What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 4

Alright, last of May's books. Theme of the day is Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four #32, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Wayne Faucher and Oren Junior (inkers), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Poor Valeria, only one who doesn't get to turn into green static.

The timeline's being re-written, but Sue protects the kids with force-fields. From a temporal re-write, after she's already been re-written herself? Sure, fine. Valeria's bubble fails last, and she finds herself in a different body, in a timeline with no FF. She finds her parents, and figures out where in that Twilight Zone episode with the kid sending people to the cornfield, except the kid is this universe's version of Franklin, who makes himself look like Galactus.

Basically, Franklin's bubble failed first so instead of merging with a pre-teen version of himself, he merged with an embryonic version of himself. His memories faded, the god-like powers didn't. When Galactus showed up and there was no FF, Reed and Sue had their baby get rid of Galactus. That doesn't seem to match, timing-wise, but I guess North is arguing with less Dr. Doom and travels to space, there was more time for marrying and baby-making.

The only two people left free of Franklin making everyone "nice" are Jean Grey and Namor. Do not ask how, it's dumb as hell. Like North was going for one of his Squirrel Girl jokes in a story entirely unsuited for it. Valeria thinks they can avoid all this if she can stay off Franklin's notice long enough to build a machine to project a thought back in time to herself in the Fantasti-car. Well how does that work if the timeline's rewritten? There is no Fantastic-car, because there was never an FF, because they never got hit by cosmic rays!

Ugh, whatever. It works, and so things are set up for them to fix this in the finale before the restart. 

The Thing #1, by Tony Fleecs (writer), Justin Mason (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Definitely a lot of doofuses punching out of their weight class on that cover. The Grizzly? Sidewinder. Is that Jigsaw in the lower right? Man can't beat the Punisher, but he's gonna fuck with the Thing. 

An old acquaintance - not a friend, Ben is very clear on that - from Yancy Street asks for Ben's help finding his sister. Marty was a jerk to Ben as a kid, but Shelly was nice, so Ben agrees to help. Apparently people disappearing is happening a lot lately, and Marty knows a guy, who knows a guy that might know something about it.

Said guy turns out to be the Gladiator, who's in a bar in the morning looking very spaced out. As soon as they try talking, he starts yelling about monsters and people putting things inside him. And he's got super-strength, enough Ben can feel the hits, although Fleecs and mason make it pretty clear he's holding back. A lot of panels of Ben keeping his arms raised, palms out, still trying to reason with Gladiator and ask questions. Eventually he figures he's got as much as he's going to, and knocks Melvin out with one hit. But the only other patron is Turk - the Daredevil supporting cast guy - and he calls Kingpin. Which is how Ben's going to end up with a contract on his head.

Trying to get the Thing killed seems a bit much for Fisk. The FF are publicly-known and beloved heroes, not like those loner weirdos Spider-Man and Daredevil. But I get the feeling this is set at some amorphous period in the past (people are using rotary phones, plus HERBIE's around), so maybe Fisk is more cocky, or just less concerned with appearances at this point. Mason draws Fisk in the style I remember from well into the '90s. Big white suit jacket, yellow vest underneath, purple pants like he raided Banner's wardrobe.

Fleecs seems to be going for something about the proper use of strength. That is doesn't exist just to throw things around and smash people weaker than you. Sue thinks Ben doubts himself and that's why he holds back, but it seems like the point is Ben knows exactly how strong he is, and is being deliberately careful. Like I said, he's mostly trying to restrain and reason with Potter to avoid unnecessary damage to the bar they're in, and tells the owner to contact him if there's any trouble getting the repairs paid for. Strength is supposed to help people, and sometimes that means punching someone's lights out, but not always, and not needlessly.