Invisible Woman Vs. The Frightful Four

[iamrman]

Fantastic Four #549.

Comments

[zachbeacon]

It will always crack me up that the Wingless Wizard is just an "As Seen on TV" product salesman with delusions of grandeur.

Partly because it subverts the usual "why does the villain use their invention for crimes instead of selling it?" criticism of tech baddies.

Partly because this is basically equivalent to the MyPillow guy becoming a supervillain. (He did WHAT?)

Also love that he's convinced himself he's superior to the world's smartest man while consistently being defeated by his idiot brother-in-law.



I'm normally in the "there are no bad characters, only bad writers" camp but he is actively holding back Trapster and Sandman.

[iamrman]

I will always remember Acts of Vengeance as being a gathering of Marvel's greatest villains. And the Wizard.

[zachbeacon]

AoV seems like such a good idea on paper...

"We're getting stomped by our respective heroes so why not shake things up?"

...but it falls apart if you think about it for five seconds.

Why would Magneto care about non-mutant issues? (I know the Cosmic Spider-Man story kind of handwaves this)

How would a villain for a weaker hero think they stand a chance against a stronger one?

Why would Fisk show up when trying to maintain an image as a legitimate businessman?

Who the hell invited Red Skull?

[icon_uk]

Seeing the Red Skull was present was, I think the only reason Magento stuck around, because the chance to kerb stomp the crap out of him was way too good to resist.

Yeah, there's a very obvious flaw in the AoV plan: "We villains shall attack different individual heroes because they do not know our abilities" is fine until you factor in "We, as individual villains have no idea of the abilities of those different heroes either"

A few days mandatory homework would probably have helped.

[zachbeacon]

It does seem like the knowledge gap favors the heroes (who still generally have secret identities and mostly have a good working relationship with law enforcement) over the villains (who likely have extensive criminal records with said law enforcement)

While I still don't think Magneto should have been there in the first place*, he's easily the most relatable person there. "First of all, F that Nazi. Second, as long as we're doing this, I guess I'll go try to figure out what's going on with Spider-Man; maybe I can offer him a job."

*This is post-Secret War; Team Evil should know he's not on their side.

[donnblake]

I wonder if any of the villains in Secret War got close to a moment of clarity. "Oh, *shit,* I got sorted into the group with friggin' ULTRON? I gotta rethink some things."

[zachbeacon]

Clearly the Beyonder sees morality as a binary and not a spectrum because Owen did not deserve that.

Heck, I'm not sure Enchantress and Doc Ock deserved that.

[scorntx]

If Enchantress doesn't want to be seen as evil, then maybe she should lay off chaining up teenagers in her basement and torturing them.
Just putting it out there.

[zachbeacon]

I'll admit I sort of lost track of which crimes she's committed in the name of horniness.

Otto has also done some pretty evil stuff before and since.

I don't think either have tried to do a genocide for the lulz like Kang or Ultron.

[scorntx]

There was that time in the Slott run he tried frying the minds of nearly everyone on Earth.
Though that was decades after Secret Wars, so it probably shouldn't be counted.

[zachbeacon]

Otto's characterization has always been all over the place. The first Spider-Man comic I ever owned was Spectacular Spider-Man #173 where he's pretty sympathetic. He shows up in 174-175 and he might as well be a different character even though there's some pretty significant overlap in creative teams (David Michelinie and Sal Buscema on all three with contributions from Gerry Conway on 173-174 and Terry Kavanagh on 174).

[scorntx]

There was a bit in the Parker Thunderbolts where Crossbones was put on the team, with the acknowledgement that it was freakin' Crossbones, but if anyone started anything it'd mean risking the possibility of siding with that guy.

[starwolf_oakley]

I wrote on Twitter that Doom instantly recoginzed Loki in a business suit and just send a Doombot.

"Loki loves chaos, but putting Max Eisenhardt and Johann Schmidt in the same room is asking for trouble. Fisk will make a discreet exit the second Loki reveals himself. And Wittman turned to crime because Johnny Storm was more popular. How petty."

[bruinsfan]

They did have a Doombot reveal at the end of the crossover, didn't they? I seem to remember Fisk holding up a mask after it was destroyed.

[icon_uk]

Wizard's "This isn't about you" bit has to be one of the more succinct versions of "I have absolutely no understanding of the sheer quantity of dookie I have just landed myself in"

[cainofdreaming]

You don't mess with the mother lioness or her family.

[iamrman]

Even Doom acknowledges Susan's power.

[windleopard2]

I know supervillains aren't famous for common sense but why did the Wizard, or any of the villains involved in this for that matter, remain villains when they knew someone like this was around?

In fact, isn't Sue the only member of the Fantastic Four who's actually killed a villain

[zachbeacon]

Ben has at least 43 confirmed kills

(Damn you, Fant4stic!)

Joking aside, I feel like Reed shares the blame for CW deaths like Goliath even if it wasn't at his own hand.

Also, just given the nature of his powers, I find it hard to believe Johnny hasn't killed anyone accidentally. Mike Snow's whole thing in the Kesel/Young HT series is that Johnny almost killed him back when they were teens.

[bruinsfan]

Joking aside, I feel like Reed shares the blame for CW deaths like Goliath even if it wasn't at his own hand.

The glitchy Thor clone involved cloning as well as robotics, didn't it? I'd imagine the former was courtesy of Reed rather than Stark or the Hank Pym Skrull.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Was there a fourth villain here? The name "Frightful Four" kind of lends itself to it.

I just see Wizard, Hydro Man, and whoever the redhead is that Sue squished.

[sabertoothlotus]

whoever the redhead is that Sue squished.

That would be Titania, I believe. Primarily a She-Hulk villain, probably best known as the wife of the Absorbing Man.

[full_metal_ox]

According to the official synopsis, the redheaded woman is Titania (although the character design, with the purple costume and redder hair than Titania’s usual strawberry, initially had me thinking of Medusa—a member of the first iteration of the Frightful Four during an amnesic spell.)

[iamrman]

The Trapster/Paste Pot Pete and Klaw were also there, having already been defeated.

[blues32]

Great. The Wingless Wizard can't count. That's FIVE. How can they be the Frightful Four with an extra member?

[dan_ingram]

Have the Frightful Four ever had a member powerful enough to counter Sue?

I mean, that's a pretty big oversight there.

[thumbs13]

I think Sandman is probably immune to the forcible heart attack thing she threatens here.

[blues32]

Same with Hydro-Man.

[bruinsfan]

She might be able to squeeze him hard enough to compress him into immobile glass, however.

Sue gets underestimated a lot due to her June Cleaver-ish image as the premiere superhero mom, but her force fields can stand up defensively against anything short of Thor swinging Mjolnir, she's knocked out the Hulk and Gladiator in fights, and her invisibility is both an awesome stealth/ambush power and can be used offensively to blind people.