FANTASTIC FOUR #279

"CRACK OF DOOM!"
CHAPTER ONE: THOUGH HEAVENS FALL… | CHAPTER TWO: FATHER TO THE MAN…
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Embellisher: Jerry Ordway
Colorist: Glynis Oliver | Letterer: John Workman
Edits: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: In outer space, the Baxter Building explodes and one of Doctor Doom’s recording devices monitors the apparently deceased Fantastic Four, Wyatt Wingfoot, and Franklin. But as soon as the device departs, the FF reveal they are alive, playing possum inside one of the Invisible Girl’s force fields. Under directions from Mister Fantastic, the group returns to Earth inside the field, landing at Castle Doom in Latveria.

Inside the castle, the FF defeat several of Doom’s robot guardians and make their way to his sanctum. There they find Doom and several of his robotic doubles. The FF easily defeat the doubles and unmask Doom, revealing him as the late monarch’s ward, Kristoff. The FF prepare to return to the United States with Kristoff in tow, hoping to deprogram him.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Reed explains to She-Hulk that Doctor Doom adopted Kristoff following the murder of his mother in FANTASTIC FOUR #247.

On the following page, Reed deduces that Kristoff’s scheme failed because he didn’t realize Sue had gained the power to generate force fields in FF #6, which happened at a point after the boy shut down the memory transferal process last issue.

THE UNBOXING - AUGUST 2016

It's a light one this time, which is fine with me, and both of the month's two offerings come from Marvel. (And, apropos of nothing, the books' contents just miss overlapping each other, in terms of original publication dates, by about six months.)

First up is the new printing of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 3*, which, as I've noted a couple times in the past few months, when combined with volume 1*, volume 2, and HAWKEYE AND THE THUNDERBOLTS volume 1 and volume 2, completes the run of what I consider the definitive THUNDERBOLTS -- issues 1 - 50 by Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, and Mark Bagley. I seriously have no idea why the T-Bolts just received this level of fast-track love (five trades -- three reissues and two new -- released in the lightning-quick span of four months), but I'm really glad to see it happen.

And our second item is X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF GAMBIT, a nice trade collecting a chunk of issues of both X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN which were originally published between the "Onslaught" and "Operation: Zero Tolerance" events. My goal of getting all the Scott Lobdell/Fabian Nicieza X-MEN on my bookcase grows ever closer to completion, and I'm quite happy about it. This book will be slotted for an in-depth spotlight as part of my monthly X-Men collected editions review project (all of which can be found archived about halfway down this page), somewhere around December or January, so for now I've nothing more to say on the topic.

I expect another very light month next time, leading me to note that Marvel and DC seem to have scaled back publishing the sorts of classic material I'm interested in. For now I don't mind; a new baby inevitably leads to a diminished budget for these kinds of things -- but I hope this downward trend levels out at some point! Two books a month or so is just about right in my opinion, but I always feel a little bummed out those months when I only receive one or even none.

---

* Note that the above links go to the original 2011 and 2012 printings of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volumes 1 and 3. Amazon doesn't seem to have the new printings on their site yet -- but in any case, the contents should be identical.

TRANSFORMERS: THE WAR WITHIN #2

Story: Simon Furman | Pencils: Don Figueroa | Inks: Elaine To
Colors: Rob Ruffalo | Letters: Dreamer Design | Pre-Press: Kell-O-Graphics
President/Art Director: Pat Lee | VP/Editor-in-Chief: Roger Lee

The Plot: Megatron holds court with his followers while the Autobots prepare to evacuate Cybertron under orders from Optimus Prime. Later, Megatron has the Constructicons begin work in turning Cybertron into a "cosmic dreadnought". He orders one of the planet's turbines activated, which destroys Orbital Torus State Kaon.

Optimus Prime realizes the destructive blast originated from within the planet and heads underground in search of Megatron, but he is ambushed by the Insecticons instead. Meanwhile, with Prime away, Shockwave leads an all-out Decepticon assault on Iacon.

Continuity Notes: Megatron's past as a gladiator is teased, though he insinuates that all Decepticons fought in underground arenas at one time.

Prime realizes Megatron's scheme when he recalls one of his would-be assassins last issue bragging that "...the seeds of destruction have already been sown under your very feet" -- hence the gigantic engines beneath Cybertron's surface.

G1 References: Laserbeak is drawn in his Cybertronian character model from the G1 pilot episode, "More Than Meets the Eye". Indeed, though I didn't note it last time, all the characters depicted with Cybertronian modes in the original animation have those same modes here (Wheeljack, Bumblebee, Starscream, etc.) -- though Figueroa has designed new robot forms for them to match these alternate vehicle modes.

FANTASTIC FOUR #278

"TRUE LIES"
Script & Pencils: John Byrne | Inks: Jerry Ordway
Colors: Glynis Oliver | Letters: John Workman
Edits: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chiefs: Jim Shooter

The Plot: In Latveria, Doctor Doom’s robots bring young Kristoff to a special wing of Castle Doom, where they reveal that Doom is dead and Kristoff will now rule in his place. The robots hook Kristoff into a machine and begin implanting Doom’s life’s memories into his brain. But Kristoff orders the procedure stopped when it reaches a point just after Doom’s second encounter with the Fantastic Four.

Soon after, as the FF go about their normal business one evening, the Baxter Building tears away from its foundation and takes off for outer space. Doctor Doom, wearing modified armor, contacts the FF via a video screen and taunts them, then blows up the upper portion of the building once it's left Earth’s atmosphere.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Doctor Doom’s past is recapped via the memory implantation, including some bits newly created by Byrne: His mother long dead, Victor Von Doom’s father was targeted for execution as well, having failed to save the life of a local baron’s wife. Victor and his father were taken in by a gypsy clan, and the elder Doom soon died. Victor began to study the black arts using his mother’s paraphernalia, alienating Valeria, the woman who loved him.

THREE YEARS

Well, as I did last year and the year before around this time, I'd like to acknowledge another anniversary for the blog. To be exact, my first post went up on August 16th of 2013, so I'm almost a week late, but since I'm too anal to deviate from my normal "announcements on Sundays" routine, here we are.

As usual, I'm trying to stay ahead of schedule, even with the new Bundle of Joy in the house. To that end, a few months back I scaled down my Monday-Wednesday postings to Mondays only. As a result, I was able to finish reading and writing posts about the full John Byrne FANTASTIC FOUR run just before the baby was born, and those are now queued up to be published through the remainder of 2016. Fridays aren't booked quite so far in advance, but I do have them going into early November at the moment via the recently announced Dreamwave TRANSFORMERS part 2 series.

Since I've done this each of the past two years, let's see what gets the most hits around here these days: According to the "All Time" counter, the X-Men Collected Editions chart remains my most visited page, with the INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS review still clocking in at second place with about one-fourth as many hits. Third place remains the same as last summer too, in the form of the SPIDER-MAN by Roger Stern review series I did a couple years back. So really, nothing has changed at all in the past year in the terms of my most frequently visited pages.

What Google search terms are bringing people here? Besides variations on the title of the blog, it seems searching for reviews of the afore-mentioned INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS remains a popular venue of entry, and folks looking for reviews of Moon Knight comics and X-Men collected editions tie for third.

So those are the stats for my three-year anniversary. As noted above, Byrne FF and Dreamwave TRANSFORMERS will take us up to the end of the year, and the usual Unboxings and X-Men collected edition reviews will continue monthly on Sundays, with a few more various Sunday posts on other topics upcoming as well. Come 2017, I'll be back with my annual "Year in Review/State of the Blog", so see you then!

TRANSFORMERS: THE WAR WITHIN #1

Story: Simon Furman | Pencils: Don Figueroa | Inks: Elaine To & Don Figueroa
Colors: Rob Ruffalo | Letters: Dreamer Design | Pre-Press: Kell-O-Graphics
President/Art Director: Pat Lee | VP/Editor-in-Chief: Roger Lee

The Plot: Millions of years ago on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime is killed in battle with Megatron. Meanwhile, Autobot forces under the command of Grimlock fail to defend Orbital Torus State Altihex from a Decepticon attack. As the Autobot council chooses a new Prime, Grimlock meets with Prowl and Jazz and tells them that the Autobots need a more militaristic leader to combat Megatron.

Later, the Matrix is bestowed upon the new Prime, Optimus. Decepticon assassins attempt to stop the ceremony, but Optimus Prime defeats them. Elsewhere, Megatron prepares to battle his new rival.

Continuity Notes: This issue establishes in Dreamwave's continuity that Sentinel Prime was Optimus Prime's predecessor as Autobot commander and that Optimus Prime was a simple archivist before the Autobot Oracle chose him as Sentinel's successor.

Bluestreak notes that before joining the Autobot cause, he was a Cybertronian merchant. Later, Prowl states that the city of Praxus was his home before the Decepticons destroyed it.

FANTASTIC FOUR #277

"BACK FROM BEYOND"
Story and Pencils: John Byrne | Embellishing: Jerry Ordway
Coloring: Glynis Oliver | Lettering: John Workman
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: On Earth, the Thing returns from the Beyonder’s Battleworld and goes to visit Alicia. When he finds Johnny there early in the morning, Ben lashes out at his teammate. Alicia calms them down, but further conversation is interrupted when another planet appears, moving toward the Earth. While Johnny takes Alicia to the Baxter Building, Ben runs across a woman who shapeshifts into an alien Dire Wraith, but dies before she can steal Ben’s body when the other planet explodes. In the aftermath, Ben learns that the planet was the Dire Wraith homeworld, and was destroyed by Rom the Spaceknight and his allies.

Meanwhile, Doctor Strange arrives in Belle Porte, Connecticut to find Reed, Sue, and Franklin Richards apparently dead — but his mystic senses reveal that their souls have actually left their bodies. Strange follows the errant souls to the realm of Mephisto, where the demon lord has imprisoned Franklin while he tortures Reed and Sue. Strange releases Franklin, whose mutant power—unencumbered by the psychic blocks placed on it in his physical form — apparently destroys Mephisto in a fit of fury. With the villain defeated, Strange and the Richardses return to Belle Porte.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A lengthy footnote recaps Ben’s time on Battleworld, and he also thinks to himself that he became the Thing permanently once more while trapped there.