The Fate of the Fantastic Four (Part 1)

Gearing up for the return of the Fantastic Four in Marvel Comics in August, we are going to be going over Marvel 2-in-One: The Human Torch and The Thing byChip Zdarsky. What this title is supposed to do is show us what the remaining members of the Fantastic Four, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, are up to in the comics and where they've been. Right now, the Fantastic Four is broken up because Reed Richards, Sue Storm and their children, Franklin and Valeria have gone missing somewhere inside the universe and are presumed dead. With a majority of the Fantastic Family gone, Benn Grimm and Johnny Storm are left together, but due to the pain that Johnny feels for losing his sister, his brother-in-law, his niece and nephew, he leaves Ben Grimm to handle the affairs of Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards).

The first issue shows us that while Reed, Sue, and their kids had disappeared, Johnny Storm joined up with the Inhumans. This isn't explicitly explained in the story, but Johnny Storm was really involved with the Inhumans because he had a thing with Medusa, the Queen of the Inhumans up until they split up at the end of Inhumans Vs. X-Men event. This event is not important to the current Marvel 2-in-one story, so there is no need to recount those events. Just know that after Johnny stopped hanging out with the Inhumans, he starts racing (like Nascar racing), and doing his own thing, dealing with the loss of his loved ones, or trying at least.

Ben Grimm on the other hand, is keeping the memory of Reed and Sue alive by attending the event for the Fantastic Award (it's not a very creative name), which is a grant for $100,000 that is awarded to someone that had advance "scientific exploration in all its forms." Ben isn't really doing this because he wants to, but because he feels like he needs to. In fact, Ben is angry that Johnny never showed and forced Ben to attend the award ceremony by himself. From what we can gather at this point, the fact that the two characters are not together, and that one is obviously angry at the other, indicates that they likely are not on speaking terms.

Well we find out pretty soon that The Thing and The Human Torch are not on speaking terms when we get a funny, but brief appearance from Spider-Man saying that Johnny seems to be acting very dark and morose lately. Ben, being angry at Johnny initially refuses, but ultimately decides to go talk to Johnny because at the end of the day, they are family. That and he made a promise to Sue Storm, he just doesn't seem to remember the promise he made at the time. Before Spider-Man leaves, he gives Ben the key to a warehouse storage unit that has all of the things from their place in the Baxter Building. The Baxter Building is the home and base of operations of the Fantastic Four for those of you who do not know. Or it was.

For old time's sake, Ben visits the warehouse and comes across a newspaper with a picture of the Fantastic Four. Seeing Sue in the picture, he remembers the promise he made to Sue. Now for those who have been reading Fantastic Four, or rather had read Fantastic Four before Marvel inexplicably stopped writing stories about them, then you may know what is actually happening here or in this scene. If I am not mistaken, the scene is meant to take place towards the beginning of the Secret Wars event in 2015. The importance of this scene is that during what seems to be the last moments of her life, Sue Storm makes Ben promise her that she is going to take care of her younger brother, Johnny. Shortly after remembering Sue's wishes, the Thing is met by Victor Von Doom, the Fantastic Four's most prominent enemy through the years.

If you are not familiar with Doctor Doom's current position in the Marvel Universe, he is currently his own version of Iron Man called Infamous Iron Man. After the events of Secret Wars, which is the event that lead to the destruction of the entire multiverse in Marvel Comics. This event was spearheaded by Dr. Doom when he became God Emperor Doom after using the powers of a character named Molecule Man as the source of his power. Doom is defeated and decides to turn over a new leaf, and becomes the Infamous Iron Man against Tony Stark's (Iron Man) wishes. Not everybody believes that Victor is a good guy now though, Ben Grimm included.

Doom makes it known quite quickly that he is not there to fight the Thing. In fact he even tells Ben that he has brought a gift. The gift is an orb whose contents Doom was unable to access. The explanation as to how Doom got this orb is pretty important when it comes to highlighting the dynamic between Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom. When Reed, Sue, Franklin and Valeria went missing after the events of Secret Wars, Doom refused to believe that Reed Richards could have killed by something that wasn't him (Doctor Doom). This statement that Doom makes is really, I believe, a nod to his relationship with Reed Richards. You may not know the entire history of the Fantastic Four, but if you know who they are then you should know who Doctor Doom is. Like I said earlier in the post, Doctor Doom is the most prominent FF villain. These two characters throughout their entire publication history have been butting heads, but not only are they competition for each other physically, but they are mentally as well. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) is the smartest man on Earth. Doom is the second. Though Doom doesn't seem to think so.

Because of Richards' intelligence and his inability to accept the fact that something other than himself killed Richards, Doom believed that there would be something in the Baxter Building that would lead him to Reed's actual whereabouts. I don't know where he found the orb in the Baxter Building, but he said that he found it in a place where Ben would access the contents of the orb upon Reed's death. Doom then insults Thing by saying that he wanted to put the information stored in the orb to good use, and that the he would've done more good with information than Ben would.

Of course this makes the Thing angry, which leads to him trying to attack Doom. In response, Dooms say that it doesn't make a difference whether Ben believes what he has to say or not because at the end of the day the contents of the orb were meant for Ben. So Doom just leaves the orb with Ben before he heads off to do his own thing.

When Doom leaves the orb activates in Thing's hand, sort of like the holocrons in the Star Wars Universe, which are small mechanisms that Jedi or Sith have that can store information and contain hologram messages. The hologram of Reed Richards appears in front of Ben explaining that Reed created different messages to be played to Ben in different instances of his death. The message that is being played to Ben is meant to be played in the event of the death of Reed, Sue, Franklin, and Valeria.

Now here is something all of you should know, Reed, Sue, and their kids are alive. It's shown at the end of Secret Wars, its just that none of the characters in the Marvel Universe know that. What Reed is doing with his wife and kids is essentially rebuilding the Marvel Multiverse. When I get into Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four and get into the creation of the Future Foundation you will definitely learn more about what the Grimm-Richards-Storm Family is capable of. But what I'm trying to get at here is the explanation behind the Fantastic Four's absence in Marvel comics since 2015.

Getting back to the story, the hologram of Reed Richards tells Ben that if he and Johnny are the only two members of the Fantastic Four left then they should do what they always do, what they've done even before the Fantastic Four became the Fantastic Four. Travel through space. Now Reed isn't asking Ben and Johnny to go fight intergalactic threats or go on some huge important mission because to Reed the important thing is to explore the cosmos. Sure they can take down who they need to when they see fit, but the main reason they are being sent on this trip is because there is so much to learn and see in space that traveling through it is an absolute must in order to increase knowledge and understanding about the universe. But not only that, traveling through space or through different dimensions is something that they have always done either as friends or as a family, and keeping that practice alive is symbolic in showing that, even though most of the family is missing and presumed dead, the family still lives.

One thing that Reed also does in the message is tell Ben that he is leaving him with a device called the Multisect. What the device is meant to do is allow whoever has it to be able to traverse through the multiverse. Of course, a device that can allow a being to travel through the multiverse is definitely not a device that you can allow to fall into the wrong hands. This is exactly what Reed tells Thing, along with the clue that the Multisect is hidden where Reed and Ben had their first adventure. Reed tells Ben to go find the device, get Johnny, and get space traveling ASAP. And with that Mr. Fantastic's message comes to a close and the focus of the story shifts to Johnny Storm using his powers to fly above the Earth's atmosphere.

As Johnny falls back to Earth's surface Ben arrives in the classic Fantastic method of transportation, the Fantasticar. Ben tries to stop Johnny from going back up outside of Earth's atmosphere to talk and it makes Johnny angry. The reason Johnny is angry at Ben for showing up isn't because of the fact that they had a fight or a fallout (though they might have because Ben was angry at Johnny at the beginning of the comic), it's because he misses his family, and seeing Ben is a reminder of who they used to be and what they've lost. But there's more to it than that. The main reason that Johnny is so irritable is because he's scared of losing his powers.

Johnny tells Ben that he's losing his powers, noting that he can't "Flame on" as long as he used to. This is not something the reader needs to worry about, the guy isn't going to lose his powers. Especially with the Fantastic Four being reunited in the fall of 2018. But Johnny doesn't know if his powers are going to be lost, and his powers have been arguably the most important thing in his life, or if it wasn't back when his family was alive, then it most definitely is now. He's scared of losing everything that he feels makes him feel like himself and his attitude towards everything falling apart around him is not unwarranted.

As Johnny explains his situation to Ben, Ben remembers the promise to protect Johnny that he made to Sue before she disappeared. So what Ben does is tell Johnny that their family may still be alive, and implies that they should go look for them somewhere in the multiverse. This is a lie, even though we as readers know different, for all intents and purposes the Fantastic Four is dead in this story. So in essence Ben is lying to Johnny about them being alive because ultimately he does not know that as fact. The problem here is that we are shown that in the trees there is a surveillance drone monitoring Ben and Johnny. And this drone belongs to Doctor Doom!

Here is why I like this revelation. We don't know what Doom is going to do. We don't know what his endgame is. Now I see two possibilities here. Since Doom is currently a good guy, he could be planning something good, or might be planning on helping them find Reed. Or more likely, Doom is monitoring the duo so they can lead him to Reed Richards, giving Doom a chance to kill Reed. Doom hates Mr. Fantastic so this being Doom's endgame would not be entirely surprising to be completely honest.

The issue ends with Doom commenting on Thing's lie to Johnny, so I have a feeling that Johnny is going to find out. Also whenever a character hides things from other characters in stories, they find out. So seeing what happens to the duo's (Ben and Johnny) relationship in this title going forward.

That marks the end of this post, but more will be coming out soon. I've been remaining inactive for a few days to write a bunch of posts and then submit them for review. So I will be posting less often, but more content will be put out in one go. I will be continuing going over this title, but I will also do a feature post about Yonge at Heart, an anthology comic collection written by a bunch of writers and artists based in Toronto. Feel free to check out my other posts! See you in the next one!

Note: I do not own the character, panels, and art shown in this post. All panels, characters, and art belong to their respective owners.