Post by jakefury on Jul 17, 2011 21:15:06 GMT -5
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Bryan Hitch
This trade paperback collects issues #554-#561.
The Story:
Reed's old college flame Alyssa Moy returns to recruit Reed for her and her husband Ted Castle's new project. The project is called Nu-World and its a new earth for the current residents to inhabit in the event that the Marvel 616 Earth fails. Her and her husband Ted Castle are predicting this to happen in roughly 10 years due to disease, famine and other natural cataclysms. Reed discovers that it's being financed by many members of Earth's governments and its basically going to be a home for the rich and wealthy and not just common, everyday people.
One of the first problems that arises is the robot protector of Nu-Earth, CAP (Conserve & Protect) discovering Earth's superhumans and military assets. It begins systematically shutting down the armies of the world and even trashes a large contingent of Earth's superheroes all by itself. It's only stopped at the last moment by Reed and one of his coolest inventions ever, the Anti-Galactus armor. This storyline takes up the first half of this trade.
The second storyline involves a new group of super humans who haven't been seen before. Their activities include kidnapping Dr. Doom and Johnny Storm. We also find out that they've also managed to subdue Galactus himself. However, it turns out this team is from an alternate future described by Alyssa Moy. In this reality Earth wasn't saved and it's group of superhuman protectors took on Galactus to save their planet. The six that survived traveled to our timeline to use their Galactus, Dr Doom and the Human Torch to power a gateway to bring the residents of their Earth to our time. Realizing the dire results that this will impose on our planet, Reed manages to come up with an alternate plan to save the day.
Thoughts:
There's quite a bit going on here and I can definitely say it keeps the reader's interest. It almost feels like a FF modernization story and that's definitely not a bad thing. Millar does a really good job of keeping all of the main characters involved and playing different roles in this story.
Overall:
8/10
Hickman gets most of the credit for the current state of affairs in FF but you can see Millar laying some of the groundwork in this arc. This is definitely an entertaining read.