This week, Mark Millar leaves the Fantastic Four with The Thing traveling through time, Johnny Storm getting pregnant, and Reed and Dr. Doom switching minds. And then once Mark is gone Moleman is back and better than ever and our old pal Spider-Man has a bunch of new and old friends who are all trying to kill him!
Issues Covered:
- Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol 1 #27-32
- Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual #2
- Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1 #79-85
Check out the image gallery and notes below!
Ultimate Fantastic Four #27-29 – President Thor
Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Greg Land, Inks – Matt Ryan, Additional art – Mitch Breitweiser, Colors – Justin Ponsor, Letters – VC’s Randy Gentile
At the gateway where the Fantastic Four had the accident that gave them their powers, two Reeds Richards from the future, one with his team and one without, meet because they are planning to prevent the Fantastic Four from getting their powers to save Ben Grimm from becoming the Thing because of something that is set to happen in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile Argiopes, transdimensional spiders, watch on to see if any temporal anomalies are made. Point of view Reed with twenty two hours left before the time travel returns home to finish preparation as he and the team are going to hide this from Professor Storm.
Sue meanwhile is in Chile at a pyramid with Kitty Pryde and Jean as they investigate a sarcophagus holding a figure known as the Super-Skrull. Sue has concerns but Reed is hopeful that they can fix things with his friend and have the scientific progress they were denied.
Meanwhile Johnny Storm is talking to Zombie Reed who provides him with a formula for hangover free beer. Johnny comments he is being friendly and Reed says they are happy for now until they escape.
Meanwhile Ben is in trouble for stopping some undercover cops who he thought were criminals. The cops comment that while Ben has saved the world, they make most of the problems as well and Ben walks off to Johnny’s birthday party which he was told is a gender swapped costume party. When the Thing bursts in dressed as Carmen Miranda and realizes he was lied to, the Thing leaves, Thor who was there to consider Johnny for the Ultimates is angered, and Reed and Sue missed the whole thing.
Since the Thing leaves, the team tries to find him with Johnny locating Ben who is upset because he doesn’t think Reed will ever find a solution and Ben just wants to die, even going so far as to ask Reed to find a way to kill him.
This leads to Reed fixing the door that will let them change the past so they go back in time, Reed talks to past Reed to tell him what he’s doing and as they change the machine, a Skrull in armor appears declares that he arrived too late.
We get to the new world where Thor is president, Reed is vice president, and the world is a utopia where everyone has superpowers.
We cut to the past where Reed successfully teleported the apple and then to the present where superteens play baseball across the world. We get a recap of how after the apple was teleported, they traveled to the Skrull homeworld, cured disease, aging, stopped poverty, gave everyone superpowers, and achieved world peace. Ben is currently there as the only human without powers who is also weirded out because the Skrulls are also the Chitauri who attacked the earth.
Meanwhile Victor still wants to undo what happened and tried to steal the time machine but was stopped.
Ben leaves, signs some autographs and meets with his girlfriend, Jasmine the Butterfly Girl. That’s when the same armored skrull appears, says they need to go back further and teleports again, leaving Ben and Jasmine confused.
Meanwhile the Skrull delegates led by Super Skrull appear who Ben recognizes from teleporting earlier. Reed comments on how the Super Skrull looks different than he did on his planet and Super Skrull explains it is his anti assassination suit. Reed then presents the Super Skrull with a collection of all media Earth had created and Ben has a bad feeling.
That night as Sue goes to deliver a cake she made for the Skrulls, they reveal their plan is to take over the planet and the Super Skrull’s suit gives him the powers of everyone in a thousand miles and he kills Sue and activates the secondary effect of the pills which start killing everyone on the planet as Ben, Reed, and Jasmine come in.
Johnny tries to go supernova as Jasmine flies Ben to safely and Super Skrull survives. As Ben looks out the Skrull armada appears as billions of people are killed until Ben is the last living human. Ben realizes this means that Super Skrull has no more powers, knocks him out and steals the suit leaving the Super Skrull to die since he’s over a billion years old. Ben breaks into the time machine to go back to the launch, returns to when Jasmine and Ben saw him earlier, he teleports again to the launch and sabotages the machine and Ben from the future attacks him. Super Skrull Ben reveals who he is but the two Bens touching sets the Argiopes to attack so Ben calls in one more teleport and ends up in South America and the Fantastic Four miss their window to stop the accident that will give them their powers.
In the present the zombie Fantastic Four say they plan to escape in exactly one week while the blind sculpture student Alicia Masters meets Ben and talks to him as Dr Doom watches on, ready to launch his plan.
Ultimate Fantastic Four #30-32 – Frightful
Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Greg Land, Inks Matt Ryan, Additional Art – Mitch Breitweiser, Colors – Justin Ponsor, Jason Keith, Letters – VC’s Randy Gentile
Ben, Johnny, Alicia and Tara Beckwith are on a double blind date who Johnny is not into while Ben and Alicia are already a comfortable couple. That’s when a speeding car grabs their attention, Johnny saves the driver and because she’s a blonde woman lots of men joke about it. Anyway Johnny immediately crumples over in pain and asks someone to call his dad.
Reed and Doctor Storm meanwhile meet up as Reed is working on his portal to the zombie universe which concerns Doctor Storm. Reed explains he wants to use it to send them back and their universe will stop converging for fifty billion years.
That’s when the get the call about Johnny and rush to check on him and find out that he is infected with an alien organism that they assume came out during the N-Zone adventure. They called in Professor Xavier to try and communicate with it and they find there are 7 days till it kills him and then the Earth, or they will have to kill Johnny.
Sue goes to talk to Crystal of the Inhumans who came down from the Moon who is not allowed to help them and then she returns to the moon. Johnny meanwhile makes apologies to his girlfriends. Reed and Johnny try to ask the zombies for help and they are turned down so Reed has their activities taken away. They head to their final option – Latveria, where Doctor Doom is in control and is working with Mrs. Storm.
Back at the building with the Fantastic Four except for Johnny gone, the zombies pretend that they made a teleportation device with a ballpoint pen and vanish. When the soldiers go in to check on them after initiating lockdown, the team reveals they turned invisible and attack the soldiers, escaping the cell. Professor Storm locks the building and tries to negotiate, unsuccessfully with the zombies to free the remaining people.
Back in Latveria, Doom knows why they are there and offers his help with one condition that he wants to talk privately about with Reed. Mrs. Storm meanwhile shows she is alive and when Sue complains she’s brushed off.
Doom reveals Johnny is infected with a Zvilpogghua, an elder god from Atlantis that was summoned from the N-Zone, and Doom will be able to send it back – but Doom’s condition is he wishes to be Reed Richards through a mind swap. Reed realizes Doom set it all up. Without any other options the team returns unaware that Reed and Doom have swapped to deal with the zombie outbreak.
Back at the lab though, the zombies are working to open a doorway to summon all of the other zombies into the ultimate universe.
Back in New York City, the Ultimates have been assembled with an hour or so left before the zombies open the portal and Doom as Reed is more concerned about Johnny’s condition because he needs Johnny’s power and he’s a dick about it. A sassy dick.
The zombies are unconcerned and so Doom gets to setting Johnny up in a Satanic circle. Johnny is happy that the virus was in him so the world would be prepared if the zombies do escape. As they hit the 30 minute mark, Fury is concerned. Reed starts his enchantment and removes the demon but it doesn’t end up in the N-Zone because he made a pronunciation mistake and the Zvilpogghua escapes and heads out and into Doctor Doom aka Reed Richards.
With the security breached Zombie Torch tries to escape but is killed by Doom Reed followed by the Thing. When Zombie Sue tries to kill Doom by exploding his brain, she can’t because it is steel and magic and he dissolves her more and then summons maggots inside zombie Reed killing him as well.
Dr Storm calls to find out and Doom is prepared to sacrifice himself and that’s when Doom Reed reveals he is Reed and is ready to go into their world. Guilted, Doom in Reed’s body confesses what happened and swaps back and willingly goes into the portal to face the zombies and presumably to die because it’s before the zombies ate Galactus and gained cosmic powers. We will find out in January 2021!
Mary Storm writes to everyone apologizing for what happened and that it was a plan to remove Dr. Doom from power so she could solve the world energy crisis because sure.
Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual #2
Writer – Mike Carey, Pencils – Stuart Immonen, Inks – Wade Von Grawbadger, Colors – Paul Mounts, Additional Art – Frazer Irving, VC’s Randy Gentile – Letters
In Oregon, General Ross and the army is visiting the backup braintrust where everyone removed from the Baxter Building went to and this is prep for a reunion with Fantastic Four. Lassiter, the teacher in charge, is showing off his student’s inventions like Phineas Mason’s nano-architecture, Sunita Begum’s teleportation explosion, Gus Axelrod’s crystalization machine, and Josie Hart, who is doing nothing.
The building suddenly begins to sink down into the ground just as the Fantastic Four show up. Molekvic shows up with his fungoids and quickly jails the adults while forcing the children to learn about his life.
He was born in Yugoslavia, one of six children, who learned to build technology from simple items. He turned his sister into a lungfish, and eventually escaped by turning his father over to the secret police and used that money to get to Moscow where he made new inventions like a rifle made of caramel and artificial life which went poorly. He moved through Europe under assumed identities but his story is interrupted.
The Fantastic Four meanwhile are descending and Johnny ends up causing a cave in.
Moleman resumes his storrywhen they reach the Hollow Earth Lemurian base. He relates how multiple teams were killed off by lava monsters, madness and the last exhibition had a survivor who Moleman followed finding he had reached a zoo and learned to control the monsters.
He now plans to have the students live with him which Josie especially is not happy about. Moleman decides to leave them behind for the time being and start working on a plan.
The Fantastic Four meanwhile find giant monsters including a massive flying dinosaurs that’s actually a team of tinier flying dinosaurs, a two headed dinosaur and a slug monster.
The team defeats the monsters and Moleman finds them, and the team demands the students. In response Moleman activates the genetic enhancements on the fungoids granting them superpowers.
Luckily Josie, the students, and the staff showed up with Josie wielding a anti-fungal gun that destroys the fungoids. Reed wants to bring them back but Josie refuses as the leader saying they don’t want to make weapons, plan to restart the artificial sun and live making new technology. Josie sent them away, started up the sun and begin their new life.
Ultimate Spider-Man 79-85 – Warriors
Writer – Brian Michael Bendis, Pencils – Mark Bagley, Inks – Scott Hanna, Colors – JD Smith, Letter – Chris Eliopoulos
As news of federal action against Kingpin comes in, Allan Silvermane, aka Silvio Manfredi, reaches out to Tombstone to team up in the wake of the crackdown on Kingpin, and in response, Tombstone kills Silvermane to secure power for himself.
In class, Peter is stressing out about breaking up with Mary Jane which we saw previously from her perspective, and he heads out as Spider-Man.
That night, Mr. Dini, Kingpin’s right hand informs him of Silvermane’s death and Kingpin orders Dini to call in Elektra to make them fear him again.
That night, Hammerhead and the Enforcers – Montana, Ox and Fancy Dan, show up at a warehouse with TiVos that Fisk’s men planned to sell. Hammerhead gets shot in the head by one of them and has them killed in response and gives the rest the option to join or die. Most of the men leave and then Hammerhead burns down the dock.
Spider-Man swings in to see what is going on and gets distracted by a mysterious figure he tries to track before a second figure – Moon Knight – a figure in all white appears.
We cut back to Daniel Rand, Iron Fist being released from Rykers after his meeting with Spider-Man where he ended up in prison for 6 months.
Moon Knight tries to kill Spider-Man to take him out while Elektra watches on and reports in to Kingpin. When the police arrive, Spider-Man swings off leaving Moon Knight behind.
The next day as the Bugle prints about “Moonman”, Ben Urich reports that Kingpin owned the the warehouse giving them evidence they need that Kingpin might still be up to no good.
When Peter tries to correct them about Moon Knight’s name he’s ignored and back at his desk, Aunt May calls to find where he is and she tells him to stop running away from his life. Peter then overhears Ben trying to get a statement from Kingpin so Peter decides to talk to him as Spider-Man.
Elektra greets him on the roof and welcomes him in to have pizza with Kingpin. Kingpin asks why he is criminalized and gives a speech about how people don’t want to feel weak and ultimately gives him Hammerhead’s name explaining he’s a dangerous man who Spider-Man should stop if he should be a hero and Spider-Man refuses, not wanting to help Kingpin.
The next day, Peter skips school again and as Spider-Man goes to visit Jeanne De Wolfe for advice on the Hammerhead situation and after making sure he didn’t do anything illegal, Jeanne suggests that he stops Hammerhead in a way only he can. They get interrupted though by a call from Chinatown.
Over in Chinatown, Shang-Chi and Danny Rand met up, recognizing one another and talking about the gang problem as Hammerhead brings in the teen gang. They get into a massive fight with the two holding their own against the gang. But Hammerhead pulls out a gun and prepares to shoot before being interrupted by Spider-man who hurts his hand punching him out. Hammerhead prepares to shoot Spider-Man but is interrupted by the reappearance of Black Cat. Spider-Man uses the distraction to escape and block Hammerhead’s gun so Hammerhead throws a grenade and Spider-Man swings off with Black Cat who he thought was dead.
The police start shooting at Spider-Man because of a witness before Captain De Wolfe shows up and tells them off since he did nothing and gets the police to do their job, unaware that Steven Grant is filming the entire scene from his taxi.
Meanwhile Black Cat starts making out with Spider-Man who stops her wanting answers. She explains she survived and hid for a while and now she’s back and wants Spider-Man and revenge against the Kingpin and she turned evidence on Dini. Ultimately she just wants to stop Kingpin and then she wants Spider-Man and Spider-Man rushes off.
Steven Grant aka Marc Spector returns home that night and his girlfriend is unhappy with him and his vigilante activities.
Spider-Man returns home, takes off the costume, excited and tired from the day and then hears a call from the principal about Peter leaving the school and quickly deleted it.
That night the story of the fight comes on the news and discussions of Kingpin losing power causes Kingpin to have Elektra kill Walter Dini and then plans to have her knock out everyone else. That night Elektra breaks into the Tokyo Club to start cleaning things up.
Meanwhile, Moon Knight’s three personalities – Marc Spector, Steven Grant and a mysterious red headed girl talk about what to do – ultimately deciding to knock out Hammerhead and then Kingpin. He ends the meeting with his alternate personas and then the business meeting he was in and suits up.
Meanwhile Ox of the Enforcers got arrested in Chinatown and De Wolfe threatens him with being sent to Rykers after betraying Kingpin.
At school, while Peter is fantasizing about Black Cat, MJ comes to talk to him about why they broke up and he says he is still in danger so he is keeping her at a distance and she comes back that they both love one another and he can’t shut her out and give up on being Peter Parker to be Spider-Man and he leaves.
Meanwhile Danny and Shang-Chi have been looking for where Hammerhead is and they get his address, the same address that Spider-Man got from Kingpin – which is when Black Cat shows up surprising him. Black Cat tells him to go and leave Hammerhead alone till he knocks out Kingpin but that’s when they hear gunshots and they rush in to find themselves in a situation.
Black Cat, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, Elektra, Moon Knight, Montana, Fancy Dan, and Hammerhead are all there. Hammerhead offers Elektra double what she’s offered if she turns to his side and she agrees. Black Cat wants in and offers to keep Spider-Man out and after getting verification from Elektra he agrees.
The fighting breaks out and Spider-Man webs up everyone eventually and calls Jeanne De Wolfe though it takes a bit to get her on the phone. Shang-Chi pleads to get freed which Spider-Man refuses while Moon Knight is just angry.
Jeanne finally ends up on he explains the situation but Elektra, Black Cat and Moon Knight break free. Elektra and Moon Knight attack Spider-Man who ends up in in front of Hammerhead’s gun and Black Cat causes it to break, Spider-Man hurts his hand punching Hammerhead again, Elektra stabs Moon Knight and the police surround the building. In the chaos, Hammerhead demasks Moon Knight and takes a photo while Elektra and Spider-Man’s battle intensifies with him being punched out onto the street.
Spider-Man struggles to get back up while Hammerhead plans to run off, leaving her behind so Elektra stabs him and tosses him out the window while Jeanne in the streets frees Spider-Man from the police who wanted to take him in. Spider-Man barely saves Hammerhead in time with webs to slow and cushion the fall while back in the building, Black Cat fights Elektra but is outclassed. Before Elektra can kill her though, she has a crescent thrown by Moon Knight in the back of her head, Moon Knight collapses presumably dead, and Black Cat tosses Elektra out the window before freeing Iron Fist and Shang-Chi. Iron Fist wants to kill her but Shang-Chi stops him and they escape with Moon Knight and the Thugs left in the aftermath of webs.
Black Cat finds Spider-Man nearby and Peter is angry and tries to apologize and then moves into flirt mode, starts grinding on him as the rolls up his mask to make out with him, she sees he’s a teen, vomits on his dick and then runs off.
We then see Kingpin talking to an associate who reveals Elektra was ready to betray him, she has no idea who Moon Knight is, and Spider-Man trusts the Kingpin’s secret asset – Jean DeWolfe.
And Peter, beaten and barfed on, gets home and Aunt May promises if he skips school again, she will kick him out.
Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol 1 #27-29 – President Thor
Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol 1 #30-32 – Frightful
Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual Vol 1 #2
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1 #79-85 – Warriors