November Book List

• World’s Finest by Dave Gibbins and Steve Rude

Batman and Superman team up to stop Lex Luthor and the Joker. It’s fun.

 

• Earth Logic - book 2 of the Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks

Such a griping read! It deals with heavy subjects - how to reconcile a conquering people into your society? Can your society change enough to accommodate them? I love the family the main characters built for themselves, I hope that continues to work and the thing that brings them problems in the next two books is the political situation.

 

• Fantastic Four Season One by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and David Marquez

A modern retelling of the Fantastic Four origin story. I didn’t enjoy it very much. Ben has a fantastic arc, accepting what happened to him, but the other three…

I couldn’t get over the fact Reed told Sue to stay behind when they went to confront Giganto. Like, the 60’s books have plenty of sexism going on, but no one ever told Sue she should stay behind.

Also, Reed wants to go to space to set up a tourism operation and that brings the premise down from 60’s idealism to early 2000’s cynicism, and that’s not fun.

 

• Astérix en Lusitanie by Fabcaro and Didier Conrad

Funny, but hardly a classic.

MRL - Fantastic Four (1961) #16-21, Annual (1963)

Fantastic Four #16-21, Annual - Stan Lee/Jack Kirby

 

And we’re back to the Fantastic Four! Yay!

Doctor Doom returns. Again. And Ant-Man guest stars - he’s mentioned once and the ants tell him about it, so he fires himself on top of two flying ants and shows up at the Baxter Building.

The Fantastic Four are having a problem where they randomly shrink. Ant-Man doesn’t know what could be causing this, so he gives them a few drops of his serum they can use to return to normal.

Turns out the cause is Doctor Doom. After being hit by the shrinking ray, he ended up in a micro-world. The people there were peaceful and happy, which made Doom’s blood boil. He used his superior science to take over, imprisoning the ruling family in an underwater cell, where the Fantastic Four join them. Escape seems impossible because the water is acid, but Sue figures they can turn the interior panels of the cell into an escape pod, which they quickly do.

The Fantastic Four - along with Ant-Man - help the royal family regain power while Doom escapes back to the regular-size world.

The first phase of his revenge plan consists on sending four intangible “ghosts" to follow the team, disrupting their evening plans.

They disappear once Reed finds and disables the trackers Doom had implanted on them.

Phase two consists on kidnapping Alicia and blackmail the Fantastic Four into staying out of Doom’s business.

He then sends his demands to the US government, who refuses him, so Doom sabotages all fabrics around the country.

The government reaches out to the Fantastic Four for help and Reed has a plan.

He found Doom’s current lair - a ship hidden in a cloud above New York - and its defences. The four ghosts copied the Four's atomic and molecular structure, so if they approach the ship they'll be immediately destroyed.

However, when the Thing changes into Ben Grimm his molecular structure changes and he can bypass Doom’s defences.

Reed works tirelessly to develop his longer lasting formula yet and Ben makes it inside Doom’s lair by the skin of his teeth.

The Four deal with Doom’s traps, Johnny tricks him with very realistic fire figures and Sue saves Alicia. Doom jumps out of the ship to never be seen again. Or until next time.

 

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MRL - Strange Tales (1951) #111-114

Strange Tales (1951) - #111-114 - Stan Lee/H. Huntley/Joe Carter/Dick Ayers/Jack Kirby

 

Still following the Human Torch’s solo adventures. He fights the Asbestos Man (he has an asbestos armour; Johnny needs a pep talk from his sister to find a different strategy other than blasting him with fire; tbf, that worked when the Wizard trapped Johnny in an asbestos room), the Plantman (he controls plants) and Captain America! (he’s not actually Captain America, just the Acrobat pretending to be him to get away with crime; although the authors would really want to know if you want to see the return of Captain America…)

Johnny also has a serious girlfriend, Dorrie Evans. She likes Johnny, but she’s not crazy about the fact he’s the Human Torch, to the point it’s a bit unpleasant. On the other hand, it’s nice she’s not into him because he’s a celebrity.