It's not the best reveal, but at least they didn't tack a fake-out on top of it.

There's a Mark Evanier/Sergio Aragonés spoof from a couple years after this issue, that features "I'm quitting the Fantastic Four!" about a dozen times. It's funny 'cause it's true! From 1994, Fantastic Four #392, "The Final Gantlet!" Plot and script by Tom DeFalco, plot and pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Danny Bulanadi.

Three of the Four are dead here, along with the rest of the planet, in a reality where Reed tried to retrieve the Ultimate Nullifier--instead of Johnny, as in our universe. The Watcher Uatu had subbed in our more experienced Ben, Sue, and Johnny in an attempt to save that world, which failed, and they died. Except the Watcher saves them, to return to their world, although Johnny notices he also seems to imply he knows exactly when they were supposed to die. Uatu does him a favor and doesn't tell him.

Their own Reed was still missing, presumed dead, but Four Freedoms Plaza is crowded; with the Sub-Mariner, Ant-Man, Johnny's Skrull 'wife' Lyja, Franklin Richards aged up to Psi-Lord; and later the Black Panther and what would later be the Fantastic Force. Lyja's false pregnancy, that had tried to kill them all in a previous issue, had been dealt with; and she suggests she and Johnny could think about a real family of their own. He is not especially receptive to the idea, feeling Lyja had played him for a chump while pretending to be Alicia. Stung by that, and possibly tired of the danger, the Torch quits with the traditional fly-off-in-a-huff. Charitably, Sue felt that Lyja had proved herself, and deserved to be there, but she felt she didn't belong there without Johnny. Down to her and Ben (and like eight other people...) Sue thinks the team is at a crossroads, if not the end. Cue super-villain attack!

The Dark Raider appears, demanding the Reed Richards of that world, and recognizing Sue and Ben from their attempt to save the aforementioned alternate reality. He has a ton of tricky weapons, and holds his own against the lot, then unmasks himself when Uatu appears: it's the Reed from that doomed reality, of course. But his theory was, countless earths had been endangered or destroyed by the curiosity of various Reed Richards, so he had been travelling to alternate realities, killing Reeds. He had an Ultimate Nullifier, so there were in a pickle. Working with his mom, Psi-Lord projects the Malice persona that had been trapped in his head, into the Dark Raider's, giving them the chance to grab the Nullifier. Trapped in a force field, bad Reed is impressed, but it's just a minor setback, and Uatu agrees: someone as resourceful as Reed would of course escape eventually. While Sue and Franklin take the high road, Uatu had been afraid of that, and takes matters into his own hands, killing the Dark Raider!

Uatu was afraid the Raider would have eventually won, and says his goodbyes: he will return that Nullifier to where it belonged, then exile himself somewhere with nothing to watch. Uatu doesn't say if their Reed was still alive, but Sue takes it upon herself to find him, saying her own goodbyes and declining help from Ben or T'Challa before leaving on the time sled. (Namor doesn't appear the last few pages here, either to encourage or discourage her.) Only Ben remains, but he resolves to continue, even if it's as the Fantastic One. Which sounds like a pretty good ploy to get Johnny back on board, he'd never stand still for that. Read more!

Whatta revoltin' development...wait, no. What's the opposite of that?

At a local Wal-Mart at the crack of early yesterday, I found the latest Marvel Legends Invisible Woman and Thing--actually, looking at the packaging in the recycling, they're "Marvel's Invisible Woman" and "Marvel's Thing." Presumably to distinguish them from anybody else's Invisible Woman and Thing. Only those two (and one of the Gamerverse Spidey's) and I think they may have been left since the aforementioned packaging wasn't completely mint. I may have hesitated for a moment before buying them; since I don't necessarily need the FF in every outfit? But I do need a Super-Skrull, so there you go.

Since Ben is huge--a right hefty package! Ladies... Um, he comes with two Skrull heads, but nothing for himself. If you have the Walgreens exclusive Thing, you could of course swap the heads and hands, but they may or may not look right for you: Walgreens Thing had a darker paint wash filling in his rocky crags and cracks; new Ben is lighter. New Ben's orange isn't consistent, either...my camera is charging, let me try a picture with my phone.

Is that weird? It may be noticeable in-hand or super macro photos, and I wonder if this means New Ben's head won't look right on the Walgreens Thing. New Ben's face is very much the Thing, but a very glum Thing. He does have a bit of a Muppet-y look to him, doesn't he?

...why did Kurt need a horsy ride? Because Ben is the effing coolest and everybody's always glad to see him, even if he isn't. Kurt's also probably mangling the name of Don Quixote's horse; but at least 60% of what I know about Don Quixote is from Don-Wan Kihotay from Star Wars #10.

Also yesterday morning, I saw some of McFarlane's new DC figures, and I wish him the best but they did nothing for me. I think somebody else has the license for smaller figures, since there was a three-and-three-quarter inch or thereabouts Batman as well; and some fairly large Iron Giant and Robby the Robot figures.

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Sometimes, I wonder what Marvel was like in the 90's, because I'll pick up a cover like this issue's, and all I can think is "cocaine. So much cocaine." This is even the second printing! (EDIT: And I had to reload the cover, since I posted it upside down, but it was tough to see!) From 1992, Fantastic Four #371, "This Flame, This Fury" Written by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Dan Bulanadi.

I've mentioned before, that I never took to DeFalco's run here, or on Thor, because he made the cardinal sin of following Walt Simonson: a tough act to follow, to be sure. He also brought a more old-school serial soap opera style, which meant a lot of plates were spinning at any given time; but it might be a while before they paid off. In fact, I'm not sure if any of these plotlines were wrapped up in the next three months! This month, Reed and Ben are searching for Alicia Masters, kidnapped by the rogue Watcher Aron. Former Ms. Marvel/She-Thing Sharon Ventura is seemingly human again, and working on getting back together with Ben; while also reporting to a Dr. Doom-shaped shadow. Sue and Reed are having a rough patch, as Sue thinks Reed isn't paying her enough attention, even with her more provocative costume. Franklin is becoming more agitated over his parents' fighting, which may be exacerbating his latent powers. And at Empire State University, Johnny plans on quitting the team, since "they just aren't keeping pace with the changing times!" Tough talk, since he's then attacked by Paibok, Devos, and his estranged Skrull wife Lyja!

The trio zaps Johnny around for a while, until on the verge of losing, he goes nova: the bad guys disappear, and Johnny is dismayed at the substantial amount of property damage he's done the university. Which I'm pretty sure would lead to Johnny being on the run for a bit; that plotline wasn't wrapped up right away either.

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"Rager."

What could make the Black Cat cry? In actual fact, probably not much; but here we'll see! Also, if the Thing ever stepped on a dog, I know it was an accident and he felt terrible about it.
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"Bachelorette."

I wrote this a couple weeks ago, before going to see Black Panther; and I was glad to see a somewhat less ruthless T'Challa: in the comics, he could sometimes be singleminded in his defense of Wakanda. His country and people came first; even at the cost to others. I also wrote this when I got the figures for Okoye and Nakia, before seeing them in the movie, so they don't quite line up, but go with it.

I know Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman were exploring the multiverse after Secret Wars, but I don't think they were barred from earth or too far away to get back or anything. Plus, we had that figure from recently, so yeah.
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This one starts in an awkward situation, and goes further from there.

Susan Richard's infamous four-cutout costume seems well suited for the bedroom, you have to give it that. From 1994, Namor #50, "Someone's Been Sleeping in my Bed" Written by Glenn Herdling, art by Geof Isherwood. With a shiny wraparound cover!

Even though Namor's swimming (boo!) in political and business problems, he has finally achieved one of his long-time goals, namely getting Susan Richards into bed. This was during the stretch from 1993-95 when Reed Richards was missing and presumed dead, but there's something else going on here: Namor makes a date for that evening with Sue, but when he shows up at Four Freedoms Plaza, she has no recollection of that. She's also wearing a different costume...Somewhat entertainingly, the Fantastic Four's robot receptionist Roberta does not seem thrilled when Namor shows up, either.

After the traditional brawl with the Thing, Namor's visit gets dark when he accuses Lyra the Skrull of changing into Susan and then sleeping with him. He nearly kills her on top of her egg (don't ask) before snapping out of it, halfassing a non-apology, and taking off back to his business, Oracle Inc. There, he accuses his hostile CEO Phoebe Marrs of being in on the trick, but finds she's been visited by the 'ghost' of her brother, Desmond. Namor roughs up "Desmond" until he takes her true form: Llyra! Although I mainly remember her from her role in the Atlantis Attacks, she had done several, far more terrible things to Namor; like killing his fiance Lady Dorma and then trying to pass herself off as Dorma at their wedding. This was her latest attempt, and she claims to be pregnant with Namor's child now.

Namor lets Llyra go, since he knows she's insane. He seems a bit off himself, since he has a surprising laughing fit over the idea of an heir. Later, Sue would visit Namor at the Iguazu Falls, as he tried to gather himself. Still, there is an attraction between them, and they kiss, but it's implied it wouldn't go any further...yet.

There's also a pin-up at the end of this issue, for "The Son of Namor?" I think he would show up before the end of the series, but I think was forgotten soon after.
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Deadpool vs. Kraven!...will be seen in part today.

Back in 1997, Deadpool encountered Kraven the Hunter in Joe Kelly and Pete Woods's classic Deadpool #11; when trapped in the past, Pool Forest Gump's his way through Stan Lee and John Romita's 1967 classic Amazing Spider-Man #47! It's a particularly, go out of its way to be funny issue, but that was a conscious choice by Kelly since the next one began "The Drowning Man" storyline, where a visit to the Field of Dreams cornfield ends amazingly wrongly for Pool, and that's before T-Ray just demolishes him.

Anyway, we're not checking out any of those today; but another book with a Deadpool/Kraven match-up, that's a little less renowned. Possibly for a reason...from 2010, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #4, written by Paul Tobin, pencils by Ronan Cliquet, inks by Amilton Santos.

This stretch of Marvel Adventures had more issue-to-issue continuity than the previous series of one-and-done stories; as well as a different team roster. Traditional Avengers Cap, Thor, and Iron Man were still there, as was Spider-Man; then classic members Vision and Black Widow, and newbies Nova and...the Invisible Woman? An ongoing plot thread is that Sue joined the team at Reed's suggestion, ostensibly to expand her horizons and have room to breathe apart from the FF...although Reed had another, ulterior motive in mind as well. (It's also somewhat overcomplicated, involving Namor the Sub-Mariner and a double-agent within the Avengers!)

At the start of this series, the Avengers lobby for and get sanctioned to operate worldwide, but here Kraven tries to use that to his advantage to coerce the team into helping him, as a licensed bounty hunter, round up his quarry: Deadpool! Who is never referred to by that name, and is actually somewhat underused here: it feels like the ongoing storyline eats up a little too much space for the "villains of the week" B-plot. I also suspect Tobin mostly just needed a character that could evade Kraven long enough for the Avengers to show up; while Kraven increasingly endangers bystanders trying to bag Pool.

Cap seemingly caves and accedes to Kraven's extortion, in order to maintain the Avengers' peacekeeper status; but may be doing so just to keep tabs on Kraven. And he does, arresting and decking him in the end; after Wade Wilson is stopped by the Vision. Not a great showing for Pool, then; but it does manage to keep him kid-friendly. Which has to take some work...
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The Best Laid Plans of Mice, Men...Things named Ben.

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Will we ever see the Thing's Fantastic Four picks? Well, maybe. I have two characters in mind that Ben would want for his team, and that I have toys of. One's appeared briefly in a strip here before, the other I don't think I've used at all. Both are women, Ben's definitely met one back in his Marvel Two-in-One days, but the other maybe only in passing. Guess away.

That said, if I keep this going, I'm trying to figure out another couple of B-list (or lower...) Marvel characters that Ben would ask to join his team...that I have toys of. Hmm. They don't have to be in scale either, since Ben will be calling them, so I could use the older Toy Biz, pre-Legends figures; especially since I'm getting tired of waiting for the new Hasbro Legends. (I want Tigra and Nova in particular.)

Through most of the strip, Ben's holding a Star Wars Galactic Heroes Millenium Falcon, which I bought for my son a couple years before he was born. (It was marked down, I had the money, and I knew he'd need it.) The Panther's treatment of Ben is a throwback to (and exaggeration of) all those old Fantastic Four or Marvel Two-in-One issues that open with the Thing lugging around some ginormous lump of Kirbytech, for little apparent reason, like he has nothing better to do. Maybe he doesn't, but still.

And I swear, the "primae noctis" jokes were done well before I saw it again in Super-Villain Team-Up, with Dr. Doom the other day. Strange how you won't think about something like that forever, then it'll come up three times in the same week. Here's hoping it doesn't come up for you! Read more!