Episode 61 - Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jonathan Hickman

This week we're chatting about Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jonathan Hickman.

Content Warning, I chat about how my cat drives me bonkers, but I love her. Also around the 30 minute mark we chat about editorialization of problematic language in the original text of this work. 

We also chat about my cat driving me nuts, and also some SDCC 2026 wrap up. 

Next week we are reviewing Wonder Woman: Earth One by Grant Morrison and Yannick Paquette.  

Check out John Klein's Patreon here:
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Hosted by Vic with Guest Host Kadiah!

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Comic Books Beyond would like to thank:  John Burkle and The rest of the  crew of the Talking Comics Podcast, Brandon McNulty, Lisa and Brad from Comic Book Couples Counseling, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley, Jimmy Gaspero and John Klein III of Shadow and Flame with Magik Podcast and David Pepose. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Comic Books Beyond, this show is all about demystifying comics and looking into books from a new reader-friendly perspective. You can really start reading comics anywhere, but there's better places to start than others. We're pretty spoiler-free unless we're doing a deep discussion. And we'll let you know if we're planning to go nuclear on spoilers. Alright, it's gonna be that kind of show. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. I'm Vic. Uh, so I'm here with my own dying sanity. So, everybody, I try to be positive on this show. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that as much as I'd like today. So, today we're talking about Fantastic Four Solve Everything by John Hickman from the Marvel Premiere edition, which was originally published in the issues 570 through 588. Before we go uh much further, I want to give a big thank you to all our new listeners. Can't tell you how much better you've made me feel just by people listening to me. If you're new around here, uh, you know this show, it's all about new reader-friendly. We try to be wholesome when possible. We don't necessarily do a good job at that. Uh, we have some pretentious insight and a little bit of dark humor. I also want to give a big thank you to Mr. John Burkle of the Talking Comics Podcast. Go back and listen to the last episode. It's full of insight about life as a comics fan and a lot of great jokes in there about killing orphans. Uh, John just has such a wealth of knowledge of being a comics fan. He knows so much, and it was just a joy to have him on the show. Uh, lastly, another friend of the show, Mr. John Klein III, the Johnster Monster, if you will, host of Shadow and Flame with Magic, recently launched a Patreon. He's got, I think, three great tiers of support out there. Now, podcasting does cost a little bit of money, and all funds that he makes are gonna go back into the show. He's not paywalling anything on the main feed, which I absolutely appreciate. Uh, go check it out. I supported. He's a friend of the show, and honestly, he's pretty much just a friend of mine at this point. So, guys, I don't think I buried the lead much here, and I have some negative thoughts on this book. Now, I'm gonna admit, I had a bit of a rough week. So everything turned out fine. No one's dead, no one's hurt. Just kind of want to like just talk to you about my last week a little bit. So uh Wednesday was my birthday. I turned uh 29 for I think the tenth time. Um, you can do the math on that. I was born in '88. And uh the night before, want to stress this. No everyone turns out fine in this scenario. This is not storytelling. This is just me just telling you what my stressful day was. Uh, my little gremlin of a cat uh decided, you know, she didn't want to eat her food, so we took her to the emergency vet. And well, 15 hours of tests later, we get back. Your cat has some of the best blood work I've ever seen in my life. There's literally nothing wrong with her. She has the blood work of a much younger cat, and she's great, and like we know, she's adorable, we love her. But she said the the doctor said, I think your cat might be stressed out and anxious. So I took my glasses off, and I just did a full-body sigh, and I said, There is no way in hell I can make this cat's life any goddamn easier. But she might be going on kitty antidepressants like her father. So, yeah, I'm spoiling her a lot more than usual, just uh giving her a lot more snuggles and you know, all that good stuff that comes with being a cat dad. But yeah, nope, she's great, and she just wanted to, you know, cost me the price of uh say about six or seven omnibi. And uh, you know, that that's better because I don't need to be spending that money more money on comics that I'm gonna add to the backlog. Oh, but yeah, I I love my cat and she's great. So, but anyway, that's been my last week, which really stressed me out, and you know, so maybe I'm projecting a little bit of stress here, and and I apologize for that, but you know, these things happen. Now, we're not really a news show. We do cover some news topics when they're relevant. And San Diego Comic Con was this weekend, and you know, I'm legally bound by uh having a comic book podcast to talk about it a little bit. Uh, unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to say, or maybe fortunately, because again, we're not a news show. Um, I do want to say that I am really excited for Javier Rodriguez and uh Dennis Camp's Shadow of the Bat. I think that's the announcement that I'm most excited for. Uh, I saw a couple others on the Marvel side, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot, but you know, Marvel is not doing great right now, and I really hope that turns around. I'm I'm not I try I try not to be negative about them, but uh I also want to congratulate all the Eisner winners. Javier Rodriguez and Dennis Camp's Shadow of the Bat did or um Absolute Martian Manhunter did well, uh Absolute Batman I Saw won won some awards. Really, really good stuff. Really glad to see they're doing well. Uh other bit of news I wanted to touch on, and I know a lot of podcasts have covered this already. Unfortunately, so so good news and bad news for Marvel Comics. Marvel Comics is uh going west, they're leaving New York City, and it kind of bums me out because when you when I think about Marvel, the first image that pops in my head is Spider-Man and Daredevil, you know, swinging through the city. It you can't say Marvel without me thinking about that. So it's just weird that their main offices aren't there, but you know, if it if it keeps the lights on, if it you know keeps them publishing books, if if it improves the company most of all, that's what I hope for. And I mean, I do feel bad for all the people involved who, you know, they have to move west or they can't move west. And you know, it that sucks. That's the part that really does suck. Now, the other part of this is I don't know if these are related and I assume they're not, just coincidental more than anything. They also have a new editor-in-chief, uh, Steven Wacker. He uh edited a lot of great books, including 52, which is one of the best books at uh DC. It's seminal work, and uh Alex Jaffe, who was on the podcast a while back, he had a whole podcast about it. Highly recommend listening to 52 Pickup, very good podcast. Uh now I know Stephen Wacker did have one controversy a while ago. Uh, I don't want to go into it, but more or less he put his hand on a coworker in not a completely inappropriate way, but you shouldn't just touch people. And that's really all I want to say about that. Uh go read it for yourself and form your own opinions. There's a little bit out there, and you know, I I just I hope he has improved himself and just wanted to mention it because don't touch people. It it just just don't do it. It's just not right. With uh Marvel going out west. The one thing that I hope this really brings in with every fiber of my being, I want Marvel to keep their shit in print. I'll rant on this another time, but Jesus Christ, there's no reason that a book was printed a few months ago should be sold out everywhere. I should not have to pre-order everything to make sure I get it. That is utterly ridiculous. Don't that the we we shouldn't be like paying reseller prices for important books like Daredevil Omnibus Volume 1 or whatever. Like I hope for new products. Uh, I'm not really even a collector. There's just things I would like to have in print. I want all of Daredevil on my shelf. Daredevil's my guy. Uh, I would like, you know, the max books that are not on the app. That's the real injustice. If you were gonna just get stop being cowards, and we're gonna talk about cowardice later. Uh, stop being cowards and put your max stuff on your app. I don't understand the max stuff, to be honest with you. All right. I think we're done with news, ranting, and stories and all that. And you know, I I wanna get into the episode proper. So, this book was picked through dumb luck. It's part of the uh Marvel Premiere Edition. The reason we went with this one, honestly, is I saw it on the shelf. I never read it before, and I picked it up. And this uh next little arc of our show, if we call it, for a while, uh, we are gonna be talking about the DC and premiere editions, DC compacts and the premiere editions. Uh, I really like these things. Uh, I I mean I like the idea of them, the availability and the cheapness, that's mostly what I like about them. Whatever gets more people reading, I'm all for it. Like I always say, I don't care what you read, I just want people to read. Reading is good for so many reasons. It teaches empathy, critical thinking, and a whole bevy of other stuff. That's why we're here. So I set up what I'm calling the wheel of causality, and we're gonna review these books, picking at random. Uh, the reason we're gonna do the picking at random for the most part is because I don't know, I don't want to dedicate brand power to it, and then it's fun. Let's talk about today's book, which is Fantastic for Solve Everything by John Hickman. We're gonna do a quick set of credits, and there's a decent amount of them. So we have John Hickman as the writer. Artists include Dale Eaglesham, Paul Mounts, Neil Edwards, Carrie, or Andrew Curry, Paul Neary, Scott Hannah, Paul Monts again, Steve Epting, Rick Magers, uh Meg Megar Megara, Meg Rick Mage Rick M-A-G-Y-A-R. I do not know why I cannot pronounce that. Mike Perkins and Nick Drego Gota and Mark Brooks. And I think I got everybody. We got VC's Russ Wooten on letters. Uh assistant editors are Janine Schaefer, Lawrence uh Sankovich, and Tom Breveport as the editor. Alright, so disclaimer. We have one big disclaimer. We're gonna be talking about some problematic language in this book later on. I'm gonna refrain from saying it, but I do want you to know it's there. So let's do a quick recap of this story. So Fantastic Four are the first family of Marvel. Uh these characters include Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, Ben Grimm the Thing, Johnny Storm the Human Torch, and uh Sue Storm the Invisible Woman. He we also have their children, Valeria Richards, who has genius level intellect like her father Reed, and um Franklin Richards, who more or less has plot powers. He, I believe he is a mutant in addition to having the additional mutations of his family that uh he used to reboot the universe like once or twice, and they have his powers blocked and suppressed and all that good stuff. Now, Fantastic 4. The general concept, Reed Richards, smartest guy on earth, takes his family up to sub uh, you know, to explore space, they get irradiated. He gets stretchy powers, make all the jokes you want, go ahead. Uh his wife becomes the invisible woman, you know, totally rooted in misogyny there. Um his uh brother in his brother-in-law, uh Sue's brother, uh Johnny Storm, is the human torch, so he's hot-headed, he catches on fire. And Ben Grimm is just a dude who turns into a rock monster, and he is probably one of the more well-written characters overall. So Fantastic Four is where Marvel really started. All of the whimsy and wonder that we really know from Marvel Universe, it stems from this book. Like when Marvel started being Marvel and not just a magazine company that made comic periodicals, that they started with Fantastic Four. For a long time, they were the most popular book. They've definitely fallen out of favor in other characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men, who really stole the show. But uh, this is where we get Doctor Doom, we get The Inhumans, we get Galactus and Silver Surfer, which are two of my favorites. Uh, in this current, in this iteration, we're primarily following Reed Richards in an attempt to solve everything by connecting with an interdimensional device called The Bridge, where he meets the Council of Ricks. I'm sorry, the Council of Reeds. Now, the Council of Einstein's get to go up. I'm sorry, the Council of Einstein's is John Hickman's other book, The Manhattan Projects. Uh, so Reed, he's got one more problem than Jay-Z did. He's got a list of a hundred problems he's been working on over the years. Now, he added one additional problem, problem 101. This is to solve everything. Now, I do math for a living, and I know a little something about when one number is different than another number, and everything and one are two different numbers. However, based on a 20-year-old conversation I had, I remember reading something that a math friend showed me uh infinity can be reduced to one or represented as one through some kind of mathematical bullshit that I don't understand. Now, since I'm not a physicist or a math expert, I tried to reach out to Carl Segan, but unfortunately he's dead. So I reached out to my friend Jeremy, who has a doctorate of mathematics in the field of combinatorics. He provided me a quote where he believes that Mr. Hickman is likely pulling this idea from the idea for this story, and also the uh likely characterization of Reed Richards from some work from Dr. Richard Feynman. Solve Everything and Problem 101 or Infinity Equaling 1. That is a reference to Richard Feynman. Feynman was a physicist, he was also an egotist, a womanizer, an asshole, a liar, and vastly overblown. He did contribute many things to the field and is often viewed as some sort of modern superstar physicist. He is dead for clarity, but even now his reputation remains, and history is very content to look past all the horrible parts of his life. However, so many other physicists were truly smarter or did more for modern physics. He had a big ego and good PR. In many ways, I can see analogues to him with Reed, especially on the egotistical front. So I don't know exactly if Hickman was truly thinking this out, but he does have a bit of a brain and a bit of an ego on him, so I can see him using some of Feynman work to uh influence the story. And Jeremy's quote really reinforced what I'd been thinking. I don't actually love this version of Reed. I don't find him overtly bad or evil, evil. However, I do find him to be a bit self-centered. While he gallivants the multiverse trying to solve everything, which is a complete impossibility, his troubles at home grow to exponential degrees, including his wife getting involved in a war, his friends getting involved in a truly horrible and potentially world-ending threat, and his children feeling neglected. While some of these things were likely to happen, if he was there regardless, the problem I have is that he simply wasn't there as much as he could have been. It's great to spend time away from your family and friends to decompress, but if I spent every weekend getting drunk and doing math with my friends, my wife would leave me. Speaking of my wife, I really wanted to get her input, because it's always good to have a woman's perspective. So we're gonna do a little cutaway. We recorded this actually like two days ago, and through the magic of editing, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Say hi, honey. Hi, honey.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

You're cute. Um, so this is the book that kind of broke the mold of the new reader friendliness because I was able to follow this one, but at the same time I wasn't. And I've read a decent amount of Fantastic Four going back to Mark Wade. So um I have a few questions for you, hun. Can I ask you just to give your general first impressions on this book?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

It was confusing as fuck. And it reads as how to raise a narcissist 101.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Okay. So uh I didn't actually pick up on the how to raise a narcissist 101, but there's some stuff that we're probably gonna talk about when it's just me talking at you guys later that uh now which which which child seems the narcissist one?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Reed.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Oh wait, wait, no, the kids of the kids though.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Of the well, yeah, the little girl.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, so it's Valeria.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

But I'm talking about the dad raising Reed.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

So the dad is Reed. Oh, oh, oh. The flashback dad. Oh, I forgot about the flashback. Yeah, so flashback dad. Yeah, okay. So do you think Reed's a narcissist based on this?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So Persh, like present-day Reed does not seem to be, but literally him being raised was just his dad saying, You're so special, you're perfect, you're gonna be great. And like, I don't know, that just rubs me the wrong way.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah, I get it. Um, so can you um give us a basic plot recap of this one? And this isn't this is honestly more rhetorical than anything.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Um, it opened with Reed and his dad, and his dad saying the whole, oh, you don't have to win, all you have to do is try.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Which I still think that's a good lesson.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

That is a good lesson. And then they were fighting a robot and then it flashed to some Reed family stuff, Reed Reading to his children. Then he goes to his lab and somehow joins the Council of Reeds, which is basically just the Council of Ricks from Rick and Morty, though I guess this predated that.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

So not by much, actually.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

And uh I've probably already said this once this episode. One of this author's other books has a count Council of Albert Einstein's, so it's literally the same plot point. Yeah, it's it's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

That is fun. The Council of Reed say they're trying to solve everything in the multiverse, and basically they kill a Galactus, and then they basically lobotomize some dune dooms, and then the celestials break in and they try to get Reed to join their council and basically telling him he'll abandon his family if he does. It literally is the council of ricks.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah, it it's the council of ricks. Like I'm assuming they were fans of this work and pulled it off. It probably is a reference to something else we're not thinking about. I'm sure this isn't the first thing that did that.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah, there's also the Council of Kings, too.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

The Council of Kings, yeah, and I I I'm sure of something like that. I haven't read a whole lot of King. Like that was in either Age of Ultron or Uncanny Avengers had something with that. I never read those real old um Avengers stuff because the or some of it I did just I couldn't tell you what it was. So my next question for you can you name characters? There's a lot of characters in this. You're not allowed to say Rick from or Jesus, you're not allowed to say read from universe 1610 and do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

But so there's Sue, there's Johnny, there's Ben, there's the little children.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

I'm not giving you that one because you said little children when they are named.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

One is Franklin.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

And I don't know the little girl's name.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

There was the first villain guy. Again, I don't know his name.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Um I think that was a variant of the wizard or something.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I don't think it was the actual wizard from our universe. I'm unclear on that one.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, those are all the characters I can name.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Cool. So uh my last question for you. Actually, one of the last two questions. Uh, what's your misogyny rating in this book?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Oh, hundred. Hundred. They basically just like he basically just tells Sue she has to sh suck it up and deal with it. And Sue just rolls over and takes it.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yep. And uh there's just a high lack of agency that Sue has in this.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

And I guess maybe that would make me feel a little bit on the narcissisty side that he is.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yep. Now we both saw Fantastic Four the movie last year.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

And did you like that movie?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Oh yeah, I liked it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, it's and uh uh that wasn't anything like this.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

No, that one was more wholesome, which not everything has to be wholesome, but it's kind of nice to have wholesome things sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And kind of the the conceit of the Fantastic Four, as we've been sold over the years, is um this is a family book with family dynamics with good, decent wholesomeness, but I think that conceit is often not actually followed through. And uh the lack of agency for the female characters was really noticeable. I admit I'm not the best at picking up on that because you know I I pee at this urinal, and you know, I have all the faults of being a dude, but um it was really, really freaking noticeable here.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah. Basically, he you're right, no agency.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Like and we're only really talking about the first three issues. That was all I was gonna make her read. We we have like 15 other issues in this story, which oh boy, do I have thoughts on the rest of that later? Uh I don't know when this is gonna be in the episode because I I have a so much more to say in this one, but just the lack of agency in the female characters and how confusing this was. I I really wanted your opinion on this one, honey.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Well, I'm glad I could give it to you.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Uh last thing, just we're gonna like speed run how I normally do the episodes. Does this um make you want to read Fantastic Four any more or less? No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

There's it, there's nothing that draws me in.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

So the um the uh To be honest, I wanted to stop at one point. And I'm like, I will be nice and finish this because he asked me to.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Oh, you you could if if if I ever ask you to read anything like for the show, you can just stop it if it's that bad, because it's honestly a valid data point to talk about. So you already said it was really confusing. You would not recommend this to new readers then.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Just wanted to be there. All right. Well, thank you for your time, honey buns.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Love you, love you too.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

All right, now I don't remember exactly what she said, so I'm sure it was wonderful though, because she is much smarter than me, and there is no way I can pretend she isn't. Now, with all the bashing I just did, I want to make this clear. This is a very good and well-written story, for the most part. However, it's not a story I liked very much because of the confusing nature of the plot, the lack of agency of the female characters, and the overall convoluted plot lines, and poor character introductions. This is not a bad representation of Reed Richards. I think his narcissism and egotism is dialed up a little bit, though. There are times where he shows that he genuinely cares about the people around him. He is self interested here, and I don't love that. I think Johnny and Ben Grimm are a little more well representative, or well represented, but they don't have a ton. Of screen time. Sue Storm is completely underrepresented, up re underrepresented. She's a bit of a Mary Sue with godlike powers. She has a great scene with Neomore the Submariner, but it doesn't feel earned. The villains? Holy fuck! I couldn't make heads or tails out of half of this. There were just no good introductions, nothing. So overall, I have some issues with this. I can see why people do like this, especially if you're a very longtime fan of the franchise. I think this is just something that might push your understanding of the of the franchise, the story to its maximum limits. Now I've read since now I've read since Mark Wade was writing the character, and I've read some odds and ends here. I will say this is better than the last few runs. I didn't much care for uh what's his name? Mark Mark Millars, which had some problematic art to say the least, and just overall wasn't very good. Uh Dwayne McDuffie's before that was, you know, fine. Uh it was just rather short, and I actually wish it had more time to breathe. J. Michael Strazinski was uh before that, and I think that was mostly tying into some Civil War stuff. And uh before that was Mark Wade, which is uh to this day still my favorite. Now I have read more than what Hickman did, or more of what Hickman did, because this is only the first like third of his work. And also, I forgot to put this in my outline. Hickman had issues of Fantastic Four before this. He had a mini-series called Dark Rain. Now, normally I'd be fine with them excluding this, but there's a couple plot points in this book that directly reference Dark Rain, so why not just start there? I don't get it. So I want to add a new section to the outline, calling this point counterpoint. This is something I like and something I don't like that are kind of related. I have three of them today. We're not gonna stick to any number on this because we've talked about it. Numbers are dumb. I do find this version of Reed Richard compelling. Now he's not a good dude, but he has solid motivations. I understand why that he's doing the things he's doing, I just don't love him for doing it. It's okay that I don't connect with the main character as long as he's compelling. Another thing I really liked is that this is just a really high-concept sci-fi action story. It really throws you just straight into the action. On the same token, well, Showdown Tell is great. When you're dealing with a book that had 569 issues plus annuals, miniseries, spin-offs, and all that other stuff, and you're dealing with recurring characters that you may not know definitely did not show up in the last couple runs, you need to do some kind of compression recap. And the overall poor characterization and poor introductions, it just it made it hard to follow. And honestly, there is just a shitload of characters in this book, and it gets-I will say the stuff later gets better, and you stick with the characters so you kind of start understanding it, but there's more and more and more characters introduced. The last thing that I'll say that I like about this is that the ending of this story is very heartwarming and soul-crushing at the same time. There's a very touching moment with Spider-Man and Franklin. It's honestly the standout, and it's fully earned, and it's a beautiful scene. It's my favorite issue of this. That being said, it took me 18 issues to get to the best part of the story. Alright, my favorite part. Let's talk about theme. Now, this is the most pretentious thing I think I've ever contributed to the literary world, which I hope other people are stealing and crediting me appropriately for. This is the three-part harmony of storytelling. The right character for the right story with the right theme. That's how you make a good story. There's a lot of themes in this story, and most of them I find very appropriately for this character, or for these characters. So right there, that tells me it is a good book. This book opens with Reed's father talking about how it's important to try. And I think this book is kind of an extended definition around trying your hardest. Well, I always encourage people to try things, whether it just be reading or starting a podcast. It's okay to fail. I think John Hickman is attempting to tell a story where characters try and fail. And this doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Again, you should. It just means you need to try to a reasonable degree and not let your own ego ego get in the way. And that's what I think Hickman is trying to say. And I could be totally wrong. As far as the art goes in this series, I do really like this art. There's a lot of artists because that's the Marvel way. I wish we would have somewhat lesser, uh some way to just have the art to be more consistent across the board. And they do overall do it house style. I probably couldn't pick out one artist from another. As far as this makes me want to read more, um, kind of. This story doesn't, but I'd actually already committed to reading all of Fantastic Four. There is a very short amount of books that I want to read all of. Most of these, coincidentally, are Marvel. Uh, it's like this Daredevil uh mainline book, Spider-Man and the X-Men. I think that's it on the Marvel side, but this book didn't make me want to read more. It actually made me want to stop. And you heard my wife. She said, uh, you know, Katya said he didn't want to read anymore, and she had trouble getting through the first couple issues. Alright. So the big moment everybody's waiting for. New reader-friendly. Do we recommend this to new readers? I recommend this to longtime fans of the series, if you happen to have not read this. As far as new readers go, no, I simply just don't. Like I said, I've read everything more from Mark Wade's run-up to here, some other odds and end issues. I read uh one of Ryan Dorth's uh Ryan Dorth's uh free comic book day issue, and it was pretty easy. I I can't truly recommend this. I I I I just can't. I I don't think it's very easy to read if you're new to reading. It's it's one of those like jumping into a really arduous uh smelling your own butt highbrow stories. And there's nothing wrong with those kind of stories, it's just that's not what I really like much in my comic book. It's not what I really like in most of my literature. I did that for many years, and frankly, I'm just burned out on it. If I had to give you a recommendation for Fantastic Four, I would say maybe give the newest series a try. It's modern and current and gonna have the most standard writing conventions, and what little I read of it was pretty, pretty enjoyable. And if you want more from John Hickman, I joked about it already, but his series East of West is kind of like this idea, but it's actually easier to follow because it's his own characters that don't have a long convoluted story. The character introductions aren't great, again, but it it's still something good to check out. Uh, I also want to recommend his Manhattan Projects, which definitely is using some of these similar ideas. Like I said, there's the Council of Einstein's instead of the Council of Reeds. That book is just a little more unhinged and weird. So now I gave you a disclaimer about some problematic language. I need to chat with you about the premier edition, because I have some issues here. There's some problems. The edition itself reads fine. On average, these are going to read okay. There are definitely exceptions to that, but this one, it's good. The art comes off great. I actually think overall the premiere editions, they're a higher price point than the Marvel ones, uh, but the they do read a little bit better. But my first issue, uh, like I said, Dark Rain isn't included in this, and that's really where the story kind of starts, the references. So it's just weird to me they didn't include it. This is a huge compact. Uh, I think it might actually be their biggest at like almost 400 pages, and you do get 18 or 19 issues in here, give or take. Mostly, and we'll talk about that in a minute. So adding those extra five issues might just make this more like a deluxe omnibus or something like that. But still, it's just kind of weird that, you know, if you're doing the first story, which starts off a run, why not actually start it where it starts and do like half of this? I don't know. Because where this ends, it's like the first third of the act. It feels like it's almost an advertisement to by an omnibus that's out of print. There's no covers in this book, which chapter breaks and cover breaks are important. I don't like when any comic book does this. It's hard to find places to put a book down when you're doing this, and it's a completely different conversation when you're reading a five-issue story as opposed to an 18-issue story, and it's just like you kind of need to find a chapter break on your own, which is harder than you imagine sometimes. There's no catch-up summary page, nothing. And the issues on um unlimited, they do a very, very good job of this. They still could do a better job, but it's better than what we get here. Now, let's start talking about some of the things that really bothered me. The book is heavily edited from the original material. This includes removing whole pages from an issue. Like I had, like I said, I had some trouble following this book, so I went back to Marvel Unlimited and I read it all there. What really pissed me off in this book, Valeria refers to her brother as a dummy. If anyone has read the original issue, she refers to him as a derogatory slur starting with R. While I do not advocate for saying this word or using any problematic language, I do have an issue with editing here, because denying the past is simply wrong. It's important to see that we no longer use language like this. I'm sorry, Marvel, but this is just a shitty thing to do. Covering your tracks does not make it go away. Now, if Mr. Hickman requested that this should be changed for the trade, that's a different story. However, I think it should have simply remained with a disclaimer. The other reason being is that this book also uses a derogatory slur for short people that starts with M, and this is in full print of this book. This also tells me you're valuing or more likely fearing feedback from one group of people rather than another, which I personally find that repugnant. I also want to make it clear that I don't hold any resentment towards John Hickman for having a character say this. Was it controversial and in poor taste? Yes. Does that mean he's a bad person for having a character use this term? No. Characters do not necessarily reflect the values of their writers. It's important to have hard conversations and conversations that make you feel uncomfortable. That is how we progress. That is how we grow to be better. Ignoring bad shit does not make it go away. That being said, treat people how they want to be treated and do not use problematic language. We are past that, and don't give writers shit for characters making mistakes. I on the other side of this coin, I applaud Marvel for adding content warnings on Marvel Unlimited. But strangely, this was just absent from this issue. I think it really should be there. I I've seen only a handful of these, and I just think this could be more robust. Like I said, it's important to preserve what was said. We cannot change the past. But informing an audience of what maybe they don't want to hear is just as important. At the end of the day, the only person who should be burning a book is the author who wrote it, and even then I find a little problematic. Alright, guys. I gotta decompress a sec. That and I'm sorry if that nope. Nope. If if that upsets someone, it upsets someone. I'm sorry for upsetting you. I'm not sorry if I upset you. Do not conditionally apologize. That is one other thing I always try to hold myself to. So with all that nastiness out of the way, let uh how about we have a little bit of fun and we pick our next book. So let me get back to my sheets. So here's what I did. I am actually working on a macro to with uh Google Sheets that I can hopefully share with a larger audience. Uh what this does is uh it helps pick your next book. Basically, you just give a random number generator and it you know picks the book. So we have let me check here. I think it's about 30, a little less than that, maybe. Oh no, it's more than 30. We have uh 34 books from this line that I'm willing to cover. Now, there are more books in that line that that um that exist. I am not covering a few because I have guests lined up who want to talk about them. I'm not covering a few simply because I definitely need to get other people in the show and I don't have a guest for them. Uh I'm gonna tell you right now, Watchman V for Vendetta, those warrant deep discussions. Lastly, if I find one of the creators to be a total piece of shit, they're not getting any free press from me. So we're not talking about them. And you can probably figure it out in like 40 episodes who I'm leaving off. Because I don't even give them the I'm not even gonna put their the taste of their name in my mouth. All right, so we're gonna bring up the random number generator. One sec. All right, now let us say the little chant we've got. Wheel of Causality, spin, spin, spin. Give us a book and we'll dive in. And if you don't get that reference, go watch the Animaniacs. All right, what do we got? Number nine. What's number nine? Wonder Woman Earth One Mother. A motherfucker, I don't want to do this. Okay, it's fine. I uh so it's Wonder Woman Earth One by Grant Morris, and I've already dunked on this book a few times. All right, so uh I own the hardcovers of these. I'll see if I can get the compact edition. If I can't, I'm just gonna read them in the hardcovers uh and we'll go from there. So, guys, next week we'll see you back here for Wonder Woman Earth One. We might have a bonus episode or two coming up this month. I'm not 100% sure. Trying to secure a guess, but I won't know until next week. All right, guys, have a great one. Be good to each other, guys. Hey guys, forgot to say one thing here. I'm gonna be at Hunt the Readers this coming weekend, uh, July 31st and August 1st in uh at B U B E's Bub's brewery in uh Southern PA. Uh, if you're there and you want to meet some cool horror people, uh definitely do that and come say hi. I'll be doing the volunteer stuff. All right, have a good one. Be good to each other, guys. If you are a comic book creator, fellow comic book media journalist, and you want to team up, shoot us an email at comicbooksbeyond at gmail.com and we'll team up. Uh listener questions, we're they're always encouraged. We love having them. Uh if we'd love to read them on the air, so please let us know if it's okay to read and how you'd like to be credited. That also goes same thing with comments and reviews. I don't check those quite as much as I could because it's honestly a pain in the ass. So if you want to get a hold of me, email's the best way. If you'd like to support the show, please consider leaving a comment or review. We ask for honest reviews only, and nice reviews and comments will be right on the air. Or comic books beyond on Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I'm mostly hanging on Blue Sky though. I hope you're all safe and doing well. I hope you have a great week. Please remember to check in on your people. I'd also like to give a quick thank you to the following people: the crew of the Talking Comics Podcast, Brandon McNulty, Lisa and Brad from the Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley, Jimmy Gasparo and the crew of Comic Book Yeti, John Klein III of Shadow and Flame with Magic, and David Pepos. Most importantly, we'd like to thank all of our listeners and supporters. Alright, everybody, have a great week.