I had to run to the next town up on Saturday, and figured I'd try the comic store there, since it's more likely to have books from smaller publishers. Lo and behold, they had both books I wanted from last week. It also looked like they were going to go back to stocking DC, after they dropped it when it switched distributors (something about the reduced discounts not making it worth the cost.)
Sue and Alicia head to town for a supply run, but notice something odd about the town. It seems as though it should have a lot more people, but no one else seems to notice. A store is open one minute, closed a half-hour later, and everyone acts as though it's always been closed. Finding this curious, the ladies return home to consult with the others and find only Johnny. Who has no idea who "Reed" or "Ben" are.
North has a bit of fun with the mental contortions the affected people go through to explain why they're in a photograph with people they don't know, or in Johnny's case, how they're the Fantastic Four when it's just he and Sue. I guess with A.I. art and photoshop and what not, it's pretty easy to explain being in photos with people you've never met. And now that I think about it, the mental contortions thing reminds me of my grandmother's explanations for why, if her mother was still living with her, (when she'd been dead over 40 years) she wasn't anywhere in the house.
(It led to one conversation where she was convinced her mother was wandering around somewhere, and when I pointed out she was dead and buried, my grandmother replied, "What's she doing up walking around then?")
Anyway, there's some sort of wood-creature that wants adoring subjects behind it, and now they've got half the FF on their side, so that'll be fun. More disturbing than that, or even the first few pages of the comic, where Johnny adds a backwards baseball cap and tank top to his terrible mustache look, is North has Sue call Alicia, "Allie", which is just weird to me. I've never seen any writer give her that nickname and it honestly threw me. Like, "really, we're doing that?" Maybe I've just never perceived Sue as a "nickname" person.
Hank Kelly's a man focused on trying to regain custody of his daughter. His periodic suicidal thoughts are not helping. For the first dozen pages, Banks and Ahmad stick almost completely to 9-panel grids. Little squares of Hank or some other person's face. It lets you see the struggle, exhaustion and desperation in him, but also how isolated he is. The page at his therapist's office, the two share no panels. It's always him talking, then a panel of her talking. They might as well be in separate worlds.
On his way to the hearing, Hank is run over by a truck. For most of the comic, Ahamd (I assumed, there's no colorist listed) sticks to blue/white/black colors. It could be considered soothing, but given Hank's hangdog expression most of the time, it's more melancholy. The four panels immediately after he's hit are all in golden-orange. You'd think that would make them happier, but half of them show the dissolution of his marriage, so maybe it's just that these are strong memories that burn through the depression.
Hank wakes up in a hospital bed five hours later, completely fine. There's no explanation he or the doctors can provide, but word's gotten out and there's already a crowd outside the hospital cheering for him. Meanwhile, somewhere else, a woman comes home, and as she relates her day to her husband, his body basically bursts apart.
That's where it ends, the implication that Hank's injuries were somehow shunted to this other poor guy. Why, how? Unrevealed at present. I can't imagine things will end well. Hank seems excited at the prospect of people cheering and adoring him, but he also doesn't seem like someone who handles pressure or people wanting to be close to him very well. That's not a personality well-suited for celebrity, even before someone finds out other people are dying because of whatever this is. We'll have to see when or if the next issue arrives.
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