Fantastic Four #642

[flint_marko]

Comments

[donnblake]

"And then I turned people into dinosaurs."

[captainbellman]

Later, in super-science prison, Sauron slaps the Quiet Man in the face until they both have to be put into solitary.

"With that kind of technology, you could have turned People into Dinosaurs! And you didn't! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

[lbd_nytetrayn]

+1

[halloweenjack]

You know, if you roll your eyes too hard, it actually hurts. "I left that kitten in the tree, muah-ha-ha! Granny had to cross the street unassisted because I'm EE-vil!"

[lbd_nytetrayn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh1CqCAc2fE

[sagrada]

Only way that exchange could be funnier is if Reed asked in shock "But...how? How did you do it? How did you achieve that Holy Grail of medical science?" and Eden is just "I dunno."

[stubbleupdate]

I enjoyed this 28 days ago

[chrys]

Ha, there it is. I was sure this had been posted before, but it wasn't in the appropriate title tag or the Reed Richards one so I thought I had imagined it.

[flint_marko]

Would have been nice if it had had the "title: fantastic four" tag.

[reveen]

Touche...

I like to think that "You could have cured cancer!" is pretty much the "your momma!" of the super-science nerd community.

[q99]

Dr. McNinja's Dracula also has a cure for cancer.

He hid it on Mars!

[matrix_dragon]

"And then I built a machine that drowns puppies! Did I mention I'm Evil?"
"No, just stupid."
"Oh. Well, I'm Evil too."

[doomedpatroller]

"Hey, Stretcho! You wrapped him up after all! Waitaminnit...your arms are shackled, so are your legs...."
"That's why they call me Mister Fantastic."

[lyricalswagger]

Why didn't Reed cure cancer?

[sanctaphrax]

Maybe because medicine isn't really his speciality.

But probably not. It's probably just because people are weirdly afraid of having superheroes fix real problems. So you have these supposedly heroic supposedly powerful people floating around accomplishing less than similarly heroic but infinitely less powerful people do in real life. Although they do (usually) keep other superbeings in check, which is something.

[palgrave_goldenrod]

I dunno if it's so much being 'afraid' as it is being that one of the key draws of superheroes -- particularly in the Marvel approach -- is that they exist in a world which is almost but isn't quite the real world (living in a recognisable version of New York City rather than, say, a fantastical made-up city like Metropolis), and if you have the presence of superheroes change the 'real' world too much, you lose that aspect of the fantasy.

That, coupled with the fact that superheroes were traditionally written for an audience that it was assumed wouldn't really ask these questions. Back in the 1960s when the Marvel Universe was created, it was aimed at and intended for an audience that wasn't really mature enough (or, less charitably, pedantic enough) to question why Reed Richards wasn't curing every disease ever instead of discovering the Negative Zone and inventing huge gizmos to defeat Galactus.

[sanctaphrax]

In the context of the original comics, Reed exploring the Negative Zone instead of fighting diseases made plenty of sense even to a smart and pedantic reader. Plenty of smart people go into space exploration and not medicine, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But over the years, things have changed. There are more superheroes now, they've done more things, and it doesn't make sense that none of them have addressed non-fantastical problems in an at least moderately successful way.

I know people don't want to change the status quo too much, but would it really be problematic to say that many forms of cancer have been cured by superheroes in the Marvel-verse? Or that global warming won't be a problem, because of some superheroic energy generation method? Or that Marvel American police don't murder so many unarmed black people, because of superheroes pushing them to act better?

Wouldn't make any stories impossible. In fact, it'd open a bunch of doors.

[ablackraptor]

IIRC, during Captain Mar-Vell's death, the real life reason for why cancer hasn't been cured was raised: Cancer comes in so many forms, there isn't one single way for it to be cured.

Its possible that, while they've yet to make effective cures, Reed and co *have* made improvements to chemotherapy and other treatments, so its at least more effective than in real life, if just not a complete cure.

Of course, this also means that any time its claimed by anyone that they *have* cured it, its best to assume they're lying/exaggerating what they did for effect. Or its non-canon.

[obsidianwolf]

Yeah it was also brought up that Kree hadn't done jack shit to combat the disease in their society so even though they were an intersteller empire they never bothered to put any resources towards a cure before Marv defected and even if they had afterwards they wouldn't share with a traitor.

Quasar also addressed it in one issue where after his mother was diagnosed he went to a Galactic University to see his cosmic being god daughter and it was brought up that most races had an analogue but even when one race managed to come up with a cure it often didn't translate to other species without a whole lot of time and effort to adapt it.

[halloweenjack]

There's also the Star Trek explanation: even though they've cured cancer and other things, there are alien diseases that take their place. That's why the elderly Picard in "All Good Things..." is suffering from "Irumodic Syndrome", not Alzheimer's.

[captainbellman]

It's probably just because people are weirdly afraid of having superheroes fix real problems.

By 'people', I assume you don't mean Alan Moore.

[glprime]

Because Reed Richards Is Useless.

[mastermahan]

Wait, the Quiet Man is from Wakanda?