When we left off, the Thing and the Human Torch had discovered where Mr. Fantastic stashed his amazing piece of tech that could access any reality in the Multiverse, and were now ready to travel across space and time in a search for the Richards family (who Ben told Johnny were still alive, even though he really didn’t know for sure). But there was still the problem of Johnny’s fading powers—which leads to a dire new revelation!
MARVEL 2-IN-ONE #3
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Penciler: Valerio Schiti
Inker: Valerio Schiti
Colorist: Frank Martin
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Artist: Jim Cheung
What You Need to Know:
Remember that woman that Ben met at that Fantastic Four Awards ceremony back in issue #1? As you may well have guessed, she’s not a throwaway character; she’s much more important than that. This woman plays a surprising role in the saga of the Fantastic Four and the Marvel Universe at large. From here we learn the dilemma of what to do about Johnny’s powers is more urgent than Ben or Johnny ever expected!
What You’ll Find Out:
In a secret hideout in Oslo, Norway, an old “friend” ponders the deep and troubling question of the disappearance of the greatest man on Earth (who isn’t Captain America). The Mad Thinker wants to know the fate of Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, the enemy who has ought-thought him and bested him time and again. The Thinker soon finds he has company, however: Dr. Doom appears with the assurance that their mutual foe is truly dead!
Back in New York—Brooklyn, to be exact—the Thing and the Human Torch’s quest to restore Johnny’s ebbing powers takes them to an unlikely place: a bar where Hercules—yes, HERCULES—is out knocking back a pint. Or a dozen. Hercules is much as we remember him: loud, bombastic, irrepressible, cocky, arrogant, stuck-up, full of himself. But he also happens to know exactly where to go to help Johnny with his power problems. It’s the same place that Herc himself went when his own godly super-strength did a fade-out.
In a remote mountainous area of Wyoming lies the super-high-tech home of Rachna Koul, the woman that Ben met back in issue #1 when he gave the keynote speech at the Fantastic Four Awards. Rachna, as abrasive, dismissive, and disdainful a character as you’d ever want to meet, happens to be a super-scientist who specializes in the biology of superhuman powers. She found the way to restore Hercules’s super-strength and can do the same for the Torch—for between $250,00 and $275,000! Johnny would have that kind of money as the heir of the Fantastic Four fortune—if he hadn’t sunk his inheritance into funding a new Avengers team after Tony Stark’s “death” in other comics. Rachna does not “do” altruism and is unmoved by Johnny’s pleas that helping a super-hero for free is the right thing to do. (The Fantastic Four were a non-profit organization funded by Reed Richards’s work; Rachna is all ABOUT the profit.) So where does that leave our increasingly less torrid Torch?
Well, the first thing facing Ben and Johnny is a battle with Rachna’s current client: Hydro-Man, who thinks he’s been set up when half of the Fantastic Four and Hercules come sauntering into Rachna’s lab! After Rachna herself breaks up the ensuing reenactment of The Poseidon Adventure with her super-high-tech glove and orders the re-empowered Hydro-Man to leave her home—via the toilet, no less—Rachna has some bitter words for the Torch and the Thing about super-heroes thinking they’re better and more special than everyone else, and about herself being better than they are. But the Thing has a surprise for her when she argues that multi-versal travel is impossible—and the Thing breaks out Reed’s Multisect to prove she’s wrong! The properly humbled Rachna agrees to diagnose the Torch—if the guys will take her on with them on their trip into the Multiverse. And that’s when she drops another shoe: her diagnosis reveals that the powers of the Fantastic Four are mutually connected via a kind of superhuman quantum entanglement. Not only are Johnny’s power’s decreasing, but so is Ben’s strength, because all four of the FF no longer reside in the same quantum universe. Soon both the Thing and the Torch will have no powers at all!
Meanwhile, back in Oslo, Dr. Doom has discovered that the Mad Thinker has a stash of stolen Fantastic Four technology (he suspects the Thinker of finding and stealing the Multisect) and wants to know what he’s going to do with it. The Thinker gets the drop on Doom and teleports him to Antarctica, which is a very bad move on his part. Doom is not going to take kindly to being dismissed by a lesser villain, and when he catches up with the Thinker again…will the Thinker be ready for him? It all depends on whether the Thinker’s latest scheme pays off. The human Rodin statue has a shocking plan to create an all-new Fantastic Four—with himself as its leader!
What Just Happened?
Well, if you’re a fan of plot twists, this issue is full of them. I was initially critical of the story point about Johnny losing his powers so soon after the exit story of the Fantastic Four book, but it seems that this time it’s going to an unexpectedly interesting place. The bit about the entanglement of the FF’s powers is a novel idea and leaves us wondering whether Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, wherever they may be, are experiencing a similar phenomenon. Rachna and her bitterness about super-powered people pose an intriguing point of characterization. The story of how she became who she is and how she got that way should be properly entertaining.
Rating: 9/10
Final Thought: Marvel 2-in-One, three issues into its revival, continues to be a most entertaining and highly readable book. Every issue seems to bring some fascinating new twist that leaves you eager to see what comes next. Jim Cheung has taken his leave as artist, contributing only the cover to this latest issue. His replacement, Valerio Schiti, is a penciler/inker combo who previously worked with the Thing during his cosmic jaunts with the Guardians of the Galaxy. While he doesn’t have the style to match Cheung, his storytelling skills are easy to follow and his drawing is attractive enough that the book’s visual quality doesn’t suffer too much. And considering that Marvel artists sometimes evolve in style and get better over time, who’s to say he won’t prove to be an artist to watch somewhere down the line? All things considered, Marvel 2-in-One is a book to be recommended, especially if you loved The Fantastic Four.
Subscribe to us on YouTube, Follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook!
Join our Age of Social Media Network consisting of X-Men, Marvel, DC, Superhero and Action Movies, Anime, Indie Comics, and numerous fan pages. Interested in becoming a member? Join us by clicking here and pick your favorite group!