I hope last week was the end of the snow. I'm tired of people freaking out and rushing to the store because oh my gosh, two inches of snow! What will I do? It's so scary!
Ben fights the Berserker, while Terrax pursues Amaryllis and the Faceless One (who might also be the Bodyless One) chases Bobby. The Faceless One dies beneath a barrage of acid spewing spiders. Bobby stays to watch because when is he going to see that again? Amaryllis takes offense to Terrax calling her a crude name and stabs him with a knife she got from Dr. Strange. It's a nasty little weapon. Ben, meanwhile, just beats the Berserker down and takes his weird staff-weapon thing. He also collapses.
Ben's collapsing a lot in this mini-series, but the fights don't seem that hard. Don't know if that's important or not.
Bobby and Amaryllis return, although Amaryllis' story of how she survived does not match reality. And it's about then Dr. Doom shows up. Doom was commanding the other three, and the army of Warbots are his, and he really doesn't want to fight Grimm. He's out to rescue his mother's soul, which did not go to Heaven after Doom and Strange's efforts in Triumph and Torment. Mama Doom was captured by Death and is being held in some other dimension.
Ben's pretty sure Doom defeating Death on her own turf would be bad, so he beats Doom down, but refuses to kill him, against Bobby's suggestion. Instead, Ben offers to help Doom rescue his mother, if Doom will leave Death alone afterward. Bobby fears this will sunder Ben's soul, and Bobby's apparently part Watcher (???) so maybe he would know. Amaryllis is not OK with this plan either, both because she loves Ben, and because she's Death. And Alicia's weird boyfriend, and the little pixie that dragged Ben into this in the first place both either work for her, or are her.
Great, now Ben's going to have Thanos and Deadpool after him for stealing their gal. Whatta revoltin' development. I guess her being Death explains both her constant casual suggestions they kill enemies, her treatment of things like breakfast as novel, the Surfer's confused reaction to her. The way Reilly shadows her face in this issue when she mentions she read the Berserker cannot die. I made the mistake of thinking the mysterious cloaked figure was something other than just Death. I think mostly because Reilly drew Death with more flesh on her face than usual, and because the being looked male to me. My bad making assumptions.
This all kind of makes the shift in Ben's appearance make sense. She's been putting him in situations that give him the chance to armor himself. Gain weapons, gain power, gain tools that would send him to where she needed him. A place Doom would have to face him, and then Ben would crush him and his goal of rescuing his mother. I guess that's what the nightmares are about, too. Try to make him feel like, if he doesn't keep fighting, everyone's going to die and it'll be his fault. Then he keeps running into people he's traditionally fought, so that's what he does. He fights them, and she believes he'll just keep fighting, no matter what.
So I like the fact he defies that, refuses to kill even Dr. Doom. Then offers to help Doom. That feels very true to Ben Grimm. He doesn't want Doom attacking the Earth with those machines (I like his comment Doom would try to conquer the world over a Labor Day barbeque), but he gets wanting to rescue a loved one's soul. I don't see how Bobby can think this decision will sunder Ben's soul. Killing Doom, especially when Doom was beaten, that seems like the sort of thing that would wreck him. Unless he ends with his heart broken.
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