We looked at the previous issue last year or so, and Dale mentioned the secret of Hyperstorm's parentage...which I'm not sure I knew! Way to spoil a comic from 1996, bro! Fantastic Four #409, "Supreme Be My Power!" Script and plot by Tom DeFalco, pencils and plot by Paul Ryan, inks by Dan Bulanadi.
The smug Hyperstorm alludes to it this issue, taunting the Invisible Woman, that "hyperspace is not the only bond we share!" It wouldn't be completely spelled out here, but he was an alternate future's son of Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers, which both explains a lot of his powers, and means the 'relatives' section of his file should be a mile longer: Cyclops would be his grandfather. Or, at least, an alternate version of Cyclops. So, post-Days of Futures Past, Hyperstorm went on to not only conquer the hell out of earth, but apparently his entire universe. Good for him. That doesn't explain why he's messing around with his grandparents and extended family in the past, or why he had the same sort of lackey structure as Doctor Doom: would he have normal human henchmen, or wouldn't he prefer all mutants? Maybe he felt threatened by them, or maybe after the Sentinels and all there weren't a lot of mutants left. In which case I don't know if I'd feel bad that Hyperstorm treated his underlings like Doom would, as disposable cogs.
Doctor Doom tries the old steal-the-power-cosmic bit again here; and why not? It usually works. Reed even helps, since at this point he'd rather Doom have ultimate power than Hyperstorm, which I'm not entirely sure felt earned. Doom respectfully declines Reed's assistance, by which I mean takes a potshot at him and rants; and Hyperstorm recovers. He even claims he set Doom up and knew exactly what he would do, and sends Doom back to his own time to suck on his failure. Then, facing the reunited Fantastic Four, plus Namor, the Skrull Lyja, faux-Doom Kristoff, and Reed's dad/time-travelling warlord/know-it-all Nathan; Hyperstorm...heals Ben's face? It had been janked up by Wolverine in FF #374 in 1993, so a while back. Hyperstorm wants Ben's own reflection to taunt him with his power; or maybe Paul Ryan was tired of drawing scarface Ben, or maybe they knew they were headed towards an end: during the Onslaught crossover, the book's last issue would be #416. But this wasn't the end of Hyperstorm's story! He gloats a bit, then sends everyone home. I think he would get got in #414, but possibly off-panel: he and Galactus get sucked into something, and while Galactus would appear again, Hyperstorm has not.
Years ago we blogged Spider-Man Team-Up #3, which would've been shortly after this issue; which makes it seem like a longer window than just six months or so. In fact, Reed would apparently ditch the beard fairly quickly.
1 comment:
#Guiltyascharged
#Yourewelcome
Hyperstorm does seem like someone we should've seen again at some point by some of the young creators who were kids back then, and definitely someone like a Hickman or Grant Morrison would use for the hell of it. I guess like most Defalco creations from the 90's (or just a lot of creations from that era) he didn't age well enough to be seen as worth ever writing about again. Can't say I blame them despite how powerful he was.
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