What I Bought 8/13/2025

Youtube has apparently implemented some new "AI" that, if it decides you're under 18, will automatically put your account under the age-restricted guidelines. And the only way to get that unlocked is by submitting your photo id or something similar. Which gives them your personal data to sell, or just as likely, lose the next time they get hacked. I imagine the "intelligence" is probably the same one that mysteriously decides some post I made on the blog 8 years ago just now has violated community guidelines.

This is a world of the dumbest hucksters inflicting their useless bullshit on the rest of us, non-stop.

Fantastic Four #2, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker) Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Ben's under dinosaur attack, Sue's in a barren landscape, Johnny's surrounded by lava, Reed's. . .in a pleasant, grassy field. Ryan North is doing nothing to dispel my "Reed Richards is Gladstone Gander" theory.

Sue can't find the "Forever Stone", so she's trapped on an Earth with no water, and a Sun on the verge of cooking her if she can't find cover. Back in the Middle Ages, Reed figures that if Sue hasn't found him yet, it's because she can't find the stone, so he undertakes an elaborate and frankly ridiculous plan to create a worldwide map to guide her, even in the far future.

My main issue is, I don't get how the Stone survived 7 billion years without being pushed back into the mantle via tectonic drift and melted. But it didn't, and inside the Stone is a device that will call the Time Sled (which they named "ROSEBUD-1"), so Sue can rescue her family. Then it's back to 2025 to attack Doom just seconds after he flings them through time. They're doing it, they're going to win! Doom's going down, and Reed's explaining what they did and -

Having apparently taken inspiration from Hickman's retcon to Moira, Doom used magic to set up a way to rewind to an earlier point, where only he remembers how the FF beat him. So they can't beat him that way again. As it kicks in, Sue is able to send the Time Sled to their home in Arizona, at some point before this mess began, which is going to be relevant somehow.

On the one hand, Doom accusing someone else of showing off their intelligence is hilarious. On the other, the fact he keeps winning because Reed can't help explaining everything is hilarious. It's Syndrome's "You caught me monologuing!" line from The Incredibles, except it's the good guy getting caught. That said, North already did an issue where Doom keeps resetting time over and over in an attempt to produce a more favorable outcome (the issue where he tries to remove the need for Reed sending the kids, including Doom's godchild, and their home a year into the future to stop Annihilus.) He's got Sorcerer Supreme magic now, and I guess he thinks that'll make the difference, but obviously it's not. At some point, they're going to keep winning, and he's going to, do something.