Last week's day off gave me a chance to make a longer trip to take care of some business. The drive itself was miserable, because it poured rain all morning, but the actual business was no sweat, and then I had time to nose around a couple of stores. Found all of last week's books, which we'll get to later this week, and a couple of the digest collections of John Allison's Bad Machinery Oni Press released.
Today is still for April comics, however.
OK, at some point since Hickman's Secret Wars, it was established that if one member of the Fantastic Four loses their powers, they all start losing their powers. I know, I thought it was stupid, too, but the editorial box cites Marvel-Two-in-One, which I think means the series, was it Dan Slott and Jim Cheung did post-Secret Wars? Anyway, North's playing off something previously established rather than just making this shit up himself.
Johnny's powers cut out next, so Reed and Valeria (who is narrating the issue) devise a plan to build a multiverse-hopping device into the Fantasticar and go to another universe so Ben can be exposed to the cosmic rays that will bombard that universe's Fantastic Four. It doesn't work, probably because he's from a different universe. Vibrational frequency is off, or something, but North and Smith spend multiple pages on it, in what really feels like padding since we just keep getting small panels of different quartets getting the FF box set of powers.
Eventually Ben, without telling anyone else (though Valeria notices and says nothing) sets the coordinates for the past in their universe, and gets a dose of the same set of rays that transformed him originally. Which means his body, his, regular, human-sized body, somehow shields Reed's spaceship cockpit enough they don't get superpowers, thus wiping the FF from existence entirely.
So the remaining marauders want the doc to take some of the (poisoned) opium first, to prove it's the real deal. Instead, it's a fight, and while Colonel Rogers is dying because he took a big slug from one of those poisoned bottles, he's still able to snipe enough guys Hanover can get inside the fort. Where she gives up a lot of blood in a transfusion to try and save Rogers' life.
There's one panel, I thought they'd buried Rogers or sealed him up in a wall, but left his face uncovered. I was trying to figure out what the hell part of a transfusion after taking poisoned dope that was, before I realized an earlier page showed him lying face down on a table or bed, and they'd just hacked some rough hole in it so he could breathe without turning his head. Look, this is a post-apocalypse, there's no telling how medical treatments have been twisted or confused.
Also, we're on our 3rd penciler in 4 issues. Zaldivar continues Yak's trend of making Hanover look younger. He tends to use a lot more hatch marks for the men, but abandons them entirely for the doc. I think the scars on her face are less prominently defined, too. Suppose there's always a chance that settling in one place reduces her stress and her past experiences aren't having such a hold on her, thus the scars fade. But I doubt it.
The rest of the Hot Animal Machines came to see what happened to their buddies, and find the opium vials. Which they take back to camp and enjoy. Hanover assembles the fort's forces to go try and finish the job, not realizing it's already done. Partially from the drugs, and partially from some guys from the First Nations United. They catch Hanover by complete surprise, and when she says so, the Chief replies, "Well. . .we were hiding. You're not supposed to see us when we hide!" I laughed. I can't tell if he's saying it to be funny, or like he's talking to an idiot.
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