Fantastic Four #23: And the Children Shall Save Them

In the opening scene of Fantastic Four #23, the makeshift FF of Franklin, Valeria, Spider-Man, and Wolverine strikes out onto the streets of New York City to meet the invasion of the Cotati.  As they arrive at a scene of battle, there is a moment that sums up why I object to the character of Slashy McSlash-‘em-Up.  It’s just a quick little passage of dialogue.

Franklin (re:  Wolverine):  “And go easy on the killing.  We don’t do that in The FF.”

Spider-Man:  “Don’t look at me.  I’m all thwip-thwip.  And he’s the one who’s all snikt-snikt.”

Wolverine:  “Hey, I’m the best there is at what I do.  Trouble is, that’s all I do.”

I’m just going to leave that there to speak for itself, because we have more important things to talk about; namely, how the Richards kids turned it around in the final battle of Empyre.

It’s up to Franklin and Valeria to rescue the Kree boy Jo-Venn from whatever the Priests of Pama and their “Dark Harvest” have in store for him and every life form on Earth that isn’t a plant.  To that end, with Spider-Man and Wolverine in tow, they rely on the allied Skrulls and Kree who are battling the Cotati to point them in the direction of a clue.  That takes them to an Alchemax facility that Peter Parker/Spider-Man briefly owned, where Valeria learns that the Dark Harvest stole machine components that could be used to build an Omni-Wave Projector.  And this happens to be the very thing that the Priests have just finished. 

Using the Omni-Wave and the stored Kree memories of Jo-Venn, the Priests of Pama intend to project all the recorded racial hatred of the Skrulls and the Kree across the universe and make the two species mortal enemies once more, conquering the enemies of the Cotati by dividing them.  Meanwhile, back at 4 Yancy Street, N’Kalla uses her shape-changing powers to make Alicia think she is Sky and that she is healed from the Dark Harvest’s attack last issue and ready to fly off and help Franklin and Valeria.  And it might have worked, except that no sooner does N’Kalla in the guise of Sky fly off than the real Sky wakes up. 

Although Wolverine is a homicidal maniac, his tracking powers come in handy to lead the Richards kids and Spider-Man to the lair of the Priests, who quickly discover an imposter in their midst and capture N’Kalla.  With both of the alien youths now in their clutches, the Priests’ weapon is even more powerful.  Their fateful broadcast of genetically encoded Kree-Skrull hatred goes out into space just as the Richards siblings, the Webhead, and the Canadian Cuisinart arrive.  At once, all Skrulls and Kree everywhere in the universe erupt into violent hatred against each other.  Spider-Man’s reaction to this is priceless:  “A giant ‘hate beam’ going out into the minds of two very extreme groups.  It’s the Internet—but worse!”  But Valeria and Franklin appeal to Jo-Venn and N’Kalla to turn their weaponized hatred into their own declaration of independence from what their respective species have done to them.  Using the empathy of the bond that has inadvertently formed between them, the alien children begin to project not hatred but unity across space, halting the Kree/Skrull War! 

Sequoia, the Celestial Messiah and master of the Cotati, has a “reward” for the defeated Priests of Pama.  Using the plant elements that have been combined into the Priests’ genes, he wills them all to become trees in an eternal living monument for their failure.  It’s a wrap-up as tidy as the well-maintained garden that the Priests have now become—but this is only the beginning of Sequoia’s downfall.  An even bigger smackdown awaits him in the pages of Empyre #6! 

In the end, all that’s left is the question, “Jo-Venn and N’Kalla, you’ve just saved the universe from yet another Kree-Skrull War.  What are you going to do now?”

Answer:  “We’re going to Disney World!”  It’s like the end of the Super Bowl.