If The Ending Didn't Surprise, At Least It Did End

I got a chance to read the final issue of Secret Wars last week (I guess there will be spoilers, if you care). So hey, it's finally over. I'm not sure it even matters at this point. Hickman and Ribic dicked around and took so long finishing it that the rest of the Marvel Universe has moved on to deal with the fallout.

Which feels appropriate. My general impression of Hickman's Avengers run was things did happen, but off-panel. A lot of characters sitting around talking about what they had done, and hey, here's a bit of a flashback so you can see bits and pieces. Hank Pym takes a trip through the Multiverse for months to find out why universes are dying, we don't accompany him, we just find out about it secondhand once he gets back.

So with "All-New, All-Different" Marvel already going for over three months now, Secret Wars is kind of reduced to another flashback. We know Miles Morales is in the Marvel U. now, and oh yeah, here's Miles getting here. We haven't seen Reed or Sue, here's where they ended up. It makes for a bit of an anti-climax, but between the Merry Marvel Hype Machine, and the endless series of Big Events (and my own desire for the whole thing to just be done already), maybe that was always going to be the case. It was never going to end everything, obviously, and it couldn't change things too much from what Marvel deems most profitable either. So, shuffle a few of the deck chairs and hope for the best?

On the positive side for me, there were a few interesting mini-series, and I was able to read them and largely ignore the event itself. That was nice. On the downside, there was the mass canceling of all their ongoing series. Some of them only for a couple of months, but I still resent that I didn't get to read those books those months because of Secret Wars. I have no idea whether that's Hickman's fault. It really feels more like a decision made by the higher-ups, but at the same time, Hickman apparently wanted to write a story where he ended the Marvel Universe, so maybe he expected them to shut the regular books down to go along with that. I don't know. Whether it's on him or not, it was another level of annoying, even beyond the usual irritation that comes with your favorite titles doing event tie-in issues. At least with those, you still have the creative team you like (presumably), working on the characters you like, and hopefully they can spin something good out of the whole mess. Not as much of an option here. Even as few Marvel books as I was buying during the middle of last year, I'd say they still cost themselves some of my dollars, just because I bought even fewer of the mini-series.

I've watched the series with a bit of curiosity because of the fact that Doom did outdo Reed early on. Doom was able to attack the beings destroying universes (with the aid of Molecule Man and Dr. Strange) and defeat them, and saved millions of lives. The best Reed and his Illuminati buddies could come up with was some little lifeboats to save a few thousand people, and they couldn't even manage that right. Of course, once Reed and Doom get down to it at the end, it turns into Reed talking shit about how he'd have done it better than Victor, because he wouldn't have tried to grasp the power so tightly and keep it all consolidated (because Reed shares all his inventions with the whole world, like intergalactic space travel), and blah, blah, blah.

Some of that's my antipathy towards Reed Richards. Kelvin Green observed once that Reed is somehow exempt from that peculiar quirk of the Marvel Universe where arrogance is punished. If Spider-Man decides stopping a burglar isn't worth his time, that burglar will kill his Uncle Ben. If Victor von Doom refuses to listen when Reed says there's a mistake in his calculations, it will blow up in his face. But when Reed refuses to listen to those who say his spaceship needs more testing on its protective shielding, it's his friend who is turned into the orange rock monster. It's the same basic error -a belief he can't possibly be wrong - but he doesn't get hammered for it the way seemingly anyone else would*. The man calls himself Mr. Fantastic, and the Living Tribunal (or whatever physical representation you want to assign such acts to) looks and says, "I'll allow it."

I understand that if Doom is the bad guy - and I guess he is, because he built a world with a lot of unnecessary hazards in it, and expcts everyone to worship him - Reed is the person you bring in to confront him. But at the end of the day, it feels like Doom and Molecule Man did most of the hard work, and here comes Reed Richards to try and play the Big Man who is going to do things right (although it's still going to come down to Owen and I guess Franklin, since he's the one with the power).

I think I'd have rather seen Reed keep goading Doom, and Victor does it himself, just to prove Richards is wrong. "You believe I cannot create, that I cannot send the majesty of Doom out to a thousand new universes? Behold your folly, Richards!" Instead it's Doom admitting Reed is better than him and relinquishing the power, and Reed working with his kid and Molecule Man to create new universes. Reed wins again, even if I'm not sure he deserves it, but what else is new? Reed is like Gladstone Gander, Donald Duck's lucky cousin, the one stuff always works out for, whether it ought to or not.

Anyway, the thing is over and done. I should just be happy about that.

* And at least Doom could have argued a) he was still just a college kid, and b) he was building a device to communicate with a soul in Hell, which is probably not a field with a lot of earlier work to use as a stepping stone, and c) he was doing so to talk to his mother, which had to put some strain on him. Reed can't really use any of those arguments, he just wouldn't accept he was not correct about something.

Is It The Superhero's World, Or Are They Just Living In It?

This post originally started as one thing, but I realized there was a more interesting direction for it to go.

During Dwayne McDuffie's stint on Fantastic Four, he was handed a bit of a rough situation. It came immediately after Civil War, when the team had fragmented. Reed had been Pro-Reg, Sue and Johnny switched to the Anti-Reg side about the time Reed and Stark unveiled Murderous Clone Thor, and Ben left the country for a time, unwilling to fight his government or his friends. So McDuffie had to try and patch things up between them, and try and explain why Reed would produce things like Clor and the Negative Zone prison.

The solution he went with was that Reed made psychohistory work. He'd read Asimov's books as a boy, and he tried to make it a reality. At some point, he succeeded, and his actions were an attempt to keep things on what seemed the path least likely to result in disaster. This seems sort of reasonable on the surface, and I do find it kind of cute to think of teenage Reed trying to work out the math behind psychohistory during 3rd period Spanish, or something.

There's a possible hitch, though. In the Foundation series, the flaw in psychohistory is it can't account for random individuals. Large groups of people are predictable, a single person is not. This is how the arrival of the Mule throws everything off, because he's a solitary individual with incredible psionic power, and Hari Seldon's calculations could not account for him*.

Now consider the Marvel Universe. There are dozens of people on Earth alone equal to the Mule's power in one way or the other. The Hulk, Dr. Strange, Apocalypse, Dr. Doom, the High Evolutionary. There are abstract concepts such as Death which are aware and occasionally take an active hand in the universe's proceedings. You have things the Celestials, whose true goals are unclear. You have people falling into toxic waste and developing powers every whipstitch. Time travelers, people from alternate timelines or other universes entirely. Reed Richards himself has shaped the course of the universe more than once. He convinced people to help save Galactus once. Imagine how differently things might go if he hadn't.

Given all these individuals, how can psychohistory work? Can't their powers give them a disproportionate level of control, to the point large groups of people are essentially meaningless? I mean, humans as a group have been trying to exterminate mutants for years. Legally, illegally, camps, giant robots, smear campaigns, using other mutants against them, whatever, none of it worked. The Scarlet Witch, by herself, came closer than all those groups ever had.

Then it occurred to me. Readers of serial comics talk about illusion of change. We also talk about how the genius characters never seem to use their big brains to fix the problems their world (and our own) has. And it's because the writers want to keep the world fairly recognizable to the audience, I presume so things they want to have stand out will. So things may go in a different direction for a time, but eventually, inevitably, they cycle back around. Mutant population was devastated, mutant population is reborn. The government trusts heroes, then it doesn't, then it does.

So what if that's point McDuffie was making? Superheroes and villains, for all their power, don't really make any sort of impact on the world? Or if they do, they cancel each other out? The nature of their stories prevents them from making any lasting change, so any permanent changes we (the audience) see in the Marvel Universe will be a reflection of the changes that come about in our own world, as writers attempt to continue representing the world outside our doors.

In-story, it would come down to Reed having determined that the superpowered individuals will have sufficiently different and opposing goals that they'll all stop each other from accomplishing anything. Which leaves the way open to the masses to determine the path, or be lead down it, if someone knows how to game the system. Say, someone who can predict what those masses will do. Like Reed Richards**.

* Given Seldon's Second Foundation was staffed by psionics, I'm left wondering what it was about the Mule that was so successful. Was it the strength of the Mule's talents, that they couldn't find him and draw him into their organization, or the fact that he set his eyes on galactic conquest? You would think, if Seldon had a group of psionics dedicated to keeping the Plan on course, there would be some way to predict their occurrence and account for it.

** I feel like McDuffie sort of of touched on this in a time travel sense. This is going off a vague memory, so it could be wrong. Reed says one person going back in time can't cause a sufficient difference as to change things, but if a large group of people go back, they just create an alternate timeline. Apparently the optimal number of people needed to change the outcomes without causing divergent timelines was 4.

Use A Grandfather Clause Argument!

As much as I enjoyed seeing Deadpool and Bob interacting with the original Fantastic Four this week, it was missing something. No, not French toast! As Wade noted, the FF always have delicious French toast at the breakfast table (much better than Latverian toast, which is actually just a picture of Dr. Doom reminding his subjects to work hard, and to love their monarch).

No, what it was missing was Reed Richards' pipe. Back in the day, Reed frequently smoked a pipe, a was his right, being a scholar and all. It's as ingrained in him as the idea of wearing tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbow (I don't actually know that Reed wore those, but I'm sure he did). I mean really Marvel, why are you hating on the professors so much? You think all the kids reading Marvel comics (wait, kids are reading these comics?) would jump at the chance to puff on a pipe? Well, that would be kind of cool, and I don't even smoke.

But I believe Nicieza and Brown should have put the pipe in on the basis that even if Reed can't smoke now, he did smoke at that time in his history, and so it's reasonable to assume he was enjoying a smoke when our erstwhile time-travelers popped up on Doom's time-travel platform. Thus, it should not count as a violation of Marvel's (idiotic) "no smoking by the good guys" policy (When is that stupid policy going to be lifted?). We're going for period accuracy here, Marvel overlords! Do you want to disgrace Jack Kirby's memory even more? Do you?

Don't answer that. I'm not in the mood to be depressed. The other possibility is that Nicieza and Brown could have slipped it in simply because I really don't know how much the editors are paying attention, and the book's being canceled in a few months, so they might be paying even less attention than usual. You needed to go for it guys, Joey Q is busy sleeping, I mean, trying to catch up on his One More Day art! Then henhouse is unguarded, I repeat, the henhouse is unguarded!

Say, couldn't Dr. Doom demand Reed return the time machine? It's Doom's time-travel platform after all. I think that would really burn Reed if Doom got the American courts to make Reed return it. Not because Doom needs that one, I'm sure he can make others, just because it would probably piss Reed off to have to present it personally (that would be part of the ruling), and I imagine Doom would make a big deal of it, like Cartman does anytime he wins a bet with Kyle.

Quit Breaking Laws Of Physics

Do you think it's hard being a scientist in the Marvel and DC universes? I don't mean the insanely brilliant guys, the Reed Richards and Mr. Terrifics of the universe. I'm thinking of a slightly more normal level of scientific brilliance.

You've got alleged gods and mutants who change the weather if they get angry, ladies in fishnets who can make people disappear by speaking backwards, purple energy rays that can heal or kill, aliens with technology so advanced it might as well be magic. Would that just frustrate the heck out of someone?

It seems like science is about figuring out the fundamental laws that hold the universe together, but that could be difficult when there are people who can change or ignore what seem to be those laws, at a whim? Trying to figure out how organisms change over time, when you've got to consider the possibility that the organisms you see might have been genetically engineered (the Kree made the Inhumans that way, maybe there are non-sentient animals in a similar boat).

I guess the tradeoff is that it would open up a whole new world of opportunities for study, frustrating though they might be. I suppose it could be fun if you can get ahold of some alien tech, and you enjoy the challenge of taking it apart, figuring out what makes it work, and then finding a way to apply it to your world. Still, I wonder what it would be like to be presented with something like that, and spend your life just figuring out how to take it apart without risking blowing yourself up. Would that feel like a worthwhile lifetime pursuit?

Obviously, It's All Part Of A Devious Ploy

I want to sort of go back to something I got into here.

When I was reading Amazing Spider-Man #535, I noticed that Reed's sporting some stubble, suggesting he's been really busy, and there's no one around to remind him to shave. Between that, his story about his uncle, and his mentions of Ben being on a 'leave of absence', it actually went a ways towards humanizing him, showing that what they're doing is starting to get to him, even if it's only because he's losing the people closest to him, as they do what they think is best, and it isn't in agreement with him.

Of course, after his story about his uncle, followed by his assertion that you need to obey the law, no matter how lousy it is, didn't help, portraying him as someone too gutless to do what he believes in, which doesn't jibe with his past history (as noted by an anonymous commenter on Wednesdays' post). So Reed clearly lacks a backbone in the metaphorical sense, and if he's anything like his Ultimate counterpart, in the literal sense as well.

And this lead me to wonder whether it's possible for Reed to grow a beard. If he does lack internal organs, then I think that his body is sort of locked into the state that it was in when he got hit with those cosmic rays. Honestly, I'm just not sure how he can function without any noticeable internal structures. He obviously has something to pass for a nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory, circulatory, etc., but what, and where?

Reed could actually be like Plastic Man, to the point where it would be nearly impossible to kill him. With the way his body can change size and shape, he must be able to go through millions of mitotic divisions at will. Or else he's stretching the same cells out to crazy sizes, which would give him low elasticity (since the cells would be stretched more thinly, and break easier), which isn't the case. To go through all those mitotic divisions, should be leading to a considerable amount of early cell death, and significantly shortening Reed's life, but there hasn't been any sign of that so far, right? To be fair, I'm not sure how old Reed was when he stole his own ship, but it's been ten years of stretching and changing since then, so he ought to be showing some signs. But no, which suggests his body has some sort of additional feature that corrects for that problem. What, I couldn't guess. Maybe when he goes back to his default size and shape, all those extra cells recombine and it's as if no divisions occurred at all.

I just really wonder if Reed's body works the same as your average, Joe Schmoe, human being. In fact, to heck with whether Reed can grow a beard or not, do you think he can grow one at will? Gasp! That dastardly fiend! He intentionally made his normal facial hair stretch to resemble a couple days' old stubble, so we'd think he was worn down and underestimate him. He was probably trying to make Peter think he'd found someone else with doubts he could confide in, to set Pete up.

Say it with Doctor Doom now people: Accursed Richards!

This Could Easily Be A Weekly Feature

It's "Stupid Things Tony Stark Said During Civil War"!

This week's unmatched brilliance is from Heroes for Hire #1. When explaining the rationale for registration, Mr. Nuclear Underpants drops this line on us: 'The only thing changing is that we're finally weeding out the kids, the amateurs and the sociopaths.'

The emphasis is Tony's. And he certainly makes a good point. Those kinds of people are very dangerous and shouldn't be allowed to fly around the city saving lives.

Certainly no one that gains super-powers as a teenager could possibly be any good as a hero. Oh, hey Spidey. Hey, Pete, remember that time when you stopped the Sandman from using your entire school as hostages? That was pretty cool. Say, you should have bought some beers afterwards to celebrate your victory. What do you mean you weren't old enough?

And Tony's right about this not being an occupation for amateurs. Like, remember when that rich guy - I forget his name - thought it would be fine to pilot a multi-billion dollar war suit while soused? That guy nearly killed some people and we can no longer tolerate that kind of reckless. . . Tony, what's wrong? I'm agreeing with you. We need to leave this to professionals, like Reed Richards, who had ten years of experience as an International Man of Mystery before he ever got hit with those cosmic rays (which he may have inadvertently created when he helped start the universe. Damnit, JMS).

What do you mean, Reed Richards had never fought aliens, Eastern European despots, or subterranean armies prior to gaining super-powers?! But that would mean he was a. . . a. . . Gasp! It can't be!

As for sociopaths, well, it's a great idea in theory, Iron Man, but if that's your goal, you might want to stop using Wolverine! I've seen vampires that were less bloodthirsty than this guy. Mongol hordes think the hairy Canuck needs to kill fewer people.

You know, I think I've misjudged Tony and Reed. This isn't about protecting innocent lives, or even their bottom lines. This is about maintaining themselves as the elites of their little sect. They're like those people that belong to the really trendy club and don't want to let anyone else in. The more people that get in, the less special, and most important, envied they are. Stark and Richards have just neatly used the government to cement their status at the top of the food chain. Jerks.

Oh, and I'm going to predict that the guy who amped up Nitro's powers works for a subsidiary of Stark International, because clearly, Tony engineered this whole thing.