Thursday, October 24, 2013

I'm only familiar with half the inspiration for this one:


Namely, the Fantastic Four half; the other half being Neon Genesis Evangelion, of which I think I've seen only one episode. This is Marvel Mangaverse: Fantastic Four #1, "Mega-Scale Metatalent Response Team Fantastic Four" Written by Adam Warren, pencils by Keron Grant, inks by Rob Stull, colors by Chris Walker. I mention the colorist, since the entire issue is overly dark. It's appropriate on occasion, but there are flashbacks to Reed Richard's bedroom that are better lit than a control room, outside, or a 300-foot tall flaming exo-form.

The issue opens with a flashback to a somewhat familiar foursome about to get their powers, and a bunch of cannon fodder: on the dark side of the moon, an experiment in descriptor theory is about to begin, but a younger and mouthier Reed Richards than we're used to points out the many possible problems with the plan. Like maybe blowing up the moon, or attracting aliens to come wipe them out. A year later, Reed is "metatalent ops acting director," overseeing earth's defense against alien incursions. The "inscrutable machine intelligences" designated today's alien bogey as "Annihilus." Like the other, previous attackers, this one is heading straight for the Negative Zone portal in the Baxter Building.

Feeding power to Jonatha and Sioux Storm, and Benjamin Grimm, the heroes form massive exo-forms of flame, invisible force, and debris, respectively; and all three seemingly destroy Annihilus, who reforms almost instantly. At base, Reed puts his "otherwise useless metatalent to work, stretching his mind to try and come up with a solution. (Flashbacks show Reed in bed with different women, who don't seem to find his stretching useless...and Reed likewise somehow managed to save the four when the descriptor experiment blew the moon in half.) Reed realizes Annihilus teleports an undamaged version of himself from an alternate universe every time he gets destroyed, and directs the team to destroy Annihilus's cosmic control rod, destroying him and leaving a lot of his bodies lying around. Earth is safe...for now.

Adam Warren wrote a few, non-manga FF's; and he's always an inventive writer. I reckon he's busy with Empowered, which I need to catch up on, but he'd be a good choice if Karl Kesel doesn't stay on the book now.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Yeah I remember these. Manga versions of popular Marvel Heroes, and some weird ones too. A Punisher that as a school principal, and an Avengers team straight out of Voltron/Maginzer.

Good concept, and I think there was a sequel of sorts, but i don't think it did as good as the first sets.