Captain America 11, Fantastic Four 12, Indestructible Hulk 13

Captain America 11
Remender (w) and Pacheco and Janson (a) and White (c)

Cap has returned twelve years later back to the present day of Earth. Drs. Banner and Pym run all sorts of test on him and do what they can to remove any remaining Zola influence and fix any remaining injuries Steve has while Maria Hill questions him on his time in the other dimension and the whereabouts of Sharon. Hill recommends Cap stay in touch with SHIELD to help him recover but he prefers to get back in the field. In another room, Fury is questioning Jet Black who is proving difficult. Eventually Cap retrieves her and takes her back to his old home, which is stuffed with memorabilia of his past. He promises he'll help her start a new life here and tells her that she has to let go of the past. She points out the irony in this as they stand in his museum-like house and he concedes the point. Not one to be a hypocrite, Cap gathers everything and piles it on the roof, setting it aflame in the rain. Meanwhile, broken Weapon Plus Program participant Nuke has decided to continue a war America thought failed in Eastern Europe, which will no doubt come to a head in the next issue.

There's a lot of memory out of Steve here as he recalls the death of his mother and the lessons she left him with, including letting go of the past and never giving up the optimism that this country brings. It's a really nice backstory to make Steve's family not that far removed from immigrants so they have the hope and ideals of the country so ready, even if they haven't particularly succeeded yet. It gives a nice optimism to Steve's history and puts him closer to the classic idea of the American dream than a lot of other heroes have been. The memories also serve as a nice story for Steve to fall back on to ground him again in the present after so much in his life has, once more, changed. He's able to use the memories of his mother and what she instilled in him to reorient himself in this different world. It's, presumably, what he had to fall back on to find himself when he was unfrozen after WWII. Overall, it's a nice characterization and it fits with Steve's longstanding character as well as the character that's been established with memories and the like by Remender in his short time on the book. Putting him against Nuke and alongside Jet will be an interesting storyline as it gives Cap someone on his side (hopefully) who knows what he's been through and who is dealing with similar problems of her own while pitting him against someone who feels abandoned and has fought all of his life for ideals. Exciting things to come.

Fantastic Four 12
Fraction w/ Sebela (w) and Bagley and Rubinstein (a) and Mounts (c)

The Fantastic Four is still separated, with the Johnnys, Reed, and Val stuck in Celeritas' past and Sue, Ben, and Franklin looking for them with the not-so-helpful help of the Preservation Front. Eventually the two groups find one another, meeting up pretty far back, between the Big Bang and the dawn of man on Celeritas. Of course, that means dinosaur fights, so there's a good amount of that. The Preservation Front, preferring not to be arrested, leave without the F4, stranding them in the past up against a slew of dinosaurs with their powers going in and out. Ben's rock skin starts to break, Sue has an episode which allows the Front to leave, the Johnnys seem okay but the air  in Celeritas is different than they're used to, etc. The team manages to hold off just long enough for help to arrive in the form of the grandchildren of the Preservation Front who detest their grandparents' ways and love the F4, going so far as to repair their ship for them and bring it back to this point in time, as time travel is readily accessible in Celeritas' future. The issue ends with a lot of question marks, still mostly regarding the powers of the F4 and future John Storm, with the immediate problem being Ben's rapidly breaking down body.

The powers going haywire continues to make for some compelling storytelling and Ben's rocks breaking off makes him a weaker (physically) character more prone to injury and fatigue while still looking like Thing. Kind of the worst of both worlds, if it keeps up. The question of John Storm is the more intriguing one, though, as he keeps hinting to events in the future, both of the team and kind of of his own future. It's particularly interesting because we also have the future John Storm in FF. Is this John Storm from a point before or after that John Storm? Is this one who knows the outcome of the team? Is this, in fact, a completely different entity also posing as (or believing itself to be) another John Storm? No questions have really been answered about him with any sort of definition; both Johns have been identified by people close to them (Wyatt Wingfoot for the FF's John Storm, Johnny himself for the F4's John Storm) but even that's not a definite. Still a lot of places to go with this book even as Fraction's time on the book winds down (not sure if he's still providing story or some scripting from this point on; my thought was that he was off the book but I thought he was off after this one and he's still listed on the preview of the next one).

Indestructible Hulk 13
Waid (w) and Scalera w/ Jacinto (a) and Staples (c)

Hulk and the Bannerbot have arrived in the time of King Arthur to find that the Chronarchists have expelled Arthur and his knights from Camelot in an attempt to take over Europe at a very formative time for the world. Holding power now, he could completely alter major events following the Middle Ages. On top of that, he's upped his game from bringing dinosaurs as weapons to bring major warriors and weapons from all over the timestream to defend his new kingdom. Working alongside Arthur, Merlin, and the knights, Bannerbot gets Hulk in position to attack the Chronarchist and, with the help of the Ebony Blade, rips this one back into the timestream as well, restoring the legend. As Bannerbot tries to keep Hulk enraged (to keep him as Hulk), he's interested to learn that Hulk is staying Hulked out but seems to have a higher intellect, which makes him believe the Chronarchist is toying in Hulks timeline now. This proves true as we see some tampering at the gamma bomb site where Hulk was created.

Another interesting issue that deals with the ramifications of past events on the future. There's maybe a little overkill in explaining that and, in truth, a bit much by way of summarization of where we are and why we're doing what we're doing. It's not so much that it's particularly bothersome but it's enough that it starts to pull the reader out far enough to say "hey, yeah, we get it." The same is true, I would think with most comic readers, as we keep getting into the butterfly effect, though it's toned down well enough to simply serve as a reminder of what's at stake. Otherwise, the issue is another solid one as Waid continues a team-up of Banner and Hulk and as we start to see Banner becoming more comfortable working with Hulk. It's a weird sort of buddy cop plot in that the two are so different but that the straight man knows the wild one so intimately. It's a neat little formula and it's working out so far. I expect it to move nicely forward into the next issue. It will be interesting to see if Hulk has Banner smarts at this point in his timeline and if the two get along worse for it. In and of itself it's a cool idea, putting Hulk and Banner inside their own timeline as the Chronarchists attack their attacker a little more aggressively. Neat story.