Rampage (UK) #12 (Story 2)

Background

This is the second story in issue #12, and it comes to us from Mitchel Scanlon.

Story 'Once in a Lifetime'

Doctor Reed Richards (with the rest of the Fantastic Four attending) is being honored with a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at a fancy gala.

Now, Lifetime Achievement Awards are traditionally given to older people (you know, people who have actually demonstrated achievement over their entire lifetime). But nobody expects comic writers to actually understand what they're writing about, so let's just jump ahead to the part where the Mad Thinker arrives with a pack of super-powered androids to keep him company.

Each of the Thinker's androids are carefully designed to target and defeat one of the Fantastic Four. Oh No! How will the heroes... Oh Yes! The old "let's switch foes" response. Tactical hero maneuver #72. Once foe-swapped, Susan, Ben, and Johnny manage to defeat their non-matched opponents.

But what of Reed? He gets a surprise to discover that the Mad Thinker is not the real Mad Thinker but is actually also an android – and furthermore is an android rigged with a bomb with a super-tricky code. But Reed rips out the wires that connect the bomb's trigger back to the android's power supply, and that's the end of that.

From a van parked outside the award venue, the real Mad Thinker watches the defeat of his robotic henchmen with great dismay – a dismay which is magnified when Ben Grimm comes smashing through the van (having guessed that Mad Thinker would be near enough to gloat).

Only question remaining is: Who is gonna clean up the mess in the ballroom?

General Comments

At six pages, these little pieces are "short stories". As such, there's little time to for world-building or character development. These stories succeed or fail on the strength of the "idea" that supports them.

Unfortunately in this case the idea is "The Fantastic Four fight some robots".

Overall Rating

Fighting. Fighting. Meh.

Two Webs.