Fantastic Four #45: The Final Watch

[superboyprime]

"Joe Quesada had this idea about the Kree/Skrull War coming to an end and it coming down to these two kids. There would be two orphans, a Kree and a Skrull, and Reed and Sue would adopt them. I could tell Joe really liked that idea and knew it would be something I would end up incorporating. When I pitched it, I did it with a difference: Ben and Alicia would adopt these children and now they’re the new parents and Reed and Sue are the old hands. Reed and Sue have the teenagers, Ben and Alicia have the kids, and now we don’t just have a book about family, but one about two families. Everybody seemed to like that and it became a north star we were aiming towards." - Dan Slott

Comments

[dan_ingram]

Well, that was a thing that happened.

Shame we lost Gauntlet and South Paw for this...stuff. Not impossible to bring back, but unlikely for the foreseeable future

[numeronone]

"Gauntlet And Southpaw Will Return In: WORLD'S DEADLIEST HIGH FIVE"

[mastermahan]

Why couldn't we have seen Squirrel Girl and Moon Knight destroy an alien mothership? That sounds way better than any of this.

[iamrman]

Yes! I wanted to see the tie-in where Squirrel Girl and Moon Knight fought the Badoon!

[lordultimus]

Well, surely this opens an infinite cornucopia of future stories!

I give it a week before everyone forgets about it.

[numeronone]

Remember when "52" opened up the idea of 52 new, unique worlds brimming with potwntial? And then the map and guide in "Multiversity" established that the majority of them were just Elseworlds we'd seen before or affectionate tributes to pre-existing comics franchises not owned by DC?

[lego_joker]

I think the Harsh Truth to be learned here is that most people who sign up to write Big Two comics don't have the stamina for in-depth worldbuilding. Indeed, that maybe most people sign up to write Big Two comics because they want the assurance other people have already taken care of 75-90% of the worldbuilding.

Suppose this is why "Infinite Earths!!!!!" developments always fold sooner or later. At any given point, DC's bench can barely give one Earth enough depth to keep the stories moving.

[scorntx]

That most writers for the Big Two seem to have their first response to new things be to try and smash it is not a help.

[mastermahan]

I'm amused by the insistence that Franklin's black hair is permanent. Kid's been a blond since the sixties. He'll be blond again.

[blues32]

Huh. He looks great someone for someone in his early fifties.

[scorntx]

He moisturises.

He really moisturises.

[gnarll]

Does this mean Franklin is a mutant again?

[lordultimus]

I'm assuming this'll happen right after Slott leaves.

[mastermahan]

DOOM: Behold, Richards! You are not the one who build... A FOREVER GATE.

RICHARDS: Oh, good for you, Victor! You're catching up. I mean, my preteen daughter built a Forever Gate with just the power of her imagination, but yours is nice too.

DOOM: ...Doom hates you so much.

[deh_tommy]

“But on the other hand, DOOM is very proud of Valeria. This is… a conundrum.”

[agharta75]

DOOM: "Valeria has learned much from me. Despite her having a fool for a father."

[blues32]

Doom: DOOM takes full credit for inspiring young Valeria to achieve these feats.

[tcampbell1000]

Honestly, I'm cool with a lot of where we left things, and I hope the next writer doesn't jettison it too quickly. The best innovation is probably Ben's family. The whole vibe is heartwarming, the Kree and Skrull kids are often very, very funny, and Alicia was more interesting under Slott than she has ever been before.

Uatu the All-Watcher, Galactus the Explorer, Doom with the Forever Gate, the Borderlands...I can get behind all of that, they're cool ideas that can go places.

Johnny's estrangement from the Four seems kind of over the top and out of character, even after all the tough times he's had lately... like, I could see him running off, sure, and definitely going off to Spyre, but not telling the family to go to Hell. Kinda like I could see Ben being devastated and destroyed if he thought his family had died, but not trying to kill Reed over it. I think Dan Slott and I disagree about how much it takes to turn someone all the way against their loved ones and how abrupt that shift is. But those outbursts will probably be forgotten soon enough, and I'm interested to see where Johnny goes.

There is a "consequences, shmonsequences" feel to a lot of the rest of this...most of the rest of the "toys" are back "where they belong," even after all the hand-wringing about Reed and Jack of Hearts having hours or minutes to live, and that happens mostly thanks to dumb luck. But that's more of a feeling than a plot problem, and it's nothing the next run can't dispel.

[shadowpsykie]

is Franklin a Mutant... mutate... empowered again? (

[shakalooloo]

The Ultimate Nullifier kills any non-Watcher that uses it! But! Reed was becoming a Watcher, so he could survive! Yet! All his Watcher-ness was drained from him! Surely, it should have been the remaining human paert of him that was nullified, yes?

Unfortunately! In this process, he forgot the revelation of how to restore Johnny Storm to normal! But! He did retain the knowledge to disassemble the Forever Gate! So... he conveniently retained/lost cosmic knowledge at seeming random.

Someone didn't think any of this through at all.

[remial]

so those 3 cosmic people in the 3rd scan, which one is the Inhuman guy who can tell the future? the guy who was going to be REALLY important from this point going forward from Civil War 2?

[cainofdreaming]

Since there's a trinity of them I just thought they were the Vishanti. Though I might be wrong, since there's no lion headed guy.