I'm on the road most of next week. Hopefully that'll be a fun escape, but who can tell. My track record when I go north is that the weather goes to shit. Currently, things look promising besides the temps climbing towards 90 again.
Meanwhile, here's an extra-sized (and extra-pricey), "we hit a round number" Marvel comic.
The FF escape the incompetence of Maria Hill, though Hill later tells Nick Fury she let them escape. Sure you did, Most Incompetent SHIELD Agent Ever. The family reaches their new temporary home, Ben's Aunt Petunia's old house in the woods.
Petunia mentions the home may be haunted, although Reed insists there's no such thing as ghosts. So naturally, they're visited by a ghost that night. Come the morning, they find it difficult to think of words. Just a few at first, but increasing in frequency. They're forgetting the alphabet, in that they know there are supposed to be 26 letters, but they can't recall all of them. North and Coello present this with the group singing the Alphabet Song over and over again while Reed tries to figure out what's wrong. In most of the panels, the team looks relaxed as they sing, even as the letters decrease. It's only after a repetition that there's a pause where they realize they've lost most letters, or that Alicia can't recall her own name. By the time the ghost returns, they only know three letters: D, O, and M.
I cackled at the idea that Doom engineered some sort of nanite that can steal or block letters from people's minds, but left the letters to spell his name. With no ability to communicate verbally, the FF get trounced, especially since Doom's in a mood. He is deeply offended by Richards' clumsy time travel thingy, which has deprived Doom of a year of his goddaughter. So he's come to gloat, right before he travels back in time to fix things.
Except he can't fix things. He tries to turn the tide, but Reed triggers the doohickey anyway. Tries to attack Reed, one of the others does it. Tries to abduct Valeria, Reed stops that and the device still goes off. Goes further back to try and alter other events, this somehow makes things worse. On and on, until Doom concludes that his future selves have somehow already optimized their timeline. Things can't get any better for him at this precise moment than they are.
Doom takes that as well as you'd expect (to be fair, if you told me this current life was as good as it gets, I'd be unhappy too), and concludes he has to stop himself from even trying. So he does, and his past self has to withdraw. North overdoes it on the retreat speech, Doom insisting he's leaving because the FF are already so ruined there's no need to do more.
It's another of those points where North tilts too far into the tone he used in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, exaggerating Doom's ego to a comedic extent, in a story that doesn't fit that. This story is Doom revealing his affection for Valeria, in his own manner, and how that twists around his disdain for Reed and his perception of himself. The blind spots he possesses, the outcomes he considers intolerable, how that limits him. There's no indication Doom tries simply going back before the battle to warn Reed of the impending attack and to not use the machine. Explanations are for lesser men, and Doom need not justify his actions to anyone. The retreat monologue undercuts it by almost reaching parody level.
2 comments:
I was going to say something along the lines of "how can Reed say there's no such thing as ghosts when ghosts are well established in the Marvel Universe?" but I can't think of an example now. Even Ghost Rider isn't a proper ghost.
I think Captain America was a ghost for a bit after he was assassinated at the end of Civil Bore, but I gave up paying attention so I don't know what the explanation as there.
I'm sure the horror side of the Marvel Universe is chock full of ghosts, but I suppose Reed doesn't necessarily mix that much with those guys.
Also, it's Reed, so he could encounter a ghost and still claim there's no such thing because Reed Says So, and the universe will darn well modify itself to his design.
Johnny actually brings up Ghost Rider and Reed replies he, 'is an alive man who just looks like a ghost. And even then, only occasionally.'
There was the original, Western Ghost Rider the one who drugged Mockingbird. He died in the 1886 and then possessed some descendant of his relatives, but Reed never met him.
You'd think he'd have seen a ghost from having Agatha Harkness as a babysitter for Franklin all those years, but as you say, Reed would insist it was something else.
Post a Comment