of fantastic four One of the most educated teams in all of comics. Mister Fantastic alone has as many degrees and doctorates as over a dozen superheroes. But the team's latest adventure finds them saving the world not through education, but through an idea they got from a retro video game.
Fantastic Four #18 by Ryan North and Carlos Gomez finds the titular team investigating deforestation. They concluded that a meteorite impact was the cause. Worryingly, none of the astronomers or satellites monitoring such things noticed the effect. This led to the inevitable conclusion that someone had directed an invisible meteorite toward Earth from deep space.
Invisible Woman was just barely able to fight off the second invisible meteorite. Unfortunately, the Fantastic Four decide that more invisible meteors are on their way and there is little they can do about their simultaneous collisions. The Human Torch sets the atmosphere on fire and attempts to consume a large number of meteorites. Mister Fantastic wasn't strong enough to bounce them all into space with his rubbery body. And while the Thing may have been able to send one meteorite back into orbit, he couldn't impact them all.
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The solution came from The Thing's wife, Alicia Masters, who reminded him of the classic video game Missile Command. The game was based on launching atomic bombs from the sky. Alicia suggested that if they worked together, the Fantastic Four could do the same thing with Meteor.
The Human Torch used its powers to generate the brightest flame possible, and the Invisible Woman refracted the light into a powerful laser. She then channeled that energy into targeting systems worn by The Thing and Mister Fantastic. As trained fighter pilots, the two had the reflexes and experience necessary to target and shoot down the meteorite before it endangered Earth.
Fantastic Four #18 is available now online and in comic book stores around the world.
