Rampage (UK) #22

Background

Rampage was a UK-only magazine for the teen market published by Panini Comics from late 2004 to early 2007.

Each issue featured a couple of short out-of-continuity stories with Marvel comic characters. The rest of the issue was filled-out with puzzles, posters and "fact" files, along with a solid helping of comp-ad-titions and promo-mercials for Marvel products, along with Star Wars and other non-Marvel movies and games.

Issues #1 through #18 featured two 6-page original Marvel stories created by a UK team. In issue #19 that dropped to 6-pages of original content per issue, each being an episode in a five-part serialized Fantastic Four story.

This is part three of that serialization - "Brood!" (Note that issue #21 featured an X-Men/Wolverine reprint story).

The Fantastic Four are lost in space, floating in a tiny escape pod, and infected with "deadly alien spores".

Story 'Brood'

The Fantastic Four's borrowed escape pod gets picked up by a Kree research space vessel. The Kree scientists offer the FF sanctuary, but their planned route doesn't go anywhere near Earth.

Retiring to their cabin, the Four are attacked by a Brood queen (you know, the alien egg-depositing monster types). They manage to defeat the monster before she can oviposit them. But a subsequent scan shows that the Kree scientists are already full of brood eggs.

Aware of their impending doom, the honorable Kree commit mass suicide, gifting their spaceship to Fantastic Four.

General Comments

Note that the Alien Virus infecting the Fantastic Four is not the same as the Brood Eggs infecting the Kree.

Overall Rating

There seems to be a lot of "infecting" going on here.

But I'm not infected with enthusiasm for this by-the-numbers road trip story.

Two Webs.

Footnote

The "Marvel" content in Rampage has been gradually declining in recent issues. The majority of the content in issue #22 is related to soccer, wrestling, and video games.