Marvel solicits for December

[nomadicwriter]

CBR has the Marvel comics solicits for December, wherein the Doom story in Fantastic Four and FF continues under the new writers:

FANTASTIC FOUR #15
MATT FRACTION & KARL KESEL (W) * RAFF IENCO (A)
Cover by MARK BAGLEY
DOOMED! Part 3: The Elements of War
* The Fantastic Four struggle to stop the molecular plague destroying their powers and bodies.
* Standing between them and the cure: the Frightful Force, an army of their greatest foes, led by one of the F4’s own who betrayed them! Their only allies: another Fantastic Four!
* Meanwhile, Dr. Doom, Kang, and Annihilus come to an ominous meeting of the minds...
32 PGS./Rated T ...$2.99

The Council of Dooms appear again on the cover of this one.

FF #15
MATT FRACTION & LEE ALLRED (W) * MICHAEL ALLRED (A/C)
* Invasion Latveria: the Video Game!
* Four stand-in replacement heroes and a dozen kids versus Dr. Doom, now transformed into the ultimate power in the universe: Doom the Annihilating Conqueror! What a time to run out of quarters!
* Game over, man! Game over!
32 PGS./Rated T ...$2.99

And a Doomy cover here as well.

Comments

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

You know, I still have no idea what's up with the plague that's going after the Fantastic Four. Carcinomic growth on the picoscale whaaaaat? That's about 10 billion times smaller than the smallest of human cells. (The smallest cell in the human body is the erythrocyte/red blood cell at about 6-8 micrometers. It doesn't have a nucleus, so it can be argued it isn't a cell. In that case, the smallest cell is the spermatozoon with a length of 50 microns. If you're curious, the largest cell is the ovum at 0.1 millimeters/100 microns. Symmetry!) So I call bullshit on the radiation-caused cancer theory. I think the most logical thing to use in its place is accelerated proteolysis and/or kinase/captase activation, so that the cells die faster than they are replaced. TL;DR: I like science.

Sorry for going all science-y here, but the sollicit isn't even consistant with canon so far. Cancer is neither molecular nor a plague! And there can't be a 'cure', because even if you stop the cause, the cancerous cells are still there and still cause problems, hence chemo! Unless the cure is nanites, I guess. Tl;DR: I really like science, yay?

Aside from that (because lol science, in my comics? Never!), I'm not sure what to think. It looks like it's going to be a multiverse-heavy issue and those are always hard to get right.

Do we ever find out why Doom allies with Kang and Annihilus, aside from being villains? Annihilus' goals seem opposed to the other two's.

As for the cover: I really like the top part with all the Dooms. The Doom in red being in the middle is a nice touch as is the flames as framing device. Not a fan of the way the rightmost Doom has his face half-covered or the way the two formeost ones are virtually identical. It's a shame, because all the others has a unifying yet distinct look. The bottom half of the cover looks bad though. Sue, Reed and Ben are all missing half a leg, Reed is holding onto Sue's waist because ?, which he shouldn't be able to since she looks a lot closer to us (plus it's a bad idea), her leg looks really thin too, and there's something off with their feet too. The musculature looks strange to me as well. Ben looking off-page draws the gaze away so that's awkward. The composition is very nice overall, though!

I like the idea of Latveria as a video game setting, but not Doom the Annihilating Conqueror. It just doesn't make sense to me. The cover hints at it not being what we think, so I guess we'll wait and see.

I like the cover. I have a few qualms, but I'm not going to write you another novel.

Btw, in Infinity: the Hunt #1, there's mentions of a Latverian School of Science.

[nomadicwriter]

Heh. You're clearly trying a lot harder than I am to reconcile whatever's going on with the Fantastic Four; I've just mentally classified it as "handwavy degenerative thing" and stopped paying much attention to the words.

Honestly, there's a lot in Fraction's run that really doesn't bear up under examination. I'm not enthused to see the Council of Dooms from F4 #9 are coming back, since nothing about their part in that plotline made any sense at all. And yeah, this whole Doom the Annihilating Conqueror thing seems to very much Silver Age style "Villains! Doing Villainous Things because they are Villains!" without much thought put into why they'd even want to work together, never mind merge themselves into some sort of combined entity. (Why would Doom ever agree to go for that? Unless maybe he's got some idea he can override the others' personalities and steal their powers for himself, perhaps? I hope that's what that FF cover is hinting at, but I'm not really holding my breath for a proper explanation.)

And obviously Sue's leg is invisible, Reed's stretched his away, and Ben's fell off along with all the rock plates he's been dropping. Their issues with their powers are getting out of control! :) I do like Ben's blue sweatshirt, though.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I just really like science. Seriously, science is amazing. I'd love to be able to handwave the issue away, but then Fraction uses words that do not mean what he thinks they mean and I sadface.

The Council of Doom felt a bit like a retread of Hickman's AU!Reeds run. Plus, the whole 'Doom merging with other villains' was also done recently in Red She-Hulk, so. I can buy Doom and Nate/young Kang/Kid Immortus/whatever he's calling himself these days, but I have no idea why Annihilus is involved, unless he (it?) is trying for suicide-by-Fantastic-Four. I hope all three of them have their own agenda and the Doom the Annihilating Conqueror thing is just a smokescreen. Or old!Johnny trolling the FF, I can work with that. (If you're curious, I thought it made sense in Red She-Hulk.)

Yeah, okay, let's go with that. Still pissed that the powers are inconsistently affected, but I should stop overthinking things. I'm mad jealous of Ben's sweatshirt.