From the Files of the Baxter Building comes Multiversity’s monthly deep dive into the comics and characters that inhabit the world of the First Family of superhero comics: The Fantastic Four!
This month: Galactus gets turned into a battery, Reed Richards gets turned into a frosty bedsheet, and Doctor Doom lets it all hang out. Warning, there be spoilers ahead for “Fantastic Four” #7 and #8.
Doctor Doom’s plan is laid bare…and that’s not the only thing being fully exposed, but more on that later. When we rejoin our heroes, they’re in a bit of a moral bind with their on-again-off-again nemesis, Victor von Doom. Y’see, it turns out that he’s the one that’s lured Galactus (you know, the Devourer of Worlds) back to Earth, but he assures them it’s all for a good reason. He has a cunning plan.
First, we get a little flashback to Doom’s early years, where he’s stranded out in the snow with his father, left to die in the elements. Doom’s father shields his son from the worst of the storm but sacrifices his own life in the process. The lesson that’s learned from this?
Quite what that has to do with their current situation is anybody’s guess, but back in the present day, Galactus is still draining the life energy from Victorious, and while Johnny and Thing attempt to free her, Doom unveils the master stroke of his plan: his Big Bang Cannons!
The cannons are there to weaken Galactus, after which Doom brings Reed up to speed on what he missed while he was away from Earth. Back in Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort’s Ultimates run in 2015, it was revealed that Galactus wasn’t always destined to be a Devourer. It turns out, they took Galactus out of the oven before he was done cooking, and with a little cosmic tweaking, he gained new shiny gold clothes and became Galactus, the Lifebringer!
So is that what Doom’s planning to do here, restore Galactus to his life bringing status and set him loose on the universe again? Well, no, but it’s a good enough lie to get the whole FF helping him out. Once Galactus is down for the count, his real goal is revealed…
So the mighty Galactus is turned into a giant battery? Yep, Doom just brought down the Devourer of Worlds and through the power of irony, he’s using him to sustain life on the planet for decades to come. This is clearly unethical, which is why the FF don’t want any part of it. Too late, however, because Doom bamboozles them too, and takes them all prisoner.
Now, the Fantastic Four haven’t been a prisoner of Doom for years now. Not since 2003’s ‘Unthinkable’ arc in “Fantastic Four” #500 have they been held in the dungeons of Castle Doomstadt, in fact. Back then, Doom used their own powers against them to set up the worst torture imaginable for them all, including setting Sue on fire, stretching Johnny Storm’s skin, hanging Ben upside down and punching the rocks off him, and Reed…was locked in a library.
The Horror! This time around though, Reed’s having a much worse time of it. Much like a questionable scientific YouTube video, Reed’s been stretched as far as his body will go and then frozen, meaning that if he moves even a little bit, he’ll shatter.
The rest of the team aren’t faring any better either. Sue is in a room with supersonic frequencies that are not only painful but cancel out her forcefield powers, Johnny’s suspended in a tank of breathable liquid, and Ben is in a Chinese finger puzzle of a trap, in which every time he pulls against his restraints, the traps his family are in becoming that much worse.
So clearly, Doom has lost a little bit of his sadistic streak (comparatively speaking, anyway) but gotten smarter since 2003. Not smart enough, though, because as he once again takes over the planet’s television sets to announce his victory –
Reed gives Sue the word, and the Invisible Woman lives up to her name, turning all of Doom’s clothes completely invisible!
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Womp womp. What’s the endgame here, embarrass him into acknowledging the error of his ways? We’ll have to wait for the next issue to find out because naked Doom is our cliffhanger for issue #8!
What a strange way to end the issue. Sure, April Fool’s has just been and gone, but this showing the world Doom’s Latverian crown jewels seems like a low blow. Well (and I say this with all the contextual glee I can muster) All Will be Revealed next issue!
In the meantime, let’s check in with the rest of the Richards clan, shall we? Ever since the FF zoomed off to Latveria, Franklin, Valeria, Alicia and Wyatt Wingfoot have been staying on the farm of Ben Grimm’s sweet old Aunt Petunia. They’ve been watching Doom’s news in briefs on the tv, and Frankin especially is getting restless.
Perhaps it’s the terrible hair dye seeping into his brain, but Franklin’s been having nightmares lately, dreaming about all of the billions of lives and worlds he created while they were off exploring the multiverse. They were all snuffed out of existence in the blink of an eye by Griever, and the post-traumatic stress of that experience is weighing heavily on him.
Rather than pull his sister into his confidence, he takes off in the middle of the night, running away from his family and his troubles and mocking the disabled in the process.
He’s becoming such a *shakes fist* troubled teen. That’s not all though, because, in both issues, we see some…things watching Franklin from the (fore)shadows. They look fairly demonic and very curious in young master Richards.
This isn’t the first time Franklin has been tormented by demons, either. Back in the ‘Unthinkable’ storyline, in fact (from issues #497-500) while the team was being tortured in the dungeons, Doom opened a portal to hell and thrust a young Franklin into the abyss of eternal damnation.
He was rescued fairly soon after, but not before it scarred him emotionally.
Maybe these demons are something to do with those times? This storyline certainly seems to be drawing upon ‘Unthinkable’ in other ways, so maybe it will continue to be a spiritual sequel and explore Franklin’s inner and outer demons too.
Until next time, Excelsior!
