Friday, October 11, 2024

What I Bought 10/10/2024

The local comic shop didn't get any of its Marvel stuff last week - hence no Deadpool review - and this week's stuff didn't arrive until yesterday. But they did arrive, so let's make the best of it. In other news, the work truck I used Wednesday for what should have been a relatively brief excursion broke down, leaving me stranded in a podunk town near a very busy railroad crossing for 3.5 hours. Did my brain endlessly replay the opening song from In the Heat of the Night? You better believe it, especially the, 'I've got troubleeeeeees, wall to wall,' part.

Fantastic Four #26, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) -  Dollars to donuts Reed's trying to pull Johnny under.

Most of the cast is in New York, trick or treating. Johnny stayed home to wait for trick or treaters that ever arrived, and Reed stayed home to keep working on a magic detector. And it's detected something in the basement! Johnny convinces Reed not to wait for Sue to return (when she could just make the floor invisible to see what's down there), and they get to excavating.

And unearth a portal which spews forth ghosts of all sorts of extinct animals, which Reed theorizes are the spirits of ever animal that ever died there. Excited as he is at observing prehistoric beetles, the portal keeps spewing out ghosts, unless there's something constantly entering the portal from the other side. Fortunately, Johnny saw an article about a group of occultists planning to use a skull which constantly vomits blood to summon Mongaroth, The Charnel Destroyer of Flesh. So Reed and Johnny travel to the Paris catacombs and steal the magic, blood-vomiting skull (which also keeps saying "bleh", without halting the torrent of blood vomit.)

I had never considered how Johnny would absolutely be able to egg Reed on into bad ideas in the name of SCIENCE! Sue's aggravation with the whole thing is hilarious, as is Reed objecting to her description of their schemes as "zany." The skull's little top hat is a great touch. Ben and Alicia's dog is dressed as Jeff the Land Shark for Halloween, while Franklin's dressed as Spider-Man, which Johnny doesn't comment on, but you know he's annoyed.

Anyway, I loved this issue. It cracked me up, really great. 10 out of 10, no notes.

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