The Future Foundation # 2

 By Mark Rodriguez

Some time after losing Johnny in a fight in a battle in the Negative Zone, Reed Richards decides to bring back the Fantastic Four as the Future Foundation. Spider-Man was invited to replace The Human Torch. As the new team gets settled, Reed and Sue's daughter Valeria had invited Doctor Doom to join the team. 

The issue opens with The Thing losing it upon seeing Doctor Doom in the building and goes to attack him. Reed tries to calm him down, and Doom asks if it's true that he heard that Ben just stood and watched as Johnny died in battle. Thing pulls Reed back and throws a table at Doom, who easily destroys it with an energy blast. Thing dives out to grab Doom but it both of them are held in place by Sue.

Sue asks what's going on and Thing explains that Doom was invited to stay with them. Valerie says they have something important for Doctor Doom to do. Reed's father says this is a time they need Doom close. Thing says he doesn't want to there anymore and heads off to the bar with Dragon. Dragon Man is an android and doesn't drink, so Thing says he's buying. 

Reed says Sue should go with them to help them understand, but she actually agrees with Ben. Doom says right now the most important thing is the restoration of his mind. Sue angrily tells him she can do more damage if she wants, such as planting some air bubbles in his brain. Sue leaves and Spidey quips that Reed is sleeping on the couch tonight. He asks if she should go with her or stay as everyone stares at his ill-timed joke. 

Reed invites him to join them in The Room since they could always use a fresh perspective. As Doctor Doom takes a seat, Reed explains to a class of gifted youngsters what to do about restoring his brain to its former self. Spider-Man brings up the fact that they need to determine whether this is a structural issue, an actual physical issue or a data issue. Everyone stares at him because they're surprised that Spidey is a bit of a scientist himself. 

Valerie says if the issue is missing chunks of data, then they need a back up of his brain. Doom ponder this and Valerie repeats herself. This is trying Doom's patience as he thinks of Kristoff. After a bit of silence, Valerie repeats herself again. 

At the bat, Sue and Ben discuss how they feel about the situation as Dragon Man brings their drinks. Ben wants all 3 of them to go back and knock Doom into next week, but Dragon says he has sworn off violence. Ben says he feels tired of playing second fiddle to the eggheads. Sue says the world is changing and they need time to figure out where they belong now. Ben says it feels like neither of them know where that is.

The next day Doom arrives to Latveria. His adopted son, Kristoff is posing as Doom in his absence. Reed's father tells Spider-Man that Doom has made plans that if he were ever to die, Kristoff is set to get a full download of all of his knowledge and memories. Now that a backup exists within his head, they plan to reverse the process and restore Doom. Spidey quips that nothing can possibly go wrong. 

Kristoff is worried that this will end up overwriting the real Doctor Doom's personality with his own. He feels he is not perfect and he has failed several times. Valerie says they are not going to overwrite everything, just the parts that need fixing. 

Reed explains that Victor's damage is only affecting the corpus callosum and the cerebral cortex, which explains his lowered intelligence and why he can't use the dark arts. This procedure should not affect his personality. Both men sit in chairs wired up to machinery and the process begins with Reed and his father watching over things. 

Soon Doctor Doom is restored to his former glory. His son offers to tell the townsfolk and he will relinquish the throne immediately. Doom says now is not the time for he has made a promise to Valerie and she had already kept her part of the bargain. They made a deal and shook on it which confused Reed. He asks his daughter what this deal was. Doom explains he agreed to help Valerie to defeat Reed Richards and he is eager to get started. 

My Thoughts- 

Pretty straightforward issue. Doctor Doom has suffered some sort of brain damage that has made him lose parts of his memory and I guess, mastery of the dark arts. I wish they'd explain how that happened, even if it were to explain it to Spider-Man or someone that wasn't there when it happened. I miss when comics used to do that little box in the corner thing that explained something like 'this happened the last time they fought Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four # 259' or something. 

Other than a brief fight between Ben and Doom and later on Ben and Sue discussing their new lots in life at the bar, the comic is pretty much 'Doom lost parts of his memory, let's go fix it, ok, he's back to normal now'. The odd (and lazy) part was the two pages of re-use of panels when Valerie suggests they get a back up copy of Doom's memories. Only minor things are changed here and there, such as Reed turning to face his daughter, but still. I guess it's to show the moment silence as the idea sinks in or whatever but it just felt like Valerie was going to just keep repeating herself over and over until Doom figured out she meant Kristoff. Whatever the reason, lazy panel re-use is still lazy panel re-use. 

Gotta fill up the page space somehow

The only other thing I like about the series so far is that one evil kid that lives with them. The last issue he was praying to Mephisto, in this issue he was really excited to restore renown supervillain Doctor Doom back to his former self. I wonder why they keep that kid alone cause he's one hell of an up and coming liability.