What If The Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers? Part 2

And we're back. Please don't make me recap this thing if you've ever read Fantastic Four you know three quarters of what happened. 

Thank God nothing bad happens when Ben's in a room with a low ceiling

Oh joy scene from the beginning.2 with added monster. And why are freakish non-humans always so keen on money and valuables? Can't imagine this guy depositing a check without a lot of tiring explanations. "

Nobody has any love for Aunt Petunia, especially not Albus

Like an Microsoft Online user with no defeats in Mortal Kombat multi-player the demon logs out at the last second. Fucking scrub.

I always missed the sandcastle hit by a nuke snow globe in New Vegas

Oh look it's living robot wannabe Doctor Doom! The problem with Doctor Doom's older look is his mask makes him look metallic frog crossed with a Tasmanian who's just heard that scientists know how planes fly.  Now tell me, what use was summoning a demon for this? It's just a museum heist, the demon just means you have to smuggle a debased cast member from The Land Before Time into America. Seems like a pretty big risk when you're already employing the Tron Fan-club. And it's not even that we was expecting the Fantastic Three plus Kirby's embryo in the last panel there. Before you say "Other superheroes duh" why not send the demon somewhere else in the city so everyone will be occupied with that while the Programs steal Blackbeard's paperweight? 

Speaking of which why does he even need to steal it? Doom is the recognized ruler of Latveria,  he even has diplomatic immunity. Why not just buy it off the museum? Surely there's a little extra in the coffers.  Or if they're not willing to sell go to the government and offer some technology, I'm sure the US wouldn't trading a necklace for some of Doom's stuff. Hell why does he even want a fancy necklace? Sure such petty finery is below DOOM! 

Bet the guy with the snazzy stache' is a relative of Namor

Would a team of super powered beings really be that amazing to you Doom? I mean World War 2 was thought by mermen, people who when they're in a slump qualify as Olympians, flaming robots, and a man with super speed veer mongoose blood! 

Also the concept of an entire series about this world interests me. I'm guessing that Franklin Richards was never born in this world. If he was then we truly know Reed's greatest invention.

Yes normal looking Johnny and Ben. Able to blend seamlessly into the crowds of winged men and machine organisms. 

Does Doom always have a nearly nude Reed Richards doll at arms reach? Actually when you think about it this should be Doom's dream come true. Doom's angry at Reed because he blames him for the accident that disfigured him. Well now Reed's been unfigured, like him but a million times worse. Well Doom's hate has never been rational so whatever. 

Also I must express my offence at the artists for not giving the brain a little uniform. I don't care if it'd surely suffocate him or something, his existence is already and affront to both man and god, might as well be cute about it. 

He better be careful though, if he keeps it up he'll smack exposed grey matter first into James T. Kirk. I bet Reed spend's most of his time in that thing thinking "Weeeeee!".  

It's a shame the only way Mainstream Ben can respond to heckling children is to crush their skulls. 

Empathic ability to control machines? On a etymological level that wording makes sense, but it just gives me strange mental images.  Like him consoling a second hand stereo that he is not her abusive ex owner. He makes her truly realise that she is free, that no one will twist the volume knob too hard ever again. And so the used stereo summons the courage to raise David Bowie's voice with all her might! And then one of the customers promptly broke of her volume knob. 

And it doesn't matter if the children inherit Susan's powers, either way she will have the easiest labour ever. Knowing glances will be shared with Elastigirl, Doom Patrol or The Incredibles  take your pick. Although might be less so if they have Ben's wingspan. 

Oooh an intruder!

Reed is surprisingly okay with this armour clad man who seems to know him for no apparent reason, has broken into his home and offered to turn him into this:

He even offers him some friendly exposition about how cool it is to have literally everything below the everything amputated. Yeah right. 

I have never got the science fiction idea that having a body is somehow a hindrance to intellectual pursuits. I mean has this ever happened to Reed?

Reed: Yes I think I've got it! The orange flavoured cure for cancer and old age is-Oh shit I really need to piss. Stupid penis who needs it?

Really the biggest hurdle to Reed solving our problems is probably the way he invents amazing things and then just throws them away between issues. 

I am probably hurting myself trying to imagine how attraction must feel for Reed. It's not just he lacks a dick, it's that he is bereft of all the physiology surrounding it.  

Johhny's role in this shall mostly consist of him being owned again and again

Only short distances? Strange Reed, I didn't know there were large uninhabited woods in down town New York. And Doom has a brilliant strategy here, not letting Reed tell the no doubt extraordinarily heavy metal man charging at him that he agreed to this. And he even avoids the Fantastic Four not trying to retake Reed, amazing. 

 Hey if that thing negates mental powers shouldn't Reed be dead? Or did the writers think the body was a ultimately superfluous flesh balloon we could all do without? Wait the only way Reed could possibly perceive anything is veer psychic power, how could he have not known it was Doom?

This Johnny must have a bitch of a time getting medical treatment, even if you can get through the skin what then? Do you weld broken bones together? Oil transfusions? Does he rust?

"Hmm go back in time and prevent my accident, or steal some expensive bauble. I think we both know the answer Reed." 

I've always found it hard to take the "Doom is such a badarse" thing seriously. I mean the guy has spent this entire issue lusting after a pretty necklace that he shouldn't even need to steal. And most of his brilliant outwitting of the heroes consists of popping up later and saying "Na uh, that was a robot!". You may recognize this tactic from when you were seven, playing pretend in your backyard. You would shoot your lightning phoenix core wand, which you and your brother agreed killed Russian werewolves like him. But then your brother just says he has special dragon-phoenix armour and the damage is reflected back. Another afternoon lost to pointless bickering. 


Also I can't wait till Doom realises that even in victory over time and space, he could only have done it with Reed. 

I can't wait till Warren Ellis tries to make the stretching hard sci fi!

  

 Great because of Sue's musings about kids earlier, now I'm just wondering what the fuck would happen to a foetus during stretchy shenanigans. And come to think of it, in the mainstream universe did unborn Franklin and Valeria turn invisible with her? Or did it look like a half formed baby floating in mid air,  umbilical cord connecting to the aether? Actually remember that, great album cover.

You may recognize this advancing wall bit from everything ever.

 I will say only two things, one, being Doom's contractor is the stuff great autobiographies are made of, two, they must go through a lot of mail men. 

Could be worse, could be Planet Of The Dead

 Wow reversing the polarity, and what is essentially the climax of the Brain Of Morbius but with we're rooting for the brain.  Um insert your own Doctor Who joke here. 

"I think I burned my hand!"

So a hit from a mace wielded by a man with normal strength stuns Doom, but a punch from a super strong charging metal monster does nothing? Maybe Johnny's made of gallium, he is being a bit of a drip. 

Johnny in this comic is like if Ben was made of pottery clay

Last post I made a point about idiot baddies firing shots at known super durable people. This page got me thinking about the corollary. This iteration of Ben Grimm isn't implied to have any abilities beyond winged flight, which makes me wonder, why not shoot him? Doctor Doom and so many others have gone to a lot of effort to build these spectacularly advanced weapons with less lethality than a hand gun. 

Never go walking in a storm with Johnny

Wait, what the fuck? Doom's arm is unblemished? I thought he had burn scars all over because he didn't let his stupid armour cool after forging? Are only faces burnable? 

Also Johnny's just pulling powers out his arse now. Machine empathy, weird energy absorption/mimicry/I don't know, and soon he will show of his amazing vibrating skills.  

Among his many fields of study Doom learned hand to hand combat from Hank Pym

Doom-- spouting exposition to himself how he is being attacked that very moment! So Sue can take bullets, but not being slapped around by Doom's un-armoured fist? 

"Shit got to think of a way out of this! God damnit why can't I get the stinger to X-Men 3 out of my-hell."

The weird thing about this story is for a What If it's a very standard kind of story. Member gets kidnapped and taken to Latveria, they fuck Doom over. The kind of story that had fallen out of popularity in the 60's. So in weird way it's unusually bizarrely humdrum, if that makes sense (no it does not). 

"Fantastic Four, the Senate has asked you here to explain why the dictatorial leader of a rouge state is now on your payroll!"

This seems like a conveniently happy ending but Doom seems like the kind of guy so paranoid, he might castrate himself so no man can enjoy his body if it's stolen. Also turns out there's one science Reed has a blind spot for, maths, 4=1=4 according to him. Hmm Johnny does seem to have a "too old for this shit look"in that panel though. 


Now friends let us try to figure out what hell the Next: caption is talking about? What if the radioactive spider had been three other people than Peter Parker? You know they tried doing some weird things with Spider-Man's origin in 2005 but that's small pennies, apparently in the 70's Peter went back in time and bit himself.  

Sadly we will not be making sense of that any time soon, because next time it's Movie Night!