What I Bought 6/1/2026 - Part 2

Unfortunately, my boss is out on various vacations most of this month. It's good he's taking time off. I shake my head in amazement when he mentions he came in on weekends to take care of stuff, given how often he reminds us not to stress overly about things (I am maybe 50% successful at this.)

However, him being on vacation means I become him in the interim, with all the irritating phone calls, e-mails, and other mind-numbing crap that implies. Will I make it to the end of the month without running screaming to the South Seas?

Fantastic Four #11, by Ryan North (writer), Stan Sakai (writer/artist), Pat Boutin (penciler), Serge LaPointe (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The FF don't fight enough dinosaurs.

The Four are trying to decide what this new Future Foundation they're going to build with Maria Hill will be. If Hill's involved it'll be. . . a disaster! *rimshot* Reed, Sue and Johnny are all disagreeing, but Ben excuses himself from the discussion, claiming he's just the muscle. As opposed to Johnny? I'm pretty sure only one of the two of you qualified to be an astronaut, unless they've revamped Johnny's origin significantly.

Tempers are still high the next day when they find a mechanical T-Rex robbing a bank, and it seems like the FF can't get on the same page, until Ben realizes the robot's got the device Doom used to incite emotions and make people attack at Reed and Sue's wedding. I figured Psycho-Man was trying something new, but no, it's some guy the FF haven't seen in over 500 issues that bought his gear from some "super-weapons" auction. Then Ben tries writing a mission statement for the Future Foundation, and it's about everybody working to better things instead of just the "elite."

Whatever, it's fine. I was here for them fighting a robot T-Rex, although from the solicitation, I was really hoping Crimeasaurus Rex was actually a sentient Tyrannosaur, committing dino-crimes for dino-reasons. Maybe North would have fun with the FF trying to reason with a lizard intelligence that operates differently from a mammalian one, or something. Given that hope, "robot controlled by total loser," is kind of a letdown.

Then there's the Stan Sakai story, which is a pretty standard old-school FF adventure where a building falls into a big hole, so the team travels underground to confront Mole Man. Except he's not the problem, it's just a big creature that likes to dig. The FF work briefly with Mole Man to confront it, then everybody uses their powers and their current location in a plan to defeat it. Then Mole Man tells them to get lost like he's Namor or something. It's pretty close to the distilled essence of the FF, but mostly it's a chance to see Stan Sakai draw them, if that's of interest to you.

Is Ted OK? #4, by Dave Chisholm (writer/artist/letterer) - They shoulda put that cover behind a content warning tag or something.

The lady in the van that seemed to be waiting for Ted and Sarah is doctor Christina Paganini. She wants to destroy Ayn-Styne, because she knows weird stuff is going on there. Because she used to work there. Further explanation has to wait, because Man-Bun Idiot is after them, in an admittedly cool mech-suit, with a bunch of other robots or mech-suits. He catches up and asks Ted to come over and sign a form for paid time-off, or else. Then he does a countdown. When that doesn't work, he brings out the stray cat Ted likes, and starts the countdown over.

Which made me think of Woody Harrelson asking Sam Rockwell to please "go back to 5," when he was trying to get his gun to work in Seven Psychopaths. Ted agrees to surrender, if the cat is given to Sarah (who is maybe remembering this scene while she leaves another voicemail for whoever she keeps calling, this time about how 35% of our memories are shit our brain makes up to fill in the gaps.) Cat released, Ted starts asking Brody what this is about, Brody behaves like a dick, Ted, loses it and releases a massive burst of energy that fries all the mechs. And Brody! Good.

It's a nifty scene, although I was trying to figure out "PPPPPPPPPP" as a sound effect, until I realized on the previous page, he clapped his hands to demonstrate how quickly he died earlier, and the discharge came from that. So it's the tail end of an extended "CLAP" sound effect. Nice work on the layouts, albeit in a way that doesn't lend itself to scanning. A pair of two-page sequences, the first, with the clap, one panel running across two pages, getting shorter as it moves right, while on the second, it gets larger as it progresses. Under each of them, a bigger, irregular 4-sided panel, one of the machines, outlined in blue, the other of dark brown and green wreckage.

And then a few panels at the far right on both pages. In the first two-page sequence, it's 3 panels, stacked on top of each other. Brody's "oh shit!" face, Sarah running with the cat, and the doctor looking on in stunned horror. The second two-page sequence, it's 4 panels, and they're all basically focused on Ted's reaction to what he just did.

After that, there's some sort of answers from Christina about what Ted is, at least in the sense this Noah had something to do with it, rather than aliens. Meanwhile, the reporter follows Noah around, trying to ask questions, or at least question Noah's self-aggrandizing bullshit, without much success on either count. And then Noah takes him inside the Dome, where radiation cooks the reporter almost instantly, but Noah is completely fine. I say that, because I assume the ranting about 'meat-suit husks' and 'spaceship Earth' are everyday shit for this guy.

The yellow tone Chisholm uses inside the Dome seems very similar to what was used in Ted's nightmare at the start of issue 3. And Ted's posture as he rants over the reporter is the same as the blood-covered Ted's in the nightmare as he loomed over a terrified version of himself. What that means? I have no idea.