Fantastic Four #26
Recap
We join our Human Torch and his supposed “soulmate,” Sky of the planet Spyre, in the Florida Everglades where Reed has sent them to compare magic-based “Nexus of All Realities” to the super-physical Forever Gate that has just been created where the Baxter Building used to be (last issue). There’s a clever scene in which Johnny and Sky encounter the Man-Thing, and the fear-induced, combustible biochemical reaction to physical contact with the swamp creature doesn’t hurt Johnny because, you know, you can’t harm the Human Torch by setting fire to him. Meanwhile, back in New York, after Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman give a press conference about the Forever Gate, Valeria uses the Gate to transport her back to the planet where we caught up with the Richards family back at the beginning of our current series. Here, she is thrilled to be reunited with her boyfriend Arboro (never mind that Valeria should be too young to have a boyfriend) only to find that she’s thrilled to have her back—to be the number-one wench in his harem.
The heartbroken Valeria (who shouldn’t be this interested in a boy yet) returns to Earth, having a tantrum about how “boys suck!” that she’s too young to be having, and asks Franklin—who created Arboro’s universe, remember?—to “smite” him as that universe’s “God.” But as we saw last issue, Franklin has completely burned out his omnipotent cosmic powers; he wants to use the Forever Gate to get back to Krakoa and get help from the X-Men in restoring said powers. But when he tries, Professor X—who, as we remember, telepathically raped Franklin’s father a few months ago, something that Franklin doesn’t know—informs our lad that he is no longer welcome on Krakoa because he is not a mutant and never was. That scene goes like this:
We’re going to have some words about this in the Review, because honestly, I’m not buying it, and I’m shortly going to tell and show you why.
Anyway, back to our story. Yancy Street has some new visitors, who are at first terrorized by N’Kalla and Jo’Venn as they approach the FF’s home. That is until they are revealed to be Dr. James Power and his wife Maggie, the parents of Power Pack, and the father of Onome from the Future Foundation. The Thing promises the Powers and Onome’s Dad that the FF will do everything to reunite them with their kids who are still out there somewhere in space and time. Naturally, with Reed Richards on the job, that happens on the very next page. But the Future Foundation doesn’t return to Earth alone. Guess who’s with them: Lyja the Skrull, whose presence upsets N’Kalla and makes Johnny very nervous when Sky learns, to her dismay, that Johnny and Lyja were married and that Johnny married Lyja while Lyja was impersonating Alicia. I don’t blame Sky for that, frankly; I never did like that story. I am equally dismayed by the spelling of Lyja’s sobriquet, “the Lazerfist”; there is no damn Z in “laser”. But enough of that. Lyja, shocked to learn that the Skrulls and Kree have become united under the rule of the Hulkling (as we saw this summer in the Empyre saga), decides she’s staying with the Fantastic Four to learn the story of how it all happened.
With his extraterrestrial ex-wife back in his orbit, Johnny finds himself recounting his entire romantic history to Sky, who up to this point has had no idea about all of Johnny’s relationships and hook-ups. (Even we readers don’t know how many women the Human Torch has been with; he’s had a lot of girls off-panel. In Mark Waid’s FF Vol. 3 #60 it even came out that Johnny has been with film star Jennifer Garner, a fling that ended under circumstances that the Torch will not discuss, even with Sue.) Even worse for Johnny, Sky discovers that Johnny has had Reed trick out his “Soulmate” armband with a cloaking technology. The winged alien lass is mortified and insulted that Johnny doesn’t want people to see that he is bonded with her, and Johnny is about to get scorched by a lover’s indignation—until the FF suddenly have bigger problems.
The beacon that brought the Future Foundation home has continued to operate, its functions locked “on”—and now, pouring through the aperture come thousands of aliens of every description. Reed says they don’t dare turn off the portal or they will tear apart the thousands who haven’t made it all the way through. Worse yet, this isn’t just any horde of beings from other worlds; these are denizens of universes that Franklin created while he was still in “omnipotent” mode, whose universes were wiped out. The destroyer of those universes happens to be coming in behind the refugees. Approaching our world now is the most dangerous adversary in recent Fantastic Four history: The Griever at the End of All Things, whom the FF defeated in their first encounter! How will our Fantastic Four handle the dimension-destroying diva this time?
To be continued!
Review
This was another entertaining and well-drawn issue that once again demonstrated how much smart, pulp-science-fiction fun you can have with the Fantastic Four when people pay it the right kind of attention. The stuff about Johnny and Sky was a highlight of the issue and shows just what kind of vida loca our Torch really lives. Johnny has a habit of living and loving fast, hard, and disastrously, and I expect we have yet to see how complicated his life is really going to get with Sky and Lyja both on Earth and Victorious moving to New York from Latveria. This is going to be a story to watch. But what I really want to talk to you about this issue is Franklin.
The reveal in this issue by the once-morally upright Professor X flies in the face of everything we’ve known about Franklin going back for the last fifty years of the series. Franklin, as a child, “dreamed of being different, special,” according to X. He unintentionally used his cosmic powers “to alter every cell in [his] own body till it appeared as if [he] possessed the X-gene.” Those of us who go back far enough with the Fantastic Four know that there has been evidence of superhuman powers on Franklin’s part since well before he was capable of such deep thoughts about his identity, all the way back to when he was an infant and a toddler. Think I’m kidding? Come and have a look.
When he was a baby in diapers in the care of the witch Agatha Harkness, the magical governess was the first to know something was up with Franklin. The first clue was in Fantastic Four #103.
Then there was FF #130, in which our heroes have been ambushed by the Frightful Four, and Franklin telepathically wakes up the unconscious and bound thing.
And then in FF #134, while Sue and Reed are separated and Sue and Franklin are staying with Sue’s friends, Bob and Carol Linders, there is this moment with our titanic toddler and an ant colony.
Franklin at that age was not yet capable of anything so profound as “dreaming of being different and special.” He was subtly expressing powers while he was still in diapers and training pants. Xavier’s claim that Franklin isn’t a mutant does not wash. Without mutant powers, how was he able to do the things he did in infancy? If Reed and Sue’s son was not already mutated by his parents’ cosmically jacked-up genes, where did those powers come from? He could not have thus altered himself unless some powers were already present, and such powers would have had to be a mutant trait because there was no other way for them to exist. Someone here is playing fast and loose with the facts.
The subplot of Franklin’s teenage identity crisis seems to have some shoes in it that have yet to drop. We have yet to see the full extent of the drama this situation holds.
Meanwhile, there is the return of the Griever, a cosmically super-powerful nightmare in the best Fantastic Four tradition. It took the FF and everyone who’s ever been a member or teamed up with them to see her off the last time. She won’t be defeated the same way this time as she was in her first appearance. But her return after the first quarter-of-a-hundred issues of the current series is well-timed and shows good advance planning on the part of writer Dan Slott. Looking ahead to the issues following this current story, it appears we are once again going to have another artist coming in, which is very frustrating, considering how well R.B. Silva is doing just two issues along. This issue’s art is as satisfying as the last, except that Silva has started to pick up other artists’ bad habit of making the Thing too big. That’s another frustration.
Still, the rematch between the Fantastic Four and the Griever promises to be another good read. We’re left to guess how Earth’s greatest heroes are going to save our own universe from the Emissary of Entropy. Stay tuned, Four fans.
Final Thoughts
Good art (except for the size problem with the Thing), good plot, good subplots, good characterization—big continuity problem with Franklin. The only thing this issue leaves to be desired is a good, close shave for Mr. Fantastic, whose jawline continues to be devoured by that unsightly beard. The follow-up on Valeria’s alien “boyfriend” is another good callback to the beginning of the current series, and who would have thought it was possible for the Torch’s love life to be more messed up than ever? Though the Franklin thing is highly suspect, it’s another well-done issue.
Fantastic Four #26: The Universe Gets More Crowded
- Writing - 8/108/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 7/107/10