World's Greatest Comic: The Fantastic Four Appreciation 2022

[Thundershot]

In the current arc, the Moon has been destroyed. That certainly involves the destruction of Earth's ecosystems. Any idea about how it will be restored when this is over? I suppose that if the Watchers created a barrier to protect the world, I suppose they could restore the Moon too. And since this was their mess, their vow of "non interferance" can't apply here.

Yeah, they’ll have to make it so it never happened. Then no one will remember except for the FF and the heroes helping them.

[Ravin' Ray]

Yeah, they’ll have to make it so it never happened. Then no one will remember except for the FF and the heroes helping them.

Brings to mind how the damage to Earth and the memory of it due to the approach of Ego the Living Planet was reversed by the power of a civilian, Skip Collins, in a Byrne issue of the FF.

[CaptCleghorn]

In the current arc, the Moon has been destroyed. That certainly involves the destruction of Earth's ecosystems. Any idea about how it will be restored when this is over? I suppose that if the Watchers created a barrier to protect the world, I suppose they could restore the Moon too. And since this was their mess, their vow of "non interferance" can't apply here.

Reed's comment about plenty of planets not having moons really didn't sound scientifically accurate as the moon does considerable work stabilizing the planet's rotation and shifting of the axis. But the moon being restored seems to be a pretty safe bet here.

[Rzerox21xx]

The last issue of FF Life Story, came out, any thoughts about it, how the series as a whole, I mean its hard to top Chip's Spidey Life series.

[Rift]

The last issue of FF Life Story, came out, any thoughts about it, how the series as a whole, I mean its hard to top Chip's Spidey Life series.

Someone described it as "a hate letter to FF fans," and I agree with that sentiment. But we did get a reference to that one AU where the FF grew in real time, so that was sweet.

[Darkshadow]

Life Story: Mostly bland, but some very touching moments for long time FF fans

Reckoning War: Lots going on here in just that one issue.

1). Do we now have an origin for the Ultimate Nullifer? If so, we are seeing the nullifier work differently than it has before. Instead of voiding or nullifying everything, it's now like universal nuke?
2). People were pumped for Jack of Hearts who hasn't been seen in a long time. But he just popped up in a panel randomly and I think had 2 additional panels following? No one even reacted to him being there.
3). I really like how Slott took a nod to the relatively recent development of Silver Surfer being around since creation
4). Did Slott really just expand the size of the universe (and multiverse with it) 9 times over by saying the weapon had already taken out 9/10s? That's a huge development because now:
5). We have already been shown that something could live in that destroyed hellscape and do so for billions of years...what else is out there?
6). The moon being destroyed is a big deal, but we all know it will be undone. It will just be disappointing no matter how it's brought back.
7). Is the Watcher dead again already?
8). How does the Helmsman and Comorant tie into this?
9). What on Earth could make She-Hulk, a very random character, so deeply connected to this event? It needs to be something tied intrinsically to her purpose for existing in this universe.
10). Were all of the cosmic abstracts just lucky enough to be in the non-destroyed 10th, or did they migrate over, through the barrier? If that was the Nullifier, that must mean either Galactus survived the detonation, or entered the hellscape to retrieve it. This alone would make for a very interesting single story.
11). Straight up, blowing up the moon would have resulted in a global mass extinction event. Not just some meteors...

Really impressed with exactly how much was so quickly revealed in this one. I anticipate 3 more big reveals by the end of this arc. 1 would be She-Hulk's connection. I think 2 would be the connection between this, the Helmsman, and zero energy. And then maybe a big reveal about Prosilican connections to modern universe races.

[danielsan52]

It would be neat if the destroyed moon spread out and became a ring around Earth 616 for the foreseeable future. And then Another event could revert it back.

[Iron Maiden]

It would be neat if the destroyed moon spread out and became a ring around Earth 616 for the foreseeable future. And then Another event could revert it back.

Haven't read this year but wouldn't the Earth be bombarded with debris like in a Roland Emmerich disaster movie?

[CaptCleghorn]

It would be neat if the destroyed moon spread out and became a ring around Earth 616 for the foreseeable future. And then Another event could revert it back.

You know, even though I remain sure the moon's being put back, this is a good idea. An extended no moon period and some sweet visuals would add to the wonder of super hero funny books.

[Nomads1]

The last issue of FF Life Story, came out, any thoughts about it, how the series as a whole, I mean its hard to top Chip's Spidey Life series.

I might check it out when it comes out in trade, but honestly my expectations aren't very high. IMHO, this kind of story has been endlessly done, with very mixed results.

Peace

[Ursalink]

There's another thing about the Moon being destroyed: How about the Mutant colonies on the Moon?

I mean, in the Blue Area of the Moon, there have been a lot of characters living through the years; not only the Watcher. Currently, Mutant Nation of Krakoa had a colony there, there was also the Inhumans' New Attilan and... Some others I can't remember. If the Inhumans were on the Moon when it was destroyed, they very likely died. And the same happens with the Mutants, although if they can resurrect now, it's not like it cares.

[Digifiend]

Good point. Though I don't think the Summer House was in use any longer, as Scott and Jean are now based in the Treehouse in New York, and Cable's on the SWORD space station.

3). I really like how Slott took a nod to the relatively recent development of Silver Surfer being around since creation
9). What on Earth could make She-Hulk, a very random character, so deeply connected to this event? It needs to be something tied intrinsically to her purpose for existing in this universe.

Re: Surfer, you mean the book where he had a human companion called Dawn Greenwood? That was written by Slott.

Slott's been planning this since the 2005 She-Hulk series!

[Iron Maiden]

Reed's comment about plenty of planets not having moons really didn't sound scientifically accurate as the moon does considerable work stabilizing the planet's rotation and shifting of the axis. But the moon being restored seems to be a pretty safe bet here.

It better be! First of all, after having now read this it amazed me how the heroes could have taken care of all the debris so quickly. I understand they could have been some significant lead time there. I don't know at what rate the debris would have fallen but I doubt it would travel at light speed for instance. I don't know if scientists have created any emergency scenarios concerning this, or at least none that they've made public.

I did find this website for astronomers and astrophysicists called the Stack exchange if anyone wants to look over the article/discussion about the Moon being hit by a meteor and exploding (this would have to be a very large one) or being knocked out of its usual orbit. It's pretty interesting and they do go very deep into the calculations and formulas.

But what Slott doesn't take into consideration is at what point in the Moon's orbit does this explosion take place. Is it approaching the perigee (nearest point) or apogee (farthest point)? One point that is made is that the smaller sections of the debris field would probably stay in orbit around the earth. But I'm just spitballing from what I got from reading it over. I'm assuming that a large asteroid striking the moon of sufficient size to destroy it is the same as Slott's spontaneous explosion we see in the story.Here is a direct quote of one of those in the discussion

Let's assume the moon would be hit in its perigee by an object of the same mass and speed but opposite direction of movement relative to Earth.

Let's also assume a sizeable chunk of debris left by this colossal impact would remain at the last known position of the moon but with zero orbital velocity. (Maybe the impacting asteroid was made of cheese?) This chunk of debris will be "the moon" for the purpose of this answer.

Next after the incident "the moon" will plummet towards Earth, accelerated by a force of about 1G. This is because gravity doesn't decrease by much for a given distance and 1G is the force exerted by Earth. Actually "the moon" also exerts a force but for simplicity, let's assume it only cancels the effect of distance.

The acceleration of the moon is thus about 9.81 m/s² with a starting distance of the moons perigee (~270.000km if I remember correctly, being too lazy to look it up on wikipedia). If I'm not mistaken "the moon" will take (sqrt(distance/acceleration)=5246,23 seconds) about 1,5 hours to reach Earth. Maybe it'll be a bit less for Earth's radius. It will also arrive with a speed beyond Mach 50 and thus actually "impact" Earth's atmosphere, i.e. experience a resistance equivalent to the sound barrier plus extreme compressive heating, likely to rip it apart.

This is the fastest way for moon to be impacted and then crash into Earth. However the question asked for the slowest way: Well, by decreasing the mass and/or velocity of the asteroid impacting the moon, we can "fine-tune" the effect to take any time between 1,5 hours (complete stop w.r.t. Earth/orbit, see above) and infinity (still having a stable orbit). For moon-crashes later than 1,5 hours after the initial impact, the moon would need to be put in an unstable orbit, e.g. orbiting through low density areas of Earth's atmosphere once in a while.

Also other answers have mentioned ways for the moon to get destroyed or ripped apart in the process of deorbiting it, which definitely apply. I just wanted to focus on the aspect of timeline.

In the story the heroes see the explosion and immediately debris is entering the atmosphere at Earth. I know....comic books. But in the next issue it would be more realistic if some of those larger chunks stay in orbit around the Earth. Sort of like that debris field caused between two orbiting space stations in the Sandra Bullock/George Clooney movie "Gravity".

[Iron Maiden]

Good point. Though I don't think the Summer House was in use any longer, as Scott and Jean are now based in the Treehouse in New York, and Cable's on the SWORD space station.

Re: Surfer, you mean the book where he had a human companion called Dawn Greenwood? That was written by Slott.

Slott's been planning this since the 2005 She-Hulk series!

I saw another interview where now Slott says he got ideas back when he read at certain comic when he was 8 years old. Since he was born in 1967 I suppose we should check out what comics Marvel put out in 1967-68. It's worth noting that the Lee/Kirby Thor gets very cosmic in this period and we see the origin of Galactus in a multi-parter.

And here's a tweet from 2019.

[Gaastra]

Isn't the watcher's home on the moon as well?