Synopsis & Review by RachelGrey:
Synopsis: Johnny Storm waits in line to get his coffee. After getting it and hitting on the cashier, he walks back to the table and sits with…Reed! Reed impatiently asks why Johnny wanted to meet outside the Baxter Building since he has a lot of work to do. Johnny makes a joke and Reed promptly gets up to leave. Johnny pulls Reed over and bluntly says that Ben and Sue are gone and asks why he shouldn’t leave too. Reed asks Johnny to not mention Sue and says, “If I knew for a fact that you were helping her, I’d have to—,” before being cut off by Johnny. Johnny says Reeds been making a lot of mistakes lately and reminds him that the three of them followed Reed into Hell and back (literally) and they won’t follow him now. Reed says they don’t understand and that the law is the law. Johnny says that’s not right, they don’t even obey the law physics and then reminds him that Reed stole the spaceship the night they got their powers. But Reed remains stubborn and says they need the SHRA, saying this is actually one of the rare cases where the ends justify the means to a mathematical certainty. Reed then decides it wouldn’t hurt to have someone check his math and tells Johnny they have to run an errand.

In an abandoned factory, The Mad Thinker walks to a sink to get some water, only to find Mr. Fantastic pop out of it! The Mad Thinker runs to escape but is stopped by The Human Torch. Mr. Fantastic asks The Mad Thinker for a favor, who promptly refuses. Reed then threatens that he could look into the incident with the Puppet Master and link him to the crime, forcing the Thinker to change his mind.

The three arrive to the Baxter Building when the door rings. Johnny says that means he has to go. Reed quickly speaks to John Porter from Damage Control about the hole Susan made (Issue #540) and quickly talks to his children, Franklin and Valeria, before showing the Thinker into his office.

In France, The Thing and Anais (check Issue #541 Review for a description of her) stop a French branch of HYDRA. After easily stopping them, Anais tries to get closer to their teams new American hero, but Ben tells her he’s seeing someone. Anais still gives Ben a kiss before being scared away by Johnny, who arrives with two pieces of the Fantasticar. The two remember Bill Foster before Johnny cuts to chase and asks Ben to come back. Ben says he’ll think about it. Johnny leaves a piece of the Fantasticar before waving goodbye.

Back in the Baxter Building, Reed shows the Thinker a room completely written over in mathematical equations, telling him it’s a sanctuary he uses to think. The Mad Thinker realizes the equations are for social dynamics. Reed gets to the actual favor: the Mad Thinker may be the only person capable of checking his math. Reed reveals he got the inspiration from the novel “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov which had a fictional branch of science called psychohistory to predict the future using math. And so, Reed invented it as the first new field he’d ever created. Reed elaborates that it can predict the societal trends with an extremely high accuracy but it’s useless for predicting a single person. While Tony Stark’s predictions were based on hunches, Reed’s were based on science and math. Reed then reveals he ran the numbers over and over and found the result to be societal earthquakes that would destroy humanity with nothing able to stop it…except the SHRA and some other, less then tasteful acts closely following. The Mad Thinker realizes Reed chose the lesser of two evils and Reed corrects him, saying it was the less of thirty-one evils. The Thinker reveals he sees no flaws in the math. The plan will work and will prevent the horrible outcomes, but it is still very fragile with several places to go wrong. The Thinker then goes on to mock Reed. Saying how naive Reed is for not thinking he could do what he’s done without such personal costs and evils. He says Tony Stark may not know the calculations, but he knew that his actions would get him reviled by many, but he’s still man enough to do what needs to be done despite the cost. Even if he wins the war. Then the Thinker compares him to Reed, who totally understands the big picture to a scientific and mathematical level, but is blindly walking done a path of evil. The Thinker gloats that he’s finally seen Mr. Fantastic lose and tells Susan she can come out now. The Invisible Woman appears, much to Reed’s astonishment and asks how he knew she was there. The Mad Thinker responds, “common sense”. Sue angrily asks her husband how he could lie to her. Reed says he trying to protect her, his friends, and his children. Sue angrily walks out saying they’ve beaten the odds before and they will again. Reed gravely looks on and says, “No. Don’t you see? You’re not.”

Review:

JMS is out and Dwayne McDuffie is in. And it doesn’t surprise me that this issue is much better than every other issue of these Civil War tie-ins. However, this doesn’t mean it was great. Some things seem out of place, like Sue almost randomly appearing at the end. Obviously she appeared when the door rang and Johnny left, but it still seems somewhat random and almost unnecessary. We knew she was with Cap. We’ve known it. And we knew Johnny was with the resistance. Johnny even admits it in this issue. It seems somewhat weird. But the use of the Mad Thinker was nice. The new science for social trends was great. It rings of some zany but cool thing Reed would invent. It’s also nice to give credit to the novel. Seeing the French HYDRA was also nice. McKone’s art works better here with this issue being more talking and less fighting. But Valeria looked sorely misplaced. The inking was so different from everything else it almost looked like it was pasted in. All in all, while this issue is better than the rest and has some semblance of quality, it still isn’t quite enough. And judging by the solicitations with Storm and Black Panther as the new members, I don’t think it will be getting better anytime soon. It just so forced, like everything Black Panther is right now. Now that’s a book that needs to be cancelled. But back on topic, this book has a few good moments but a lot of filer which I assume will be set up for the big anniversary issue coming up next that will pave the way for the new Fantastic Four members. That gets a big, sarcastic, “Whoop-de-do” from me.