FF #2 & X-Men #10

FF #2:

Summary: Mr. Fantastic reveals to Thing that Doom was living with them for the time being, which chases Thing(and Dragon Man) to a nearby bar. Reed asks Sue to go after Thing to try to talk some sense into him, and Sue decides to leave, mainly because she didn't want to be in the same building as Doom either. Reed, his father, Spider-Man and all of those annoying kids get together and try to figure out how to fix Doom's brain, with Valeria being the one who comes up with the solution... The solution being to go to Latveria, where Kristoff could be used to give Doom his missing memories back, basically a reversal of the process Doom(or his Doombots actually) had done to Kristoff when they thought Doom was dead. So Reed, brain-addled Doom, Spidey, Reed's father and Valeria go to Latveria, where Kristoff is all too happy to go along with the plan... Um, okay. Everything goes according to plan, and the only real drama is the one split-second when Reed has the chance to either purge Doom's memories or transfer them. Being a do-gooder, Reed transfers the memories instead of, you know, ending the threat of Doom in the most humane way possible. With his memories restored, Doom reveals that he had made a deal with Valeria a while back, and was a man of his word. That deal? For Doom to defeat Reed.

Thoughts: This comic left me with quite the dilemma... Usually when I finish reading something I immediately give it score, that way I'd have that number prepared for when I type up the review. With this comic, for the life of me, I just couldn't decide on a score... I mean, I knew I wasn't going to give this comic anything under a 7(which is pretty much my score for a good, perfectly acceptable comic), but I wasn't sure if this comic should have been in the 8's, since that's reserved for comics I feel were better than average. This comic was just sort of there. It was nothing we really haven't seen/read a million times before. Unnamed Villain has some sort of malady. Unnamed Hero has to decide on whether or not he should help Unnamed Villain. Unnamed Hero(sometimes with some help from Unnamed Family Member/Friend/Ally) finally decides to help fix Unnamed Villain, at which point the fixed Unnamed Villain moves to attack Unnamed Hero. Just replace Unnamed Hero with Reed, Unnamed Villain with Doom, and Unnamed Family Member with Valeria, and you've got this comic. Should Reed have helped Doom? NO! When given the chance to purge Doom's memories from both Kristoff and Doom's mind, should he have? YES! Does he? NO! So now all of the terrible things Doom does in the future can be directly attributed to Reed not pulling the plug on Uncle Victor's brains.

Score: 7 out of 10.This went on for TWO pages!!!


X-Men #10:

Summary: With Wolverine, Storm, and Gambit turned into giant lizard-like creatures thanks to Dark Beast's machine, it's up to The Whore and Spider-Man to figure out a way to reverse the process before they're torn apart by The Whore's feral teammates. Spidey tries to come up with this long-winded way of fixing the X-Men(creating and then rigging up a device to counter the waves that were responsible for changing the X-Men), while the Whore wants to take a more practical approach... Smash the machine with a wrench. Hey, that would work too! The lizard X-Men attack the duo, and Spidey decides to hold the lizards off while the Whore went back to the machine and made with the smashing. Upon finding the machine, the Whore is confronted by Dark Beast and his lizard assistant who toss her around the lab, but allow her the chance to free the Lizard, who had been caught and experimented on by Dark Beast, and was none too happy about that fact. Lizard smashes Dark Beast's lizard making machine, which frees the X-Men(and all of Dark Beast's other lizard experiments) from their lizard-like states. Lizard then smashes Dark Beast over the head with his tail, and warns him to never step foot in his sewer domain again, or else. By this point a very beaten up Spidey, along with the X-Men arrive on the scene and help the Whore take Dark Beast into custody. Back on Crazy Mutie Island, Lord Summers gloats, I guess just to make me deduct a 1/2 point from the final score...

Thoughts: Man, this storyline really reminded me just how awesome Dark Beast is. It also made me want to pull out the Age of Apocalypse x-over again... I have to say, I REALLY enjoyed this entire storyline. Too bad I'll be dropping this series since Yost is taking it over... Oh well. Hopefully he leaves after one storyline and Victor Gischler comes back, because Gischler was really starting to hit his stride in this series...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Yes, Dark Beast IS awesome.