Ryan Q. “Dinosaur Comics” North loves a disembodied brain. Look at his epic run on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, in which he reforms Nazi scientist villain Brain Drain – a disembodied brain and eyes in a robot body – into Werner Herzog-style comic relief.
God, that series was good. Marvel used to be a proper country.
Here, in Fantastic Four, a comic built for North’s particular brand of weird science, we are introduced to the China Brain, aka Metamind, an artificial brain made of neurons that are themselves communicating via an app that has become collectively sentient. Or something. I think I got that right. Anyway, the app is mad at the FF for thwarting its plans to try to summon metaminds from other planets, so random strangers are coming up to them issuing veiled threats.
One of the people under Metamind’s control appears to be Lady Octopus, whose TV watching is interrupted by a push notification asking her to collect unwanted but still functioning electronics.
And just what does a B-tier legacy supervillain watch to unwind?
Scrubs.
Y’know, I feel like a lot of the influential sitcoms of the 2000s and 2010s have had their cultural reckoning – 30 Rock, The Office (UK and US), Parks and Recreation, How I Met Your Mother. Did we ever get around to questioning whether Scrubs was bad, actually? Or were we too enthralled by the continuing bromance between Zach Braff and Donald Faison?
Ah, this isn’t the place to unpack that. Check out our exclusive preview of Fantastic Four #15, out next week, and keep scrolling for the basic deets.
(W) Ryan North (A) Ivan Fiorelli (CA) Alex Ross
I was created by mistake: a mind of minds, spread out across the vast swath of humanity, unseen but strong, stronger still every day. The world was confusing, but I learned. I grew. And then the Fantastic Four, the world’s greatest heroes – themselves led by the world’s smartest man – tried to kill me. They failed. But they showed me they were a threat. They showed me I needed to defend myself. They showed me that the Fantastic Four needed to die. And as I strengthen my control over the world, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm and Alicia Masters will soon learn there’s nowhere they can hide…
Rated T+
In Shops: Jan 3, 2024
$3.99
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Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
