Fantastic Four Volume 2 Review

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Fantastic Four Omnibus Volume 2 Cover Art

Its that time again, back with another review! This time of the second Fantastic Four Omnibus and boy what a wild ride it was! I felt the stories in this one all tied together a little better and Lee and Kirby had  really found their stride. I think I enjoyed this a lot more than volume 1! I’m also quite ashamed that my volume 1 review didn’t even mention the yancy street gang once! (Thing always bring them up, but I still have no idea who or what the yancy street gang really is!) 

Anyways, lets get right to it. This omnibus opens with FF Annual #2 which gave us the origins of doctor doom, as well as a battle between him and the FF. Ultimately Reed hypnotized him and made him think he had won the battle and therefore would leave people alone … temporarily. 

With that, there is no shortage of things to talk about but I’ll try to keep things relatively brief!

Mr. Storm, the father of Johnny and Sue was featured in the first few episodes and ended up dieing. We also got introduced to the Superskrull and a bunch of Villians came together to make the “Frightful four”. One of their members is Medusa, who ends up being part of the inhumans. People reading this in 2019 might know full well about the inhumans given their recent rise in popularity but I myself wasn’t too familiar. The inhumans come to take Medusa back to their land ‘The great refuge’  where they have been hiding and we also get introduced to the likes of Blackbolt, Maximus, Crystal, Triton and a handful of other inhumans. 

Maximus ends up firing an ‘atmo-gun’ at earth which causes constant vibrations and ends up causing Galactus to become aware of the earth. Galactus is an ancient being who consumes planets for energy and he sends his Herald (also an epic first appearance) the Silver Surver to check things out. Maximus also ends up creating a negative zone around the great refuge which turns it into a completely solid dome which nobody can penetrate, trapping the inhumans inside, possibly forever….

The Silver Surfer ends up meeting Alicia, Things blind girlfriend. She opens his eyes (figuratively) to the fact that earth doesn’t need to be destroyed and that life on earth is valuable. He agrees and decides to fight Galactus off as earths defender. The watcher also assists in helping the FF and more specifically Johnny storm obtain a weapon to defeat Galactus. Johnny ends up trading it to Galactus in exchange for earths safety, and Silver Surfer is banished to earth. 

The book continues to get even more wild from there, the Black Panther (also first appearance) invites the FF to Wakanda so he can hunt them. They ultimately end up becoming allies and that friendship pays off a ton in this book and I’m sure will continue to do so throughout years of Marvel comics. We also get the origin story of the Black Panther which isn’t exactly the same as it was in the MCU but still pretty close. Klaw kills the Black Panthers father Tchaka and the young Black Panther crushes Klaws hand. The FF return to their regular lives, Johnny attends school, Reed and Sue have a honeymoon (Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention annual #3 where Sue and Reed got married and everyone showed up! Even spidey managed to snag a piece of cake from the window :P) and Thing goes to make up with Alicia after being upset he saw her with the Silver Surfer (come on thing, this guy is like a cosmic God, your girl ain’t got a shot with him!) 

Johnny, along with his new friend Wyatt end up going after the inhumans, Johnny believes he fell in love with Crystal and will stop at nothing to be with her again, amazingly despite them only briefly having met, the feeling is mutual. Klaw ends up coming to NYC to fight the FF with the power of sound but with the technology provided from the Black Panther (vibranium bracelets) they are able to defeat him! While this is happening the original human torch from like the 1940’s is resurrected and has a battle with Johnny. The Silver Surfer, having been banished to earth decides it is his duty to travel the planet and learn everything there is to know about earth and its residents. He ends up meeting Doctor Doom who has a device that is capable of swapping his powers with the Silver Surfers. Doom begins toying with everybody and the FF are even forced to retreat. Meanwhile, Black Bolt the true leader of the inhumans screams so loudly he is able to shatter the negative zone and set everybody free. 

Reed, being the genius that he always proves to be. Realizes what is happening and tricks Doom into following a device into outer space, however because Galactus had banished the Silver Surfer to earth, Doom was unable to leave and their powers reverted back. The Silver Surfers board returned to the Surfer and Doom was nowhere to be found. Total cliffhanger. Avengers Volume 2 is next on the list but I’m super excited to get back to the FF. 

Thanks for reading!