fantastic four #6

[kojiro]

Comments

[mrstatham]

Ummm...

*stares*

So it might just be me, or it might be how this is presented, but the big deal is that he *sat in the machine*?

[icon_uk]

I suspect the implication is that Johnny, wanting a thrill, used some sort of "one time only" device intended to cure Ben.

[arbre_rieur]

My guess: He broke it slightly when he slammed the door. Look at that big sound effect, and look at the image of the window breaking on that final page.

[sir_razorback]

I don't know, that breaking image could easily be part of the malfunction. Unless he was switching buttons, I don't see how just sitting there could cause it to go goofy. blaming it on Johnny might be... a bit of a stretch.

[mrstatham]

Mm. Either this or the radiation that made Johnny the Human Torch must be different in some way than that which made Ben the Thing, and that broke the machine.

Again, like the Hulk/Iron Man tie-in, I'm getting the feeling there's more going on than we're seeing; Either that or the above pages really are just terrible at showing what Johnny's supposed to have done wrong.

[sadoeuphemist]

He opened the door too early and let all the radiation out!

[drtechnobabel]

Next Issue of Original Sin: The Secret of Johnny Storm's Buttcheeks of Doom!

[arbre_rieur]

Huh, each time I load this page, only some of the comic's pages show up. Strangely, the problem's only when I use Firefox though, because all four show up fine on Internet Explorer. Anyone else ever encounter this weird problem?

[donnblake]

I mean, yeah, Johnny's a jackass, but hasn't Ben a couple of times had the option to be permanently de-Thingified, and decided he could do more good as a big orange rock monster?

[drtechnobabel]

Yeah, but that usually only lasts until another writer comes along that decides he wants to do a 'Thing tries to find a cure' storyline. Though this particular case appears to be a flashback, so the assumption could be made that this was from a time before Ben came to terms with what he has become.

[arbre_rieur]

As far as I know, no. He's sacrificed the chance to be human a few times because of some exigent threat, but that's not the same thing.

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

"Original Sin" is about secrets being revealed, yes? I feel like that would have more weight if the secrets were ones that we already knew about, that weren't being invented solely for the purposes of whatever this story is.

[icon_uk]

Reminds me a little of the Dick!Bats Batman story where some religious zealot character would spare Gotham if one of it's protectors was something like "pure of heart" and they had to retcon in ANOHER traumatic event in Dick Grayson's childhood (Which he had conveniently "forgotten due to guilt") to ensure that it COULDN'T be Dick!Bats who saved the day. (They also had to have Tim state out loud that he was an aetheist, because apparently being "pure of heart" only counted if you also believed in God)

[drtechnobabel]

Well, to be far, a religious zealot's definition of 'pure of heart' might be more than a little bit skewed towards someone who actually has a religion. I agree though, retconning in things like this with no prior events to justify it just seems lazy.

[aperturedreams]

To be fair. Hickman's Avengers tie in is about a secret we already knew about, and the Mighty Avengers tie in secrets were at least hinted at from the beginning of the series

[bruinsfan]

This just doesn't seem the sort of character-redefining secret sin that the event is supposed to be about, especially given the number of times Reed's cures for Ben have failed. I'd think showing some justification Johnny might have made to himself or Lyja before it was revealed that the latter was masquerading as Alicia Masters would fit the bill better.

[starwolf_oakley]

I don't get the times Ben has tried to "cure" himself, at least after a certain point. Given the threats the Fantastic Four deal with on a semi-regular basis, Ben knows how important his powers are.

Ben wanting to be able to switch between Ben Grimm and the Thing at will makes more sense. But they aren't clear about that.

Also, I wonder if those spikes on the last page are a reference to the "pineapple" look Ben had in the late 1980s for a little while.

[arbre_rieur]

This is what I believe one writer referred to as the "How did Lois Lane ever stay alive before Superman came along?" problem. For reasons of drama, writers are of course going to have their characters play necessary, vital roles in saving the day on a regular basis, but if you look at that logically, you have to wonder how things weren't pure hell-hole before they showed up... or, in this case, become that way after the hero's gone.

Like, whenever there's a superhero living in a city, there are all sorts of supervillainous and supernatural happenings going on there (some of which is caused by the hero's presence, granted, but hardly all). You occasionally get a story where a superhero moves (like Wonder Woman from Boston to Gateway City) and you just have to wonder, do they expect all that weirdness to just stop in the first city after they're gone? And if not, who is going to save the people from it all?

It's one of those things you just have to look the other way with because there's no good answer.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

That always drove me crazy about Buffy. If there's only one slayer in the world, then doesn't that mean every city in the world is screwed over? Also, that with the slayer located in one city, any vampire that chose the slayer's city over anywhere else in the world is pretty stupid.

They made it even worse when they established that the world was full of potential slayers at any time, but they kept it one at a time on purpose.

[silverhammerman]

That is an immensely underwhelming "Original Sin". I mean, how many times has the Thing had a chance at normalcy snatched away from him for various reasons?

I'd love it the Thing just said it was all water under the bridge and everyone moved on, paying the least possible lip service to this dumb event.

[writeofway]

I've never known Johnny to be so running-with-scissors idiotic as to just jump in random machines he knows nothing about, plays with the buttons, and then doesn't let Reed and Ben know he screwed with it, thereby preventing such a calamity.

[arbre_rieur]

I think the conversation with Ben and Reed makes it pretty clear he already knows what the machine is. "Not if it's everything Reed says it is." Like I said upthread, my theory is that he slammed the door too hard, damaging something fragile.

[writeofway]

It doesn't stop the whole thing from being so dumb as to say, "Yep, Johnny's the idiot of the team. This is how dumb he is." Also, is there any speculation as to why Johnny would screw with the machine anyway, knowing how important it is to Ben?

[arbre_rieur]

That's why my theory is he closed the door too hard. I find that easier to buy than him doing something as foolish as messing with the settings, letting the radiation out, pushing random buttons, or anything like that. I can buy that he'd think just opening the door and taking a look inside wouldn't actually put anything at risk.