Mmm, crab venom, that's the stuff.

I had wanted to read this one, since I hadn't read this stretch just before the last issue, and I thought it would be a lot of re-boxing the toys. I forgot about a crossover here, with Doom 2099! From 1996, Fantastic Four #413, "Missions: Impossible!" Script and plot by Tom DeFalco, plot and pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by John Lowe and Bob Wiacek.

The future Doom--who may or may not be the Doom we know from the present, but who is also wearing a latter, lesser version of his 2099 design--was on a pretty convoluted mission. The citizens of future Latveria were all dead, dissolved by deadly "necro-toxins." To save them, Doom 2099 had discovered long-term use of a drug made of crab venom, would alter his people on the genetic level and save them from the necro-toxins if he got them hooked on it in 1996. The Thing and Daredevil (in the yellow costume, putting this around 1995's Daredevil #347?) stopped him, forcing 2099 to take some crab venom himself, but with the crab extinct he now had to find a way to synthesize more. And Reed always had the best toys...

At Four Freedoms Plaza, the newly shaven--and seemingly mostly recovered--Reed was hard at work on a couple projects: a dimensional probe to contact either Galactus or the Silver Surfer, then a little surgery on the injured Black Bolt. Reed's trying to get help to beat Hyperstorm, even though his dad Nathan keeps discouraging him from even trying, which isn't suspicious or anything. Reed is assisted during the surgery by his son Franklin, who was currently aged up to the young hero Psi-Lord; then takes a shortcut through the Negative Zone to cross the universe and see the Surfer, who gives him the bad news about Galactus's 'death." (Silver Surfer #109, as we mentioned the other day!) Then, the Thing returns, to warn of his encounter with Doom 2099 in, well, Doom 2099 #42, only to see the armored intruder on their security cameras! He had used Reed's stuff to analyze the crab venom, saving the info in his mask. So, 2099 is a little hesitant to let the Thing and the Torch give him any shots to said mask, but probably shouldn't have mentioned it like two dozen times.

When the power is interrupted, Psi-Lord has to fish Reed out of the Negative Zone, while the Inhumans get into the fight. Desparate to save his people, 2099 swallows his pride and makes a break for it, only to be immediately captured and absconded with by Namor and present-day Doom! Nathan gives another warning to Reed, who is getting steaded at his naysaying, but he may have had a point, since Hyperstorm was watching, and uses a time platform on Psi-Lord. Previously, Franklin had been taken in the same way, and spent years before he could get back to the present; but this time he returns--as a child again! I don't know if there had been a ton of clues to Hyperstorm's identity, but this should be one: why wouldn't he just kill Franklin, unless he needed him for something?

The cover features Reed drifting into space, his lifeline not pulling him in; which I feel was a common problem for him, always drifting off into the Negative Zone or some damn thing. Also, is it weird a guy that can stretch has to trust a lifeline?