Captain Marvel 1, Fantastic Four 2

Captain Marvel 1
DeConnick (w) and D. Lopez (a) and Loughridge (c)

Six weeks from now, Captain Marvel is in outer space with some new and alien crew-mates, on the run from the Spartax Secret Police and on the search for certain materials at an outpost. They pretty quickly get into it with a couple of roaming Spartax Secret Policemen and are forced to separate. Cut back to six weeks ago, when our story begins, as Carol and Iron Patriot attempt to stop what seems to be a missile from hitting New York. She grabs it and tosses it, giving the two a chance to examine it in the air. It's not a bomb, as it would happen, but instead some sort of containment for an alien creature. The alien is delivered to SWORD while Captain Marvel returns to her home in the Statue of Liberty, where she's recently welcomed Kit and her mother to stay after Kit's mother lost her job. As Carol puts Kit back to bed (she got up when Carol returned home), Iron Man beckons her to come with him. He tells her that he thinks the Avengers should have someone out in space monitoring any potential threats to Earth or even just things Earth should be aware of. His time with the Guardians of the Galaxy made him aware of how dangerous space may be for Earth and he wants to be prepared. She volunteers to take the first shift, which would be about a year or so in space. She breaks the news to her disappointed but understanding boyfriend Rhodey and she sets off, hoping to find where she belongs.

I think this is a tricky issue to write and it kind of shows. This is a book being rebooted not because it was doing poorly or because it needed a fresh start but because Marvel wanted the boost of a new release in the midst of new release season instead of just before a wave of new releases. This is, anyway, the company line. That said, there are pros and cons to sending Carol to space just as there are pros and cons to having to reboot a series so soon after the last one "concluded." Some of the pros and cons of the latter include needing to try to reach a new audience while similarly retaining one fresh off a great and well loved volume while some of the pros and cons of the former are that Marvel cosmic is ALWAYS a risky move. It's, of course, currently rather in vogue as Guardians of the Galaxy and the comic by the same name have paved the way for introducing more mainstream audiences to the space side of Marvel comics. Of course, that doesn't make it entirely less risky, just means it's got a bigger sandbox to play in. I guess what I'd say, then, is that this isn't a bad issue, just an issue that has found itself in the precarious position of trying to set up a new world without completely dismantling the old one. With that said, I think that the next few issues have the ability to get progressively stronger as the new order falls a little more into place.

Fantastic Four 2
J. Robinson (w) and Kirk and Kesel (a) and Aburtov (c)

The strange monsters that burst from the Baxter Building are revealed, by Franklin Richards, to have come from his secret pocket universe which is currently, as Franklin puts it, sick. They are extremely resilient creatures and it takes Reed a while to concoct something that will neutralize them. By the time he does, they've wreaked havoc all over New York and drawn the attention of plenty of Avengers and other heroes alike. Like his solution with Fin Fang Foom in issue one, Reed's solution this time requires Johnny to act as a catalyst for the cytotoxin he's developed and which will need to be dispersed in the atmosphere. He warns Johnny that it may have negative effects on anyone close to it while it disperses but Johnny decides they can't wait any longer and flies off with it. The cytotoxin works, rendering all the beasts unconscious, but it also knocks Johnny out of the sky. When the F4 catch him, he reveals that he can't feel his powers any more.

The pocket universe Franklin refers to in this issue is the controversial HEROES REBORN universe that it was revealed he had created back in the late '90s when Marvel attempted to reboot some of their major franchises with more modern takes on some of their key heroes after their apparent deaths at the hands of Onslaught. Interestingly, series writer James Robinson also wrote the final issue of all of the HEROES REBORN rebooted titles back in the '90s so he has some first hand familiarity with the universe he's reintroducing here. Despite all of the fighting and the race-against-the-clock mentality of Reed developing the cytotoxin (which happens kind of anticlimactically), it's hard to say this was a particularly exciting issue. It's also hard to be TOO interested in Johnny losing his powers as this is something of a frequent trope of superhero comics and, more importantly, is something that happened in just the last volume of FANTASTIC FOUR, albeit in a slightly different way. Of course, before Fraction's run (and part of Hickman's run, I suppose), I could never find myself interested in the Fantastic Four for some reason so being kind of bored by this one just fits the mold.