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.

X-MEN: FATAL ATTRACTIONS

Hardcover, 2012. Collects 1993-94's UNCANNY X-MEN #298 - 305 & 315, UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #17, X-FACTOR #87 - 92, X-MEN UNLIMITED #1 & 2, X-FORCE #25, X-MEN #25, WOLVERINE #75, and EXCALIBUR #71.

This book is probably my favorite of all the X-MEN hardcovers I own, in terms of volume of contents. The two X-MEN BY CLAREMONT & LEE books came out a bit earlier than FATAL ATTRACTIONS, and they certainly covered a wide swath of X-continuity, between UNCANNY issues, X-FACTOR issues, annuals, and the like. And of course there were prior collections of the various X-events which preceded "Fatal Attractions", but those generally only collected the pertinent crossover issues (with the exceptions of FALL OF THE MUTANTS, which contained a great deal of lead-in material and X-TINCTION AGENDA, which included the original Genosha arc to lead the book off).

But FATAL ATTRACTIONS gives us our first real glimpse of the Marvel collected editions department's diabolical plan to eventually get every issue of X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN, as well as ancillary X-material such as annuals and X-MEN UNLIMITED issues, out there in some way or another -- not to mention squeezing in installments of other spin-off series where pertinent.

FATAL ATTRACTIONS begins with UNCANNY #298 and 299, written by Scott Lobdell and featuring the return of Magneto's Acolytes and the machinations of the Gamesmaster and the Upstarts. We then move into a solid run of X-FACTOR #87 (the famous "team psychotherapy" issue) through 91, written by the outgoing Peter David and fill-in scripter Lobdell, which provide some tangential groundwork for the upcoming "Fatal Attractions" crossover.

TRANSFORMERS/G.I. JOE #1 - 6

"THE LINE" | "TRANSFORMED" | "TRIAL BY FIRE"
"WOLVES" | "TRENCHES" | "THE IRON FIST"
Writer: John Ney Rieber | Art by: Jae Lee | Colors: June Chung
Letters: Benjamin Lee | VP/Editor-in-Chief: Roger Lee | Publisher: Pat Lee

TRANSFORMERS/G.I. JOE was easily the most experimental Transformers comic Dreamwave published in their brief time with the property's license. Illustrated by Jae Lee in something as far from the Dreamwave house style as possible and written as an alternate history "What If" by John Ney Rieber, the story is set in the era of World War II but features Europe trembling under the reign of the Cobra Empire, assisted by a group of Decepticons found in the story's opening pages by the sinister Major Bludd.

To combat Cobra, the United States government forms a special unit called G.I. Joe, consisting of the best the armed forces have to offer, and sends them in as an advance commando force to prepare the Cobra Terrordrome for invasion by a U.S. fleet. While battling their enemies in and around the Terrordrome, the Joes inadvertently activate the slumbering Autobots, who eventually join forces with our heroes and defeat Cobra.

But when Destro releases his own Transformer, Bruticus, to destroy everyone on the battlefield, Optimus Prime orders the Joes' Snake-Eyes to destroy the Autobot Matrix, which immediately deactivates every Transformer in the area. The story ends with the Joes mourning their new friends as they mop up the remaining Cobra forces.

I've never been a big fan of alternate history stories, whether set in real life or fictional universes. As an example of the former, I point to INGLORIOUS BASTERDS -- I really enjoyed that movie up to the point where (SPOILER) the title characters murdered Hitler. Not that I didn't enjoy seeing Hitler get what was coming to him; it was pretty fun to see -- but at that point I realized the movie was set in some fantasy world and I lost all interest.

FANTASTIC FOUR #276

"SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE..."
Script & Pencils: John Byrne | Colors: Glynis Wein | Letters: John Workman
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
And introducing the inking wizardry of: Jerry Ordway!!!

The Plot: While the Human Torch reflects on his love life and She-Hulk works out under the watch of Wyatt Wingfoot, Reed and Sue Richards, in their secret identities of Reed and Sue Benjamin, host a housewarming party in Belle Porte, Connecticut. But the party is watched from across the street by nosey neighbor Alma Chalmers and an exorcist named Elspeth Cromwell.

After the party ends, Cromwell attacks the Richardses, who she and Alma believe to be demons in human form. She summons the undead Knights of Hades to battle Reed and Sue, causing Franklin to awaken and come downstairs in fear. When he arrives, Cromwell realizes he was injured falling out of bed, and with the spillage of innocent blood, the demons are joined by their master, Mephisto.

In Manhattan, in Greenwich Village, Doctor Strange senses the breach between dimensions and departs for Belle Porte to investigate.

WE NOW RETURN TO THE TRANSFORMERS

I've done something TRANSFORMERS related for the past three fall seasons, and this year will be no different, other than that we're starting a month or so early due to the shorter-than-normal summer ROBOTECH review series. Last year I wrote about Dreamwave Productions' main TRANSFORMERS series from 2002 - 2004, in the form of their first two mini-series and their aborted ongoing run. This year we'll look at the ancillary Dreamwave Transformers material in order of publication. We'll lead off this Friday with the six-part TRANSFORMERS/G.I. JOE mini-series in one go, and then it'll be issue-by-issue examinations of:

• TRANSFORMERS: THE WAR WITHIN
• TRANSFORMERS: WAR WITHIN: THE DARK AGES
• TRANSFORMERS: MICROMASTERS
• TRANSFORMERS: WAR WITHIN: THE AGE OF WRATH
• TRANSFORMERS/G.I. JOE: DIVIDED FRONT

Note that those final two series were cut short by Dreamwave's collapse, but I intend to cover them anyway for the sake of completeness.

Note as well that this should be my final go-round with Dreamwave's Transformers work. I read their ARMADA/ENERGON series back when it was released, but I found it boring and incomprehensible and I really have no desire to ever read it again. So if I return to the robots in disguise again next fall, it'll be via a different publisher and another continuity.

This material should fill my Fridays up through the end of the year, so buckle up and get ready to roll out!

ROBOTECH/VOLTRON

Written by: Bill Spangler (#2 - 5) with Tommy Yune
Art and Letters by: Digital Art Chefs Team* | Pencils and Digital Inks by: Elmer Damaso
Production Manager: James L. Palabay | Supervisor for Colors and Letters: Melvin Calingo
Colors by: Lariz Santos, Armand Roy Canlas, Sam Gelua, and Melvin Calingo
Letters by: Armand Roy Canlas and Melvin Calingo | Covers by: Tommy Yune

I've never really watched VOLTRON. As a kid, much like ROBOTECH, it didn't appeal to me. As a teenager, I checked it out on Toonami (the same programming block which soon introduced me to ROBOTECH and made me a fan). I still couldn't get into it. What was the deal with Pidge's bizarre voice? Why was Michael Bell playing an old lady? These questions burned through my brain to the point that I didn't want to give the show a chance, and I've never looked back.

But in 2013-14, Dynamite published a ROBOTECH/VOLTRON crossover miniseries and since ROBOTECH had been entirely absent from comics since PRELUDE TO THE SHADOW CHRONICLES eight years earlier, I decided to check it out even though the interdimensional crossover seemed an odd choice for the more-or-less grounded universe of ROBOTECH.

The story is... all right. Tommy Yune sure does love to revisit those early "Macross" days, though. I'm not necessarily complaining; I like that era as well -- but between FROM THE STARS, LOVE AND WAR, and now ROBOTECH/VOLTRON, he's returned to pre-ROBOTECH Macross Island in about half of his mini-series since 2003.

In this case, our tale begins on the planet Arrus in Voltron's universe, where the Voltron lion team is lost while investigating a comet passing close to their world. Then, in ROBOTECH's dimension, that same comet comes near Earth on the day the Zentraedi attack the SDF-1 launch ceremony on Macross Island. The Zentraedi flagship is lost to the comet and SDF-1 conducts a hyperspace fold to avoid being hit as well.

FANTASTIC FOUR #275

"THE NAKED TRUTH"
Writer & Penciler: John Byrne | Guest Inker: Al Gordon
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Michael Carlin | Truthsayer: Jim Shooter
A special tip of the hat to Kevin Nowlan for the inspiration for this story.

The Plot: As She-Hulk sunbathes atop the Baxter Building, a helicopter buzzes her and the men aboard grab a few snapshots of her topless. After putting her top back on, she leaps to the chopper and punches a hole in its underside, but is shaken loose. Recognizing the call letters WXIT on the helicpter’s side, She-Hulk calls the station and gets the pilot’s name and location.

Confronting the pilot at an airfield with Wyatt by her side, She-Hulk learns that he was paid $1,000 by the publisher of a nudie magazine called The Naked Truth in order to help get the photos. She-Hulk changes to Jennifer Walters and, along with Wyatt, confronts the magazine’s publisher, T.J. Vance, at his sleazy office. Vance brags that the photos have already been sent off to appear in the next edition of The Naked Truth and that the magazine is expected to sell thirty times more copies than ever before. He shows off a safe containing advance payments he’s received from news agents, and Jen changes to She-Hulk, crumples the safe into an impenetrable ball, and leaves.

Three weeks later, the magazine hits the stands. The Human Torch arrives and tells She-Hulk that the printer color-corrected the “green woman” in Vance’s photospread, and She-Hulk is relieved to realize no one will be able to tell the photos are of her.