drive-by readings: Fantastic Four #570

Fantastic Four #570 (Marvel) "Solve Everything, Part One" Jonathan Hickman Dale Eaglesham Paul Mounts Rus Wooton John Cassaday/Laura Martin (variant cover)

once again, hubris rears its ugly head. but then again, Reed Richards wouldn't be Reed Richards if he wasn't like this, no? and therein lies the conundrum. for all his smarts, he hasn't made the world a better place to live in. they still got villains running amuck, the Negative Zone still a hotbed of revolution, three cosmic wars just occured, Steve Rogers is lost in time, Norman Osborn is in charge, and even the 616 mutant equivalent of AIDS was solved by Hank McCoy (subsequently rendered moot by those Breakworld aliens). so what does he do for an encore? well, just keep on choppin', that's what. to this end, he built a great machine (oooh, it always starts from those things) allowing him to calculate answers to impossible and even better, reach out to entities who apparently, share his line of thinking. is it a surprise then, that they ... are all him? and these Reeds from different realities and pocket universes - they also seem to have the Infinity Gems in their possession. hey let's play a game: who would win - the Infinity Gems or the Cosmic Cube? the answer is, neither. the Beyonder always wins.

Jonathan Hickman has posited some interesting ideas. let us take a ride with him.