WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?!

The following is a preview from this month's Fantastic Four #575, featuring the Mole Man and...HOLY CRAP MORE PEOPLE LIFTING UP MANHOLE COVERS AS IF THEY WERE MADE OF PAPER MACHE!  Didn't people read my post from a while ago explaining that it's actually really, really difficult?  Sigh...apparently not.

Manhole covers notwithstanding, I suppose I'm enjoying Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham's early run on the main Fantastic Four title.  It's not exactly reinventing the wheel (and Mr. Fantastic is drawn like he's a professional wrestler), but I'm giving it a chance.

One thing that bugs me, though...okay, one thing OTHER than misrepresenting how hard it is to lift up a manhole cover (they weigh hundreds of pounds! If it was easy everyone would steal one and there would be countless accidents with people falling down into open sewers!!), I'm a little irked at how Marvel has seemingly forgotten all about the Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan miniseries where all of the Moloids (the weird creatures pictured above) formed into a giant spaceship and rocketed away form Earth, leaving the Mole Man sad and lonely.

Okay, I'm not saying that this particular plot point made a whole lot of sense, but the fact is that a writer at Marvel wrote it, an editor at Marvel approved it (probably several editors), and it went right through the process for publication.  I read it and thought it was crazy, but hey, it is what it is, right?  I guess not, because it's been entirely forgotten.  It seems that if something of this nature is going to be left behind months after it sees print, then perhaps someone within the company should put a stop to the story (or at least that aspect of the story) before it gets that far.

This has happened before, of course, but maybe not as often as it happens to Dr. Doom.  There have been several stories where Doom has seen an incredible power upgrade, changed his costume and told the Fantastic Four that they are now beneath his concern, but he'll kill them at a moment's notice if they bother him again.  Walter Simonson did a great story around FF #350 dealing with a new, improved Doom (who had apparently been in space or somewhere for a long time previous to the picture below), and Millar and Hitch did it again just a few months ago.  But now even though barely any time has passed since the story was printed, Dr. Doom is back to being his same old self, at his same old power level.  It just seems...poorly planned.

I sound like a pretty big nerd right now.  So I'll stop.  But seriously...manhole covers.  Come on.