This issue picks up from the last so completely that you have to wonder if this was meant to be one big book at some point.
I mean, Reed’s just responding to the last thing Strange said. For an industry that has always fretted about people coming in and being confused, this is crrrrazy. But the 2000s were crazy. Well, Strange shows Reed a lil’ flashback in his movie screen hand gesture of Reed getting ready to turn on a machine which will presumably make everyone forget the Sentry, and the rest of the FF visibly worried, and Reed telling Strange to promise him that if anyone ever remembers the Sentry, he’ll do everything he can to make them forget. In the present, Reed intuits that Strange blew up the VCR, and now Strange wants to know what Reed’s answer is. Meanwhile, the Sentry has made it to Westchester, and the X-Mansion. All your favorites are gonna be in this one! Professor X is training the Angel, when Bob starts mentally communicating with him.
Bob tells Charlie the Void is returning, and Professor X instinctively asks how that could be possible despite not really remembering who that is. Bob says he’s not sure yet, and then Xavier snaps out of it and marshals the X-Men. Meanwhile, an international team of heroes is shown having been devastated and mostly killed by the Void somewhere in Europe. I don’t really know who these guys are, but the ones left alive at their base have no idea what’s going on when they hear a “large black cloud” is heading for Ukraine.
Mmmmmman it’s bothering me I can’t source that Peter Parker. It’s so clearly not Romita or Kane or Andru or Buscema. Also, why is the photo Peter took of the Sentry on the cover of Clarion? Well, as he ponders that, Bob finds Tony Stark, because everyone’s part of this. Tony seems to remember him a little, like the spell’s wearing off. Bob angrily wants to know why they would do this to him, and then we get a Jim Lee-ish flashback page…
In the present, Tony says he can’t remember who made everyone forget Bob. But Bob says the Void is returning, and asks Tony to petition the other heroes for him. Tony remembers enough to be scared. Then…
Things are headed into something like Miracleman territory. Elsewhere, Bob is convinced he was betrayed, that everyone forgetting him was some evil done to him, but he can’t figure out what happened. He feels drawn to a certain part of town that people feel they’re not to supposed to go to, and suddenly…
The most Jae Lee-looking building you could possibly draw. I’ve been wondering if Quesada’s chat with Stan Lee in the backs of these really involved Stan at all. If he helped write any of it. Seems somewhat unlikely. Both of them are quite scared of the mystery and the Void by this point. The way the real people were supposedly scared of the events in the book was a little much for me. Like the idea that the Sentry might be a real unused concept was interesting, but it only took a few issues of these “interviews” to make it clear this was all a gag. 2000s Marvel is such a unique thing in comics…