Well, look who it is. After all these years making fun of the Ultimate Universe for retconning its original FF out of existence, the 2nd Ultimate FF has finally debuted (Cover date February 2004, the same month as USM 50 & 51, for those scoring at home). My long-running snark about every reference to them not being canon is no longer necessary! Now, they’re all teenagers for some dumb reason, and they live & work at the Baxter Building, in a scientific thinktank run by Sue & Johnny’s dad, and Dr. Doom is a homeless guy in Latveria with goat legs who controls an army of little robot insects. Or maybe that hasn’t happened yet. Ultimate Doom is one of the worst ideas of all time, and was swiftly retconned into something more like the original. Anyway, here they are, the Ultimate Fantastic Four…
The much-vaunted family dynamic of the FF really falls apart when they’re all teenagers. Instead of mom and dad, brother and sister, it’s just brother and brother and brother and sister. Sue and Johnny debate the merits of a highschool degree for 2 more pages, and then he relents, and they say he can’t go back to his old highschool, and Johnny says he should go somewhere out of the way, like Queens. Then, at an out of the way Queens high school, Kong trips Peter in the hallway, like it’s back in the early days. They square up, everyone around them chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Except this guy:
Peter & MJ are discussing the whole bullying situation, but Liz interrupts to get MJ to go talk to Johnny for her. MJ does not want to do this, but Liz is very insistent.
I like this page. It’s been awhile since there was this kind of teenage nonsense going on. They are still debating in the cafeteria, where Johnny sits alone, complaining about his cold food. So he makes sure no one is looking and heats it up. This gets him a call from Reed, who says he can’t use his powers at school. Reed says Johnny’s watch is a monitor to make sure, but now MJ has approached him, so Johnny hangs up. MJ, in trying to set up to pitch Liz to Johnny, is instead doing a pretty good job of pitching herself by accident.
So, then, we’re in the parking lot. Johnny and Liz are talking, but we’re with Peter & MJ, who says she did her good deed for the day. She asks Peter if he knows why she’s been “extra cute” lately, and it’s to snap him out of it. But, lest we forget, he says Gwen is still dead, and gets sullen. MJ says they should go on a fancy date. She says her Mom told her a story of doing a fancy dress, expensive date at her age once and it sounds fun. They agree to do it when they have the money, and MJ says she likes this whole “not being Spider-Man so much anymore” thing, and Peter gets dark again. But then Liz is there, saying Johnny agreed to go out with her. They’re going to Rockaway beach Friday after school, and by “they,” Liz means all 4 of them, because her Mom would never let her go with just Johnny. Peter is not excited until MJ says “bikini.”
Later, at night, the gang is at a bonfire on the beach, with a bunch of other kids, and Liz is telling them about the Green Goblin trashing their school. Johnny says he likes that Spider-Man guy, he’s awesome.
I’m sure we can assume noted mutant-phobe Liz Allen will be totally ok with this development next issue. Man, I don’t remember this at all. Johnny outing himself like this when the FF are still a secret seems like a big thing to happen outside the FF book.