Luke and Devin head off script as they meet a talking bear named Misha as the Fantastic Four head to Russia before Thanos is coming after a cube – along with the rest of those crazy cosmic heads! And then the boys watch as Tony Stark tries to cure the Hulk in Ultimate Human only for Pete Wisdom to muck it all up???
Notes:
Check out Luke’s Kickstarter here!
Check out the Play Comics Podcast interview here!
Issues Covered:
- Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol 1 #47-53
- Ultimate Human #1-4
The image gallery and show notes are after the jump!
Ultimate Fantastic Four #47-53
Ultimate Human #1-4
Ultimate Fantastic Four #47-49 – Ghosts
Writer – Mike Carey, Art – Pasqual Ferry, Mark Brooks, Inks – Jaime Mendoza, Color – Justin Ponsor, Letters – VC’s Rus Wooton
Misha is a talking cyber bear who is getting tortured in Russia.
Meanwhile at the Baxter Building, Reed is refusing to leave the lab while he is trying to complete the Cube so he can use it against Thanos, refusing to see Johnny, Ben, and even Sue. The obsession is worrying Dr. Storm but General Ross brushes off the concerns because of the promise of free energy.
Dr. Storm is contacted about a symposium by his friend Doctor Ivan Kragoff who reaches out to invite Reed and Sue to come and visit Russia and meet with other scientists. Unknown to Franklin though, this is part of a plan by Kragoff and his partner Sorba Rutskaya for unknown purposes. Reed refuses to leave and brushes off Sue, so she decides to go alone.
Elsewhere in Siberia, Major Valentin Shatalov is told he needs to activate his armor.
Sue boards the small private jet that will bring her to Siberia before an oncoming storm and on the way it is attacked by Sorba who causes it to crash and then kills the pilot before capturing Sue. News of the crash reaches Franklin and Reed, who just finished the cube and felt something leave him moments after, stumbles out telling them he can fly in. The boys reach Siberia in 2 hours and find the wreck and the dead pilot, surmising that the plane was attacked. Johnny goes flying and ends up attacked by a large robot.
Meanwhile Franklin is trying to work with Kragoff to keep the Fantastic Four’s trip to Russia quiet which Kragoff is happy with, as they currently have Sue drugged.
The Boys meanwhile fight the robot realizing it is actually a mechanical suit with someone inside of it and they eventually can communicate and Reed understands the pilot, Valentin is trying to help them find Sue. He was sent by the government to find stolen technology using his Crimson Dynamo suit.
Sue wakes up in the lab and Kragoff explains how he understands how Sue got her powers and he could use it to resurrect someone with a drugged Sue’s help. He plans to resurrect his wife who died in an accident by overwriting Sue’s body with her essence, but as he prepares, he is killed by Sorba.
Sorba is alerted that the boys and Dynamo are coming and sets up defenses while Sorba will steal Sue’s powers and take over the world, but unknown to her, Sue blocks off the medicine feed. When the machine is fired up Sue escapes and sends a bunch of DNA samples into the beam and escapes. She looks for Sorba who she finds has been merged with a bunch of apes. Like it is one massive furry body, her head, and then a bunch of ape heads. Also some bears for good measure.
Meanwhile the Boys and the Dynamo fight Sorba’s allies in updated Dynamo technology. Working together though, they are ultimately able to destroy the other suits.
Sorba meanwhile starts attacking Sue when she realizes she didn’t get power so Sue runs. Sorba emits some apes from her body and one of them suggests using the suits but when she tries to activate them they reject her. Another Ape corners Sue and is able to replicate her powers but Misha the cyber bear saves her.
Meanwhile the boys run into Sorba and her emitted apes start to replicate their powers but that’s when Sue shows up and throws more DNA into Sorba disrupting her ability to focus. Dynamo then notes the lab is about to blow due to the suits and luckily Sue is able to protect everyone except for Sorba in her shield.
The team leaves and Reed apologizes but Sue isn’t ready and when they return to New York City, they find it covered in a cube.
Ultimate Fantastic Four 50-53 – Four Cubed
Writer – Mike Carey, Pencils by Top Cow Productions Inc’s Tyler Kirkham, Inks – Sal Regla, Colors – Blond, Letter’s by VC’s Rus Wooton
On Acheron, Ronan lets Thanos, his father, know the Cube has reappeared on Earth and that Halcyon is also after it which pleases Thanos.
Back on Earth the police try to stop the team, not recognizing them and when they try to enter, it blocks them, but Reed is able to psychically contact the Cube, allowing them in, though everyone inside of it is still frozen. Back at the Baxter Building they find the Seed 19 team frozen, though Dreamcatcher is free at the time. She scolds Reed for building the Cube, demanding that it be destroyed. When she attacks him, he absorbs it the energy and gives Dreamcatch a solid form as she warns that the rest of the Halcyon armada is ready to attack as well, led by Commander Keris and Tesseract’s own team consisting of Echo, Glow, Amp and Granite Phantom. The team appears, knocks out everyone but Reed so he uses the Cube’s connection to him, sends them back to their ship, and so the fleet starts to attack. Reed realizes his control won’t last forever moments before the Halcyon ships just take the cube containing New York City.
As they go past the sun, the ships are attacked by Thanos’ ships who steal the city cube and teleport it to Acheron. Inside, everyone but the four are still frozen as Johnny scouts before he finds Thanos’ army waiting outside. Reed considers deactivating the Inhibitor he built into the Cube but decides against it and they confront Thanos breaking through his initial ranks. Ben starts glowing and vanishes and Reed gets angry wielding the Cube so Thanos deigns to speak to him. Thanos explains that he controlled Reed to make the Cube and challenges him to a one on one fight for it. Thanos uses it and forces Reed to re-live a beating from his dad which emotionally drains him, allowing Thanos to take the Cube.
Back on Earth the Ultimates are checking out the missing section of New York City when Thanos and a corrupted Sue and Johnny appear. They fight and easily defeat the Ultimates with Thanos even turning Thor into a tree.
Meanwhile, Ben wakes up on a world ruled by a green haired woman named Atrea who rescued him. Ben asks about going home and she refuses, and shows him her powers, as the daughter of Thanos, which is why she has a skeleton arm, explaining that she asked too many questions and so she eventually left. She shows Ben around Sidris, a world where Thanos froze the entire atmosphere to show his power. She explains how because the people of Acheron directly reincarnate and so Thanos plans to make life similarly ordered using the Cube to build an eternal empire.
Thanos meanwhile brands the Earth with his name by shifting the continents, makes a giant tower, and turns the oceans to stone to fuck with Namor.
Ben still wants to leave which angers Atrea so Ben says she is like Thanos which angers her but she decides to help to prove Ben wrong and help. First they return to Acheron where they find Reed who has seemingly been turned to stone but Atrea says that isn’t him.
Meanwhile on Earth, Thanos has control over all of the heroes but he is bothered by his inability to fully access the Cube, and then he sends his heroes to attack Halcyon.
On Acheron they find Reed’s spirit that he preserved using the Cube but was trapped inside before. They return to earth and head to the tower with Ben going in for a distraction so Reed can do what he needs and Atrea calls him gay. Fellas, is it gay to team up with your best friend to stop a power mad tyrant? She appears before Thanos, distracting Thanos so that Ben can punch him. Thanos blasts through Ben but the distraction gives Reed access to the Cube so he can restore Sue and Johnny but Thanos quickly captures all of them. Thanos plays to give everyone eternal life until they are stuck in husks but are still sentient and Reed mentions Thanos doesn’t have access to the full Cube. Reed unlocks the Cube and Thanos starts ranting about death but the access means that it fulfills the basest wish and since Thanos wished for death, he completely dies. Reed restores the world and undoes the damage before he sends the Cosmic Cube back in time for Thanos to find the first time because it needs to be a closed circuit.
Ultimate Human #1-4
Writer – Warren Ellis, Pencils – Cary Nord, Colors – Dave Stewart, Letters – Dave Sharpe
Bruce Banner comes to Tony Stark asking for help curing the Hulk, mentioning how Tony genetically controls his cells and uses nanotechnology. Bruce thinks Tony’s tech can turn off the Hulk cells, essentially curing him.
Meanwhile in Southern England, as Tony is heading to his Ironworks base, Pete Wisdom, the Leader, a man with a massive brain, commences Operation Gamma to get blood samples from Bruce and Tony.
The duo meanwhile land in New Mexico at Ironworks and Tony plans to establish some baselines first. Bruce worries that eventually he won’t be able to turn back. Tony puts Bruce into a Planet Tank to test how Hulk adapts to pressure and kicks it up to Venus which almost kills Bruce but then he turns into the Hulk and adapts so they try drugging the Hulk but he escapes and resists and while security tries to load him with tranqs and drugs, he adapts to those as well.
Tony calls in for the base to evac while he gets into his new suit. He lasers through Hulk’s eyes to the brain and electrocutes it, turning the Hulk back into Bruce before Tony has to abandon the suit because it overloaded.
Bruce wakes up in the hospital and Tony explains that they dosed him with nanobots. Bruce is worried about how much it can adapt for because it was made for anyone to be able to take it and be a one person army. For the meantime, Tony offers to monitor Bruce and give him time to work.
The Leader and his men meanwhile have set up a base and he’s angry that he isn’t a hero and then orders his men to launch an assault and Bruce and Tony are captured.
When then flashback to find that Pete Wisdom, Director of Intelligence for the SIS. He worked the foreign affairs section and wanted super soldiers and nobody trusted him because he was shitty and they could back the European Defense Initiative that eventually would lead to Captain Britain, for a variety of reasons. When he was told he needed results, he tested himself with sampled DNA of Hulk and Iron Man’s blood but it just got him a massive head, psychic powers, and he got fired from SIS.
Tony and Bruce wake up captured and Tony realizes they can only escape if he turns off Bruce’s nanobots but he’d never be able to cure him that way again. And then he does it before Bruce can object and Tony then headbutts Bruce who turns into the Hulk who doesn’t remember their situation. Tony tells him to look for the Big Head Guy and so Hulk rampages. Meanwhile Tony jury rigs a controller for an Iron Man suit.
Hulk tries to fight the Leader who tries to kill the Hulk but Hulk begins to adapt and then the Iron Man suit that Tony called flies into the Leader pinning him. The Leader takes control of a nearby plane to fly it into them for revenge as Hulk beats him to death and the plane crashes while Tony runs to safety. As Tony checks on the wreckage, the Hulk runs into the desert.
Ultimate Fantastic Four 47-49 – Ghosts
Ultimate Fantastic Four 50-53 – Four Cubed
Ultimate Human #1-4