Fantastic Four: Grand Design #2

[laughing_tree]

I have two notebooks where I've outlined the Hero's Journey of the Fantastic Four and that's kind of the spine of what I'm doing, like some of the stuff I've changed or messed around with. Especially once I decided to make it more faithful, because I had some versions of the story where I was just totally changing the Fantastic Four. Where, you know, Sue Storm is a musician and Sub-Mariner is her manager/boyfriend. -- Tom Scioli

Comments

[arilou_skiff]

I'm not sure if Scioli should be forbidden from touching any comics, or if he should write ALL the comics.

[erikred]

This.

[silverhammerman]

I was distinctly uninterested by the somewhat somewhat dry humored recap nature of the first issue, but it looks like once Scioli went off the rails of canon things got a lot more fun and weird. Reed Richards being totally oblivious to the fact that Sue cheated on him with Namor is a humorous beat. The ending though does leave me a little cold, not only because it's not as gratifying as the latter day apotheosis of Franklin Richards, as Jonathan Hickman introduced, but also because it's just a bit too abrupt and cold.

The whole thing reminds me of Fantastic Four: The Great American Novel: a slavishly in-depth, issue by issue blog about the Fantastic Four up through the 90's or so. Much like Grand Design here, it's one part fannish recap and celebration of the series, complete with oddly specific opinions about how these stopries are supposed to work on a metaphorical and literary level. Unlike Grand Design though, it dials up things up to be about nine parts bizarre but interesting reinterpretation of the series. It's very, very strange, but I've found it interesting to occassionally look at, because it is interesting as essentially fan fiction presented in the format of fan analysis.
Highlights include:
Fantastic Four is the only canon Marvel comic, all other Marvel Comics are produced in-universe, so the Spider-Man you see in the FF comics is the real one, but his backstory and characterization in his own series is all made up.
Johnny Storm is actually Sue's son, passed off as her much younger brother. His father? Namor.
The Marvel Universe as we know it is united by a single, secret origin. SKRULL MILK.

[beyondthefringe]

What even the fuck with this.
I came expecting an attempt at a coherent overarcing story like with X-Men: Grand Design, and instead we got another one of Scioli's psychedelic acid-trips.

[starwolf_oakley]

Can't it be both?

...I'll just see myself out.

[gnarll]

Reeds "Hes a mutant" made me laugh, even if it is sad. What happens immediately after makes it clear he knows. you can even read it as an admission , for Namor is a mutant and its heritable.