Two new titles for Marvel Comics’ Marvel Now! re-launch/revise/rejuvenate
series of releases are shaping up very well if their first issues are any
indication.
In Fantastic Four #1 author Matt Fraction and artist Mark
Bagley take the team in a whole new direction.
When Reed discovers that the gamma mutation that gave the Fantastic Four their powers is starting to degrade and will possibly kill them
he takes desperate measures.
Not telling the other team members, Reed has surmised that
energy from an unknown universe may hold the key to their cure.
Approaching the other FF members and their kids and wards,
Reed suggests that everyone take a ‘vacation’ of sorts. The journey will involve
exploring new universe, other planets and various time lines-sort of a inter-dimensional
family vacation. Under the guise of a
vacation Reed will use the time to try and discover a cure for their degrading
condition.
Since the ship they will be using can traverse time what would
be a year to them would only be a couple of days to the outside world. That’s the beauty of time travel. They could depart, travel for a year and
return the next day in regular time thus avoiding leaving the world defenseless. Everyone agrees and so the journey begins.
This new storyline has me excited. For too long the Fantastic Four have been enmeshed
in super heroics and somehow lost the ‘fantastic’ in the Fantastic Four.
If handled correctly much of the magic of the Jack
Kirby/Stan Lee era may be recaptured. I
plan on sticking around to find out.
A different kind of time travel journey happens in All New
X-Men #1.
After the world-shattering events in X-Men Vs…… Cyclops and
several other mutants have taken upon themselves to become the ‘saviors’ of the
new mutants that are starting to appear all over the world. In order to save them Cyclops and co-patriots
will use any means necessary-even violence.
The X-Men are left in a precarious position of opposing their
old team mate. But how do they do it
without causing a conflict between mutants?
Hank McCoy, the Beast, has problems of his own. His body is starting to mutate again and
after testing himself he discovers that this will be his final mutation-one
that will kill him.
So he decides to take drastic measures in order to solve the
mutant conflict before he dies. He travels
to the past and meets both himself and the original X-Men when they were
young. His mission? Bring them to his
present, their future, and have them stop Scott Summers (Cyclops) from starting
Mutant genocide.