Good Futures

[colonel_green]

Four scans from Fantastic Four #579.


The issue opens with Reed Richards attending the Singularity Conference, an annual gathering of the world's scientific/intellectual community now in its tenth year.  Reed announces that he thought when he joined that this would be a really forward-thinking group, but that he has realized that they all totally suck (except Jen, who he cites for a fine presentation on superhuman-related law), and are scared of the future.  So he's quitting to found his own organization, with blackjack and hookers (maybe; probably not).

This issue has like a zillion different plot elements from earlier issues in play here, but first we see Reed and the now-college-aged Alex Power talking about the list of attendees at the new organization.  Alex, having looked at it, has a concern:



I wasn't sure if he was getting Alex's hopes up there or not, but given that the MU's top super-scientists have got with some smokin' ladies over the years, there probably is hope.

Later, Reed pays a visit to the imprisoned Wizard, who is ranting about how math tells him the universe is doomed, blah blah.  In an earlier issue where the Wizard was defeated by the Four, they found he was using a bunch of younger clones of himself as minions.  Reed brings an update on one of them:





Participants include Alex, Val, Dragon Man (Val gave him a tuneup to make him smarter), the super-intelligent Moloid kids the Four rescued a few issues ago, and two kids from the new Atlantean kingdoms the Four found a few issues ago. 
 

Comments

[bwhahahabeck]

lmfao, professor richards.

this will be interesting.

[long_silence]

It looks like Artie and the Wizard clone are in the class too.

[zemo]

Is it just me, or is Reed acting like a major douche here? I mean, it's not even as if he wants to help the younger clone of the Wizard, he simply wants to prove his point...

[icon_uk]

Yes, I get a really unpleasant vibe off Reed in the Wizard sequences too.

[colonel_green]

That's just how he phrases it to the Wizard. He and the rest of the Four were quite welcoming to the kid himself (what little we've seen of him); he didn't even have a name when they found him. Likewise, the Moloid kids they took in after their colony left them to starve to death.

[zemo]

I have no doubt that he has the best of intentions, but...

Well, as an example: Quite a while back, the Australian government used to kidnap Aborigine children and try to integrate them into society, an act that some describe as one of the greatest crimes in the history of the modern world (because it happened on a REALLY large scale)

This, at least to me, has a similar taste (though small-scale). This is a comic, obviously, and the children weren't kidnapped, but it appears to me this is the same line of thinking?

...Is that understandable? Or overcomplicated? >

[fifthie]

The aborigines weren't insane, violent supercriminals.

Like forcing children into schools to deliberately destroy a native way of life is pretty awful.

Forcing children into schools to teach them not to like, kill people and have crazy vendettas and rob banks and kidnap/mind-control sovereign queens and try to take over the world is like... that's pretty much what schools are s'posed to be doin'.

[twigcollins]

that's pretty much what schools are s'posed to be doin'.

I took it as an elective after shop class my junior year.

[sherkahn]

Never stopped Reed before, and brilliance sometimes breeds arrogance.

[cmdr_zoom]

In the MU, "sometimes" = "always".

[crabby_lioness]

Reed = arrogance.

[flidgetjerome]

It pales in comparison to the opening sequence, where he spends six pages ranting to an analog of the TED conference how he is so much smarter with them and so much more of a visionary and he's never bothering to come back again.

[lastparade]

But that was awesome.

[flidgetjerome]

Dude, there's nothing wrong with scientists being cautious, the entire history of science could basically be written as a series of "Five times we were wrong and one time we were right" fics.

Given that Fantastic Four's own origin story is all about how one of the times Reed himself was wrong about a theory and what happened to Ben Grimm because of it you'd think Reed would have a better grip on that.

[icon_uk]

ARTIE! YAY!

Though I'm not sure why Alex counted himself as less smart than Artie though. Plus him being at least 10 years older than everyone else there looks weird. Couldn't they get Katie, who was the prodigy of the family?

[sethgray]

Don't be silly, she's a girl.

[fifthie]

I'm just sayin', Valeria's like... right there. Front row.

[nezchan]

So they already made quota.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Wasn't Katie being a child prodigy something from A-Next or whatever? I don't remember five-year-old Katie being particularly precocious.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

And Alex was always the sorta-nerdy science kid.

This is cool, though it might mean airhead-Loner Julie is canon. Brrrr.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

To be absolutely fair, Julie in Runaways wasn't an airhead; she just came off like she'd had an over-aggressive therapist. Losers, on the other hand, had a weird take on all the characters involved.

Also, this means that Molly Hayes and Katie Power are probably about the same age now. There's a friendship that needs to happen.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

And Jack gets ignored. Sad. :(

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

It's funny, really. When people do bring up Jack at all, there seems to be an unconscious consensus that he's a juvenile delinquent in the making. People in A-Next were all telling Katie how sorry they were about her brother, and in one of the old Marvel Visions alternate-universe books, the Power Pack scenario had Jack as a drug addict.

[lastparade]

And it's funny because in the last power pack mini before they started the Marvel Adventures ones, he basically decided that superheroing and being so quick to act is dangerous. Then decides to help take of his mom instead of being part of Power Pack.

Of course at that point Julie also learned the importance of being herself, but I guess the Loners kind of decided forgo that.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

He's also got the least visually interesting power, which probably doesn't help. Julie can break the sound barrier, Alex can use that gravity punch, and Katie is potentially one of the scariest supers in the MU, but Jack... turns into a cloud.

Any given member of the team would make a good Young Avenger or something, though.

[lieut_kettch]

I thought vapid airhead Julie was just an act. Her gayness, on the otherhand, wasn't.

[lastparade]

Katie was skipped ahead a few grades in the early 2000 mini. But I don't think Marvel considers that canon.

[crabby_lioness]

Yay for homeschooling!

But Alex should know that Franklin and Valeria have been off-planet. Franklin's been off-planet with the Pack before.

[darkknightjrk]

Y'know, if Reed Richards were my professor...he might not be the most hospitable guy, but that would be the most fucking AWESOME class ever.

[glprime]

Seriously? Alex freaking Power can be his real age, but not Franklin and Val?

[arilou_skiff]

Isn't he though? (relative to Alex that is) He's supposed to be the same age as Katie, no? Which would make him about twelve or something?

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Val was only born in 1999, and Franklin's been acting older. It's not a huge stretch if Alex has gone from thirteen to eighteen, which means Frank and Katie would both be nine or so, and Julie would be sixteen or seventeen.

Oh, comic book time.

[silverzeo]

Dear God this going to burst into flames isn't it?

[mullon]

Only when Johnny teaches gym.

[silverzeo]

I mean like, there is going to be an major incindent invovling the US and someone in that group, military men show up, armed with gun for the shake of having guns, arguements break out and the whole thing turns into a diaster and everyone walks away.

[lastparade]

Reed is basically preparing his own super-prodigy army for when the government storms in next.

He's going to arm those who don't have powers with tech, and when the revolution comes the Baxter Building will be the sanctuary.

Xavier rubbed off on him in the worst way imaginable.

[cainofdreaming]

"Today we're going to play dodgefireball."
"Umm, don't you mean dodgeball?"
"No."
"Aieeee!"

[mullon]

I always knew crappy science teachers made supervillains.

[zechs80]

You just put in my mind Doctor Doom as the science teacher.

[sir_mikael]

"And you children shall all be using the textbook Doom himself wrote. It's on several bestseller lists and a work of genious according to the Latverian Board of Education."
"Mr Doom, Sir? I think I've found something that must be a typo here."
"THERE ARE NO TYPOS IN THE SCIENCE BOOK OF DOOM! Clearly those are the correct amount of... electrons in a hydrogen atom... IF ANYONE TELLS YOU DIFFERENTLY, YOU BLAST THEM! YOU BLAST THEM HARD!"

[nezchan]

Can I just say how much I adore Dragon Man's cute half-glasses? <3 <3 <3

[auggie18]

Oh, Artie! Right?


Marvel really needs to just set the record straight on how old the Power Pack is.

[thosefew]

Reed must have some thick chalk to write "the future" on the board like that.

[sir_mikael]

Unstable Blackboard Molecules.

[jaybee3]

Val has become one of my favorite Marvel characters but sometimes because they've made her so smart and snarky, they've dumbed down Franklin (even Hickman does this) to the point where its easy to forget that Franklin Richards may the most powerful mutant in the world (and we've seen he has his powers back - to the extent he's making tiny galaxies in his bed at night). Frankie not only deserves some love from his parents but Marvel too, the only reason I can see in keeping him as young as he is (it's never been clear how many years older he is than Val) is so not to age Sue any further.

[sir_mikael]

Is one of the moloids... a head in a jar?
Awesome.

[stubbleupdate]

He was hit by a car.