaw, but we get no explanation as to where he came from. The idea seems to be just that this is a lost puppy of the Inhuman variety. (I mean, ALL puppies are technically inhuman, but ...)

MEANWHILE
While the Torch is having his adventure with Alysande/Caledonia and Spidey (was it worth it, Doot, saving a few keystrokes by not typing out "Spider-Man"? WAS IT???) ... the rest of the Fantastic Four who are First and Foremost a Family are hanging out at home getting interviewed for "NPR-TV" by Neal Conan and Manoli Wetheral. There's also a digression from that digression, when Ben Grimm and Alyssa Moy head out into the city to grab some food.

CLAREMONT-ISMS
Neal Conan and Manoli Wetheral are real-life friends of Claremont's who were first written into the Marvel Universe in X-Men issues 225-227, the same arc that first incorporated Roma from Marvel UK into Marvel USA. The two of them are low-key multiverse-hoppers as well, as they've also turned up in DC comics written by Claremont. He loves those two!

Conan is a reporter for NPR in real life. I'm not sure if Manoli is too, or if that was just a convenient way to pair the two of them up. I don't think there's an NPR-TV in real life, but it's a fun idea.

Speaking of real-life personages written into the comic, Claremont gives a cameo to Stan Lee in this issue, as an NYC public vendor selling what Stan himself calls "scintillatingly superb sizzlingly spicy Sicilian sausages!" And then adds "And don't forget to wash it down with a bottle of Kirby Cola!" That actually sounds awesome, doesn't it? I would totally drink Kirby Cola. Or "Kirby Coke," as Li'l Jay calls it.

I really love these scenes of the FF just hanging out in NYC. Really makes me nostalgic to go back there. What do you think, IMWAN, should I make the move???

GUEST STARS
Besides Spider-Man, we get a cameo from Kay Cera of Clan Destine once again ... I want to say this is her second of ... three total appearances in Claremont's FF? Funnily, we never get any clue as to what her deal is during these cameos. Claremont writes her in the role of her civilian identity from Clan Destine, i.e., that of a famous fashion designer. So she never uses her powers or references any of the storylines from the comic. There are no footnotes cluing us in either. This is a true Easter Egg, something that only fans of Clan Destine would ever catch.

(Actually we do get one clue here, as Kay Cera mentions having a sister named "Sam," and there's an intimation of Sam's ability to teleport, albeit fairly obliquely.)

JEANS AND T-SHIRTS
This is the kind of issue that Claremont always claimed he preferred to right in his superhero comics. "The fights are bullsh*t," he once told the Comics Journal. And around that same time, Byrne told that selfsame Journal that Claremont just wanted to write about the X-Men walking around Greenwich Village in "jeans and T-shirts."

FF #9 is quintessential in that regard. The fight with Kraven is perfunctory indeed, and the joy of reading this issue is just in seeing the FF sitting around their house talking to Neal and Manoli, or heading out into the city for some "eats." It's lovely stuff, and Salvador does a magnificent job of evoking a sense of familial warmth. And the final page, with Johnny coming home with a pet puppy for Franklin ... awwwww!

SPEAKING OF FRANKLIN
In FF #8, they established that he's five years old. I couldn't remember., and I think they hadn't made it explicit in this series before then. Marvel Time is always weird when it comes to little kids. Some of them age pretty quickly, some of them stay perpetually little.

STATUS QUO PART TWO
The cast is growing, as Marcus warned. Now in addition to our core Fantastic Foursome, we've got:
Franklin Richards
Alyssa Moy
Alysande "Caledonia" Stuart
Welhelmina "Billie" Lumpkin
Teleporting Puppy

And CC is only six months in .... !

FINAL THOUGHTS
I'm not really sold on Alysande/Caledonia. The fact that CC had to retcon the ending to FF#8 only one month later is our strongest indicator yet that he really is just winging it on "FF" for this first six months. The fight with Kraven is also kind of weak and somewhat unclear in the choreography. (Miscommunication between CC and Larocca?)

That said, when it comes to the "slice of life" stuff, man, this issue shines. Ben Grimm buying food and Kirby Cola from Stan Lee the sausage vendor? Awesome.

There's also some wonderful writing of Ben during his interview with Neal and Manoli. Meanwhile, Franklin the super-powered boy getting his very own super-powered puppy is an inspired turn.

Also great: When Kay Cera arrives with an entourage of hot girls, and Johnny checks out the @$$ on one of them. Larocca does a great job of selling the brief character bits like that, be they funny or (like the first appearance of the puppy) sweet.

There's a sense once again of Claremont throwing a LOT of things into the mix VERY fast, granted. Hey, here's an alternate-reality Scottish Highland warrior! Hey, the FF have a TARDIS! And yet, his ability to evoke the humanity of his lead characters is so beautifully on display here. His evocations of New York City, and the way that setting is integrated with the FF's personalities in the same way that one thinks of Gotham as integrated with Batman's or Metropolis with Clark Kent's ... also wonderful.

When it's all totaled up, this ends up being a wonderful issue.

Fantastic Four #10
(August, 1998)

THE STORY
While on his way to his gig at Empire State University (as established by Lobdell in issue 3), Mr. Fantastic is attacked by the Genoshan Press Gang, who apprehend him with the help of The Trapster. The Trapster parts ways with the others, having just been in it for the cash (and the thrill of finally beating Reed Richards). As for the Press Gang, they and the captured Mr. F teleport to Genosha. TO BE CONTINUED

THE FANTASTIC X-FOUR
Reed Richards apparently has a Danger Room (though he doesn't call it that) that works just like the X-Men's, creating holograms for the FF to fight. In this issue, Reed uses it to fight Annihilus, Blastaar and ... another old FF villain. (They kind of blend together for me.)

But also: The Press Gang!

Whoo, this takes me back. I first encountered the Press Gang back in Uncanny X-Men 236, which turned out to be their second appearance (the first was in Uncanny 235, which I acquired in short order). This was early on in my collecting of comics ... like, probably only three months in. So I've got a lot of nostalgia for these folks: Hawkshaw, Punchout and Pipeline. They're joined here by Jenny Ransome, who also first appeared in that initial Genoshan arc in Uncanny 235-238. Her mutant power here involves energy projection, which might be a pre-Grant Morrison secondary mutation? As I recall, her mutant power back in 1988 when I first read about her was a healing ability (the ability to heal others, not a Wolverine-style self healing).

SIDEBAR: The Genoshan arc is one of my all-time favorites, and issue 238 contains a reference to Madelyne Prior singing a song by Steeleye Span. I didn't understand the joke until the internet explained it to me years later. Madelyne is named after Maddy Prior, the lead singer of Steeleye Span. I ended up seeking out their music after I learned this, and it turns out that I love it. They're one of my favorite bands now.

Most of their music comprises covers of centuries-old English folk ballads, several of which make reference to "press gangs." Eventually it clicked in my mind from the context of those songs ... ohhh, I get it. A gang of people who "press" people into military service! And that's what the Press Gang did to Jenny Ransome in their first appearance in X-Men! AHHH, I GET IT

NOW HE TELLS ME
So it's somewhat bemusing that in FF#10, years after I needed the blanks filled in, Reed delivers this dialogue at one point: "... the Press Gang! That name describes your primary function. Like your 18th century precursors, you 'draft' innocent civilians into the services of your government."

ALSO
I've long been wanting to do a YouTube video that is a Steeleye Span song being sung by the X-Men's Madelyne Prior rather than Steeleye's Maddy Prior. Man, I need to get on that.

SUBPLOTS
Anyway, we'll get more into why Mr. Fantastic has been "pressed" in the next issue. (I don't actually remember the details.) For now, let's look at what other plots are explored in FF #10. Well, there's ...

ROMA AND SATURNYNE
These ladies again! It turns out that their off-panel meeting with Reed Richards involved them giving Reed a problem to solve. He's now in possession of a data packet that he's trying to decipher, involving an impending disaster. As we'll see eventually, this is the same "threat to the fabric of reality" that Alyssa Moy and Reed were both concerned about back in issue 5.

Also, I had been questioning exactly what the role of Roma was and what Saturnyne's was. The narration in this issue spells it out. Roma makes policy, and Saturnyne carries it out. That's kind of what I wanted to guess, but it seemed overly simplistic. But if it's not too simple for CC, it's not too simple for me!

ALYSANDE STUART, AKA CALEDONIA
Although Johnny rescued her from the "core continuum," he is unable to remove the collar and bracelets that were her shackles when she was a slave. This means that her masters are able to track her, and may well come looking for her on Earth-616 sometime soon. Aw jeez.

BROKEN REED
And then there's the matter of Reed Richards' intellect. It's in this issue that we finally learn what Reed has lost, in explicit terms. It's not so much his intellect: He's still erudite, articulate and abundantly scientifically literate. What he's lost is his imagination. And like Einstein said, imagination is more important than intelligence. Roma realizes it early on when she observes Reed wrestling with the problem of the reality-doom that's coming, and even the Trapster figures it out later when fighting Mr. Fantastic. This version of Reed is still brilliant enough to understand and even recreate all the ingenious things he's done in the past. He can recreate past solutions and inventions, even extremely complex ones. But he lacks the innovative, creative spark he once had. He can no longer invent.

CLAREMONT-ISMS
The concept of losing one's ability to create is a horrifying one, and Claremont has explored the theme before -- memorably in the X-Men/Alpha Flight miniseries, a beautifully written and beautifully illustrated (by Paul Smith) story in which humans gain ultimate physical power but in exchange lose their creative inner sparks. At one point in that story, someone pages through the notebooks of an architect, where they can see the man losing his creativity in real time as they turn the pages. "Flowers for Algernon"-like, the brilliant drawings devolve into child-like drawings of simple houses. It's gut-wrenching.

FINAL THOUGHTS
More material imported from the X-Universe, which may be an irritant to FF fans. It doesn't bother me, as a big fan of the Press Gang (I doubt there are many of us) ... but also, I love the way CC writes Reed during the big fight scene. Without the distraction of brilliant new ideas constantly in his head, this is why Reed now is able to focus more clearly on his family (as we saw in past issues)... but here, we see that it also allows him to revel more in the sensation of using his physical super-power. The overriding motif of this issue is that the new version of Reed LOVES to use his powers to fight. It's pretty great -- first in the Danger Room sequence, and then later when he takes on the Press Gang.

We're also reminded that this version of Reed is a figher AND a lover, when he passionately kisses his wife goodbye and then promises that there'll be more lovin' when he gets back from Empire U. Pretty great. Pret-tay, pret-tay, pret-tay great.

So, yeah. I like this issue a lot. We're getting close to issue 12, the end of the first year of the relaunch and also the climax of the whole "Broken Reed" storyline, so things are ramping up now in an awesome way.

Good stuff, m'friends.

Fantastic Four #11
September, 1998

THE STORY
Sue, Johnny and Ben take the Pogo Plane to Genosha in order to rescue Reed Richards. Upon arrival, they are attacked by Ayesha, also known as SHE also known as HER.

They are beaten and rendered unconscious. When they awaken, they learn that Ayesha is working for Crucible, who has set up shop in Genosha, exploiting the country's current civil war as a "proving ground" to test his own tech and weaponry.

Also, while they slept, he transferred the minds of the three of them into the bodies of some Genoshans in his employ. The old body switcheroo! Ben and Sue end up in some healthy young bodies, but poor Johnny gets put into an old man with a heart condition. Ironically he has the most reason to be stressed out, because he knows that the first time the guy in his body tries to "flame on," he won't be able to control it.

The three of them manage to escape the building they're being held in, just before Johnny's prophecy comes true. They steal a van and race away from the exploding building behind them, but the shockwave catches up and causes them to crash. TO BE CONTINUED

THE ORIGIN OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR
Several pages of this issue are given over to Claremont and Larocca doing their re-tell of the FF's origin. It's nicely drawn and well written; it's been retold a bunch of times, like every origin that is Silver Age or older, but I like this version a lot. The point of it is mainly to show the sequence when the FF first manifest their abilities, and are horrified and unable to control them. That ties in to the climax of the issue, with the faux Human Torch letting loose an explosive heat wave unintentionally.

THE FANTASTIC X-FOUR
Before the three FF'ers head to Genosha after Reed, they are briefed by government employee Val Cooper, a character that Claremont created back in Uncanny 176 or so, and who has been a fairly significant presence in the X-franchise ever since. Well, maybe she's not anymore, but she lasted a good long while.

We get a retelling of the "origin" of Genosha, which incorporates some of the same info that was first explicated back in Uncanny 237 (and witth some of the same imagery) in the original CLASSIC Genosha four-parter from issues 235-238. The footnotes reference several Genosha stories including "Cable 27-28." Hmmm, I wonder if I should buy those issues of Cable? I mean ... if they're about Genosha, how bad could they be? Even if they do feature a Liefeld creation as the lead character.

Charlotte Jones, police officer and one-time girlfriend of Warren Worthington, appears in this issue. It won't be her last time. I don't know if she's a Claremont creation or a Weezie Simonson creation. She appeared mainly in X-Factor, but Claremont used her in a couple X-Men issues too.

H RIDER HAGGARD
The man who wrote all of those "Before the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" cash-in prequels focusing on Allan Quatermain is also the author of the novels about Ayesha, or SHE. I've never read any of that stuff. I also have no idea when the character was integrated into the Marvel Universe. (Sounds like something Roy Thomas might do? That's a total guess.) I know that Marvel tended to say HER instead of SHE, I assume as a way of distinguishing slightly from Haggard's version? An alternate three-letter female pronoun makes all the difference in the world!

SIDEBAR: One of my first Marvel mags was not an actual comic but an issue of the Official Handbook. I was a fan of the Bill Bixby Hulk which was running in syndication at the time, and the "H-J" issue of OHOTMU had the Hulk on the cover. This must have been 1983 or so? Imagine a five-year old getting an issue of the Handbook, with pages and pages of dense 5-point type. That said, I was fascinated by the collection of characters in that comic, all of whom had no ostensible connection other than the coincidence of the alphabetical grouping. All of my Marvel fandom since then has been me trying to gain full knowledge of every character in H-J: The Hulk, the Hobgoblin, the Hellfire Club, the Imperial Guard, Iceman, Juggernaut, Jack O' Lantern ... One day I'll understand them all!

Anyway, I think HER was in there. Weird that they alphabetized her as HER instead of as Ayesha, but that's the OHOTMU for ya. (Also, on the cover of FF #11, she's called HER, but in the actual text of the issue, CC goes old-school Haggard instead, referring to ... um, her ... only as either SHE or Ayesha. And this was probably right after the first issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had come out!)

BROKEN REED
In this issue, we learn that Sue actually noticed from the start that something was wrong with Reed, as soon as he came back from the "Crucible" adventure back in issue 5. But she chose to ignore the problem because she was really digging the new Reed. Sue, how could ya? But actually, srsly, I like that bit of characterization.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Apart from the origin flashbacks, there's no Reed Richards in this one, as we focus on the first part of the other three's rescue attempt. That's fair enough. The run is overall so Reed-centric that it makes sense to let the other characters come to the fantastic forefront.

Overall, this issue isn't bad, but not too terribly much happens in it. Crucible returns, but we're not given any new insights into the character. We also get zero explanation for what Ayesha's deal is. Even if I had read the SHE novels, I'm not sure that would give me much insight into her Marvel Universe incarnation. This is the middle part of a three-parter, so of course that means it suffers from having no beginning AND no end, but ... still, this is a bit lightweight compared to how densely packed some of the other CC issues have been.

I do really love this particular retelling of the FF's origin, though.

Next: Issue #12!

Oracle Inc. is Namor's company, set up by Byrne. Namor used sunken treasure to buy and finance Oracle Inc.. So, it's his building. Also, during the Byrne period, he had Namor go to K'un-L'un and resurrect Iron Fist, then he funded Heroes for Hire with Luke Cage and Nightwing. Luke replaced the Thing from issues 167-170 when the Thing was turned back to Ben Grimm and before he used the Thing exoskeleton.

Man, when you do reviews for a comic drawn by ALAN DAVIS, you include samples!!!