Fantastic Four #2 SPOILERS

[jackolover]

My many arguments against this can be found elsewhere.

Starting to see some of them myself, so we’ll have to revisit this again.

[jackolover]

Considering that the lives lost wouldn't exist in the first place unless they'd created those universes, I'm not sure how they are being cavalier with life. They're not the ones wiping them out, there doesn't seem to have been any indication that a force like Griever would appear to do so, so it doesn't seem much different to any circumstances in which someone generates life.

Just because every time someone has a child, that child is going to die someday, are all parents being cavalier with life?

Another side to this realisation nobody would exist if the Richards family didn’t create them. This whole time since the launch of ANAD, we’ve seen the prime universe and the Multiverse up to this point, and felt they were quite real, and had some sympathy for it. But if Reed fled away like this before Entropy, he could have let Prime Earth be destroyed as well, in some inconsiderate way just to get time to do something to fight back. That’s how fragile this reality is at the present time!

And now that Franklin can’t replace any destroyed universes, it’s even more desperate that the Multiverse be preserved, because that’s all there is.

[mrbrklyn]

I agree that there is no particular need for a character to develop constantly. It’s all about fan preference...the nature of comics is that writers can (and often do) keep characters perpetually young, free from major injury, fantastically rich, etc. And many...most likely large majority of fans prefer that.

But for me, I prefer to see some progression. In the early days of FF we saw that. We saw...for example...Sue make a choice between Reed and Namor, Sue and Reed get married, have kids. All that showed progression...and for me added interest.

That is the balance to be created. You have to give the illusion that time is moving in a somewhat normal way, but at the same time, the editors are trying to preserve the value of the character, which means not aging them out. Sometimes, this problem just can't be solved, like in the case of Peter Parker.

He got married and then they were kind of stuck. Now Marvel has dozens of "universes". For me, this is no solution either.

And it meant that Sue and Reed could be portrayed as facing decisions that other super heroes hadn’t faced before...most importantly “how do we raise the kids?” And again I think that added interest.

And the way it went..I think showed Sue as a strong character.

There is no doubt. SUse Richards is the most developed character in comics history, except perhaps for Wally Wallet and Skeezix.

Yes..true Reed sometimes played the “you’re a woman you need to look after the kids” card. But actually...the way I interpret the story effectively Sue always ended up making the key decisions herself.

Only I saw it once, and not as a card, but adispute between them as to if taking care of a nightmare from Franklin was more important than taking on Psycoman.

If she felt the best option for her family was to take time out away from adventuring she did that...if time was right ..in her opinion..to go adventuring she did. She made most of the family decisions, after taking all the factors into account.

For me it all added interest. And I would have liked to see how Sue’s life changed when kids grew older, left for university, got jobs, etc.

But I’m just expressing my own view and preferences. Like many things, I know it’s subjective, and can easily see why others have different preferences.

Yes, but the publishing history is a matter of documented fact, and as a fact, she was never pigeonholed by her motherhood. And she is profoundly developed as an individual. She happens to be an individual who loves her husband and family, and she says it all the time, like right before she goes running off on an adventure.

[mrbrklyn]

This is my first time having a Fantastic Four comic in my pull list.

Is it just me, or were the FF partaking in a serious moral quandary? They seemed fairly casual about playing god and now countless lives are lost (except for the universe home to Val's crush which seems like another kind of selfishness). Maybe I'm missing something here, but is the point of this arc to have the FF face the consequences of being so cavalier with life?

No just that, but it is poorly presented and in of itself is, IMO, boring and childish. Franklin for the last umptine year creates X number of Universes... REALLY, is it time to scale back his powers maybe? And then POP... some unexplained new character comes along and destroys them....

My heart bleeds. Zero character development. Zero believability.... Zero excitement.

This revival is a disaster. Usually they need to build up a story before bringing in a dozen other characters... he they start with it as a scratch... and we are all supposed to stand up and clap.

This is going to end up as one of the misplaced storylines that they will try to ditch as quick as possible ...

[mrbrklyn]

Read it yesterday, I loved every minute of it. Made up for #1 completely.

How so? What aspect of it did you enjoy?

[mrbrklyn]

I can certainly understand not taking Ben and Johnny with them.

That is just the beginning of the problem of the storyline, as it is presented. You think Ben with be rather ticked off when he is called after all those years, like a lapdog.

[mrbrklyn]

Oh Yes. This has to be one of my favorite Sue scenes, at least in the top 20, lol. As much as I like the Namor / Sue flirtation on certain levels, there is nothing more satisfying than Sue prove her strength to him.

She also confronted Namor when hyperion kidnapped reed for a year,

[mrbrklyn]

Sue could play more of a role outside of being a mother sure. But keep it in line with her character as she has been shown.

Not for nothing the Woman is the one of the most powerful super heroes in the MU. Which has been shown several times. She has been the chief Business mind to the Fantastic Four Franchise in universe several times. She has been a diplomate more times then anyone is willing to acknowledge....the list goes on and on. So for some of the comments that are being made and continue to be made about Sue and the FF...well at times it's hard to take them seriously.

Does she need more development than a women who has experienced both childbirth but also losing a child? More than a women who has lived in a marriage and family and who left, only to return to the man and family she loves? More so than a women who was the crush of Prince Namor, and rejected him? More than a women who thought she lost a husband and had to lead her team for nearly a year? More than a women who has a special needs child, whose psychological abnormality is that he can destroy the Universe (as if that problem will ever go away)? More than a Women who had lost her brother as he defended her children from a murderous horde? Really, what possible mid-life crisis could drive Susan Richards from her family so that she can hang out and "develop" with the other groups and characters? I mean if they need her to save the world or for a bake sale for the New Avengers mansion, I'm sure she will come. But there is no driving motivation for Susan to go on a walkabout with other characters in the Marvel Universe.

[Username taken]

On a personal note, I have a very,very,very serious problem with Franklin Richards creating and populating universes. I honestly feel his powers should be scaled back (granted he was doing it with Owen Reece), secondly, the FF are literally playing God (with a big G) at this point.

They created a couple of universes and they have to find a way to defend said universes, it seems like the kind of responsibility humans shouldn’t take on.

I wouldn’t have a problem with Reed and co resorting “broken universes” but creating new ones willy nilly is taking things to far. I’m not really down with this. At all.

[Crimz]

I personally see no moral issues with them rebuilding the multiverse. They aren't controlling anything, not acting as Gods over those they create (look at how Sue reacted to Franklin even joking about it). Playing God would be what Doom did during Secret Wars and they aren't doing that so I'm not seeing the issue.

They are just adding to the tapestry of the great big Multiverse that they saved in the first place.

[JackDaw]

I personally see no moral issues with them rebuilding the multiverse. They aren't controlling anything, not acting as Gods over those they create (look at how Sue reacted to Franklin even joking about it). Playing God would be what Doom did during Secret Wars and they aren't doing that so I'm not seeing the issue.

They are just adding to the tapestry of the great big Multiverse that they saved in the first place.

I just don’t see how creating an entire new universe can not have profound moral implications for the creator.

If Franklin really has no control at all about the subsequent way those universes turn out..then effectively he’s playing dice with billions of lives. That would be profoundly immoral..equivalent to a guy impregnating a woman then just walking away from his responsibilities. Except..on a massive scale.

If he does have some control..and I think he does because he will surely have designed the universes with some broad principles in mind (e.g. good should ultimately triumph over evil, etc)..then he has a profound moral responsibility to get the design right. It shouldn’t be a kids game..which (however unfairly) is how the artwork I’ve seen comes across.

Look at it from the point of view of all those billions of people Skulls, etc as well as humans who will have really sad lives...maybe being cannon fodder for super heroes v super villain fights...it’s not sufficient, I think for Reed and Franklin to bring billions of people into life without profound moral reflection beforehand.

[vitruvian]

The feeling I got from Entropy was she was going to destroy all the universes created by the Richards family, and that has turned out to only be a thousand, when there used to be millions.

The problem here, as I see it, is that there are no natural universes in existence in this new 8th iteration of the Reality. The Richards family made all of anything that exists. In this case Entropy isn’t keeping a balance between the natural end to the standard Multiverse because there is none. What do you think?

What it also presents is where did Entropy come from when nothing existed after Secret Wars 2015 except Battleworld? Does she spontaneously come into being once a Multiverse is created, like Infinity gems must also have spontaneously sprung into existence? We have also seen Celestials in ANAD as well. Did Reed make sure they had to in ANAD? Then there’s Galactus. Was he a product of the Richards too? In fact any and all cosmic beings that we’ve seen so far, have to be have their existence plained in the ANAD.

No, no, and no. Go back and reread, this time reading every word.

NotJustRestore.jpg

It is NOT the case that there are only a thousand universes total in existence, vs the millions that used to exist. As Sue's narration states, they didn't just RESTORE the old multiverse, but chose to add their own creations to it - meaning that they DID in fact restore what used to be there basically as it was before they proceeded to ADD their own special gravy to it. The thousand universes are additional ones above and beyond what used to exist, got destroyed or crunched into Battleworld, and which Owen, Franklin, et al have now restored.

As far as natural universes in existence, it depends on your definition of natural... as well as on the origins of the previous multiverse. If the 7th universe had a creator or creators, even the One Above All, the Fulcrum, Celestials, previous version of Eternity, or whatever, would that be any more or less natural? Regardless of distinctions between artificial/created/natural, though, it seems clear that Entropy is an embodiment of the abstract principle for which she is named... and manufactured as well as naturally occurring entities are all subject to entropy and eventual destruction or heat death.

As to where Entropy came from, we've already seen in Ultimates already that the various cosmic embodiments have been recreated (albeit some in changed forms) as a consequence of the Richards family restoring the multiverse, including Eternity, Lord Order and Master Chaos, and so on. In this context, Entropy coming (back) into existence as a reaction to the restoration/creation of the multiverse seems to make a fair amount of sense. We also learned that this is far from the first time that this destruction and recreation of all of existence, including the whole multiverse once the First Firmament was fractured from one reality to many, with the current (ANAD, I guess) multiversal reality being the 8th. That makes the one we've been reading about all along prior to Last Days and Secret Wars the Seventh Cosmos, and the one that Galen of Taa (Galactus) came from the Sixth. We know from Ultimates that each iteration had its own Eternity-like embodiment, and presumably also a bunch of subsidiary abstract cosmic beings like Death, Entropy, Chaos, Order, etc. I'm not sure that their appearance in the Eighth Cosmos requires any more explanation than that.

But overall, the bottom line is that whatever new creations they've been engaged with, first the Future Foundation did in fact RESTORE the previous multiverse and all its realities very nearly as they existed prior to the Incursions and Secret Wars, making the Eighth Cosmos in some ways a continuation of the Seventh. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to regard the current MU and its denizens as any more 'fake' or 'artificial' than the predecessors whose lives they are continuing.... any more than we should regard the Captain Kirk and away team that appears on the planet's surface as fake copies of the versions destroyed on the transporter pad up on the Enterprise. For all intents and purposes, they are the same characters.

[Crimz]

I just don’t see how creating an entire new universe can not have profound moral implications for the creator.

If Franklin really has no control at all about the subsequent way those universes turn out..then effectively he’s playing dice with billions of lives. That would be profoundly immoral..equivalent to a guy impregnating a woman then just walking away from his responsibilities. Except..on a massive scale.

If he does have some control..and I think he does because he will surely have designed the universes with some broad principles in mind (e.g. good should ultimately triumph over evil, etc)..then he has a profound moral responsibility to get the design right. It shouldn’t be a kids game..which (however unfairly) is how the artwork I’ve seen comes across.

Look at it from the point of view of all those billions of people Skulls, etc as well as humans who will have really sad lives...maybe being cannon fodder for super heroes v super villain fights...it’s not sufficient, I think for Reed and Franklin to bring billions of people into life without profound moral reflection beforehand.

I see it as the opposite. Any control beyond the initial creation would be immoral. Universes shouldn't be treated like kids, but instead should be left to their own growth without intervention.

The sad lives of the people shouldn't be for Franklin to fix, that stops growth and leads to a reliance on him. He would truly be a God at that point with divine intervention, the people in those universes would not have free will and that is what would be truly immoral. I don't see creating universes the same as having a child at all, we can't apply our morals to something of that stature.

Either way I wouldn't really blame any of this on Slott. He's just using what was left him by Hickman, so I can forgive any unanswered questions on that topic.

[vitruvian]

I just don’t see how creating an entire new universe can not have profound moral implications for the creator.

If Franklin really has no control at all about the subsequent way those universes turn out..then effectively he’s playing dice with billions of lives. That would be profoundly immoral..equivalent to a guy impregnating a woman then just walking away from his responsibilities. Except..on a massive scale.

If he does have some control..and I think he does because he will surely have designed the universes with some broad principles in mind (e.g. good should ultimately triumph over evil, etc)..then he has a profound moral responsibility to get the design right. It shouldn’t be a kids game..which (however unfairly) is how the artwork I’ve seen comes across.

Look at it from the point of view of all those billions of people Skulls, etc as well as humans who will have really sad lives...maybe being cannon fodder for super heroes v super villain fights...it’s not sufficient, I think for Reed and Franklin to bring billions of people into life without profound moral reflection beforehand.

So, you're arguing that for a creator to let a universe develop on its own is irresponsible, and if the creator retains control over a universe they are responsible for its evils. Applied generally, you've just argued for God to be necessarily either irresponsible or evil.

[JackDaw]

I see it as the opposite. Any control beyond the initial creation would be immoral. Universes shouldn't be treated like kids, but instead should be left to their own growth without intervention.

The sad lives of the people shouldn't be for Franklin to fix, that stops growth and leads to a reliance on him. He would truly be a God at that point with divine intervention, the people in those universes would not have free will and that is what would be truly immoral. I don't see creating universes the same as having a child at all, we can't apply our morals to something of that stature.

Either way I wouldn't really blame any of this on Slott. He's just using what was left him by Hickman, so I can forgive any unanswered questions on that topic.

But the way that initial creation is made has to have a massive impact on how the universe concerned will turn out.

Unless Franklin has good reason to believe that majority of intelligent beings will have satisfying and fulfilling lives as opposed to lives full of misery and pain then he is doing a deeply immoral act.

And to me, it seems clear that Franklin is being written as a god, indeed more powerful than most. The only question is whether he’s a thoughtful and benevolent god, or one who won’t accept his responsibilities.

I’m not blaming Dan Slott or Jonathan Hickman for anything. I loved the Hickman run, and happy to wait to see how Dan Slott’s run turns out.

But I don’t really think Hickman’s run really did compel Slott to run with anything like this story line. He could just as easily have taken line that Franklin powers were severely depleted by some event..that restoring universes wasn’t an option..and run with a completely different story line.