It’s Halloween!
For their tie-in to the big Avengers Disassembled event, the Fantastic Four … Don’t really tie in at all. But the team does get literally disassembled, and it’s an excellent story. An alien named Zius has figured out how to thwart Galactus by creating invisibility shields around worlds targeted for consumption. But Galactus finds out that Sue Richards’ invisibility power could reveal Zius’ shields, so he seeks her out–but Zius does, too. Zius gets there first and lifts Manhattan in a bubble.
Yay! I haven’t gotten to use my “lifting New York City” tag in a long time!
Zius holds the island hostage and Sue is willing to give herself up. But before he can depower Sue, Reed pulls a switcheroo…
Of course, this means Johnny now has invisibility powers. The story culminates in the arrival of Galactus and his massive hand reaching down to take Johnny.
The next arc is a 4-issue Galactus story. It’s confusing why it’s split into two–it’s really one long story. I’m not going to do that. All of the story is in the post.
“Rising Storm” goes from #520 through 524, has a lot of Johnny serving as Galactus’ herald, which is both fun and funny. I don’t even mind that Quasar–a character I’ve never been fond of–becomes the unofficial “fourth” for the team while Johnny is in space.
After they get Johnny back, Reed tries to switch Sue and Johnny’s powers back and instead causes their powers to soot out into the city, affecting civilians…
More power switching! Except now, everyone in New York gets to play!
When Reed manages to get their powers rightfully restored, they’re reunited with the family.
All is made right at the end so that Mark Waid can end his much celebrated run on this title.
His final issue, #524 (above), pays tribute to the final panel of the FF#1–the famous “all hands in” panel.
Great, great work. I highly recommend the Waid issues to any comic book fan.
The cover, of course, pays tribute to Fantastic Four #1.
