•  But First Mister Fantastic And The Invisible Woman Must Survive A Very Personal Family Crisis.

Sorry to blow up your inbox so much but Young Avenger!Luna gives me so many ideas. I wanna think about a dynamic between her and Teddy. Both of them are basically alien royalty so that could lead to a possible Kree-Skrull and Inhuman alliance.

Hey don’t worry about it! I love talking about this stuff! It’s been so fun!

That is a very interesting idea though, I hadn’t thought about that somehow! I think they would get along very well! i actually think that Luna would make a great Human-Inhuman relations ambassador when she grows up, so maybe Teddy gets her into the political side of things!

forgot to mention that I’m annoyed by Franklin’s hair now being permanently black... I think it’s just stupid. “It’s just how I feel, mom, I’m an emo now and forever.” But more than that it took away a core part of his character design and I don’t like it personally. It think it would have been fun to see him stop dying it at some point as a character development thing, but again nooo

So I just read Fantastic Four (2018) #45. And wow. I was already ready to be disappointed, but it just sucks so bad.

First, the whole Reckoning War storyline was terrible (which I was expecting it to be since it’s Dan Slott). Especially for what it did to Reed. Reed was just allowing himself to act like a terrible human being since he thought he was going to die. He did and said terrible things. And now that’s all just going to be swept under the rug and ignored? Like is Reed going to face no consequences for his actions? But more than that I’m so tried of Reed being written like a terrible human being. Yes, Reed has a hard time with empathy and emotions sometimes, but that doesn’t mean he’s a literal sociopath. There are ways to write Reed that have him still come off as a likeable character. See Jonathan Hickman’s FF run. (My favourite run.) I feel like Reed hasn’t been himself for years and it just makes me so sad.

Second, the whole thing with Johnny’s increased powers is so annoying and I’m tired of it. I mean, Johnny has not been written well for a while and this has just turned him into a whiny hothead. (Which he sometimes is, but that’s ignoring all the character growth he’s had over the years.) And now he’s gone off to live with Sky… *long sigh* I never really liked her as a girlfriend to Johnny. She’s a fine character on her own, but I really hope they don’t get back together…

Third, the thing that is making me the most annoyed. Franklin. I had hopes for Franklin. I did. But now it looks like his powers have returned. And there was basically no point to taking them away because he has learned no lesson from losing them. I have said in previous posts that I hoped that Franklin would learn that even without his powers he can live his life and be a hero, but if he has really gotten them back, there has been no development. Franklin has continually been in the same grumpy mindset of “I used to be a god” and nothing has changed. I wanted them to commit to his powers being gone and have him learn other ways to help the FF. But no. Because we can’t have nice things. And now Franklin is still a bratty kid with a God complex that he never used to have. And he’s still not a mutant again (which is a whole other post).

In conclusion, I am tried. T I R E D 

Not gonna lie, I was pretty upset about Franklin’s hair being changed to black permanently. He will always be golden haired to me.

There is a non-zero chance that the Slott run’s only lasting contribution is that Franklin has dark hair now

Ahura Boltagon and Misidentified Child-Age Psychosis

Schizophrenic psychosis in childhood is extremely rare.  It’s not unheard of, but is highly uncommon.  Children can demonstrate psychotic features, but more often than not these symptoms are the result of other factors.  Psychological trauma, clinically significant troubles with anxiety and/or depression, and even the natural organic development of the brain can bring about transitory states that look like schizophrenia.  And yet properly distinguishing such features from true psychosis is crucial in that it informs treatment approaches.  Prescribing neuroleptic antipsychotic medications to child-aged patients can have the affect of quelling the overt aspects of the difficulty while further compounding the root cause. 

I had a patient during my training who had been diagnosed as child-onset schizophrenic.  He was allegedly hearing voices and demonstrating highly destructive acting-out behavior.  At the time of this initial diagnosis, however, he had just been removed from his biological parents due to physical abuse and placed in foster care.  He was prescribed a high dose of the medication, Aripiprazole (a newer generation neuroleptic often used in the treatment of schizophrenia and Bipolar 1 Disorder).  This left him in an almost zombie-like state. 

Fortunately, shortly after I began working with this little guy I was able to get him reevaluated by a new psychiatrist who opted to discontinue the antipsychotic medication.  This led to a return of the acting out behaviors, but also left him cognizant enough to participate in psychotherapy and learn new, more effective coping skills.  The ‘voices’ never returned and the acting-out soon abated.  Through out work together, he was able to better work through his anger, sadness, and anxiety over the abuse he had endured and the trauma of being removed from his birthparents - progress we would have never been able to achieve were he still on the Aripiprazole. 

Anyways, all this has a lot to do with why I am such a fan of the character of Ahura Boltagon.  He has been just a terrific representation of the complexities of childhood psychopathology.  As a mere toddler, Ahura was misidentified as mad, and this ‘madness’ coupled with the nature of his powers made him a threat to those around him. 

At first he was sent into foster care with a kindly family of farmers (as seen in Daredevil #s 279-283 by Nocenti and Romita Jr).  This didn’t work out so well in that his symptoms were mistaken for demonic possession.  Ahura was ultimately returned to Attilan and handed over to the Pacifiers.  These mystical pacifiers were able to suppress Ahura’s powers (and psychopathology) but at the cost of rendering him into a zombie-like state.  This was shown in Hine and Irving’s terrific mini-series, ‘Silent War.’  There is a haunting scene in the series where Medusa goes to visit her son in the care of the pacifiers.  Ahura is all but catatonic and barely recognizes his own mother.  The scene was especially striking to me in that it so reminded me of the first time I had met the patient mentioned above. 

Thanks to Medusa and Maximus’ intervention, Ahura was eventually removed from the Pacifiers and returned to his mother’s side.  This was shown in Fraction, Allred and Quinone’s current run on FF.  Ahura continues to have difficulties with behavioral acting out (he released Maximus from his prison and has caused all sorts of trouble in the Baxter Building), but the psychotic features have yet to return.  In hindsight, it seems obvious that Ahura’s so-called madness was merely the result of normal cerebral development, an adjustment to his super-human powers, and the traumatic stress of being removed from his parents. 

The anti-psychotic meddling of the pacifiers only acted to quell and suppress the symptoms of Ahura’s difficulties, while leaving the root cause unaddressed; and it is only now that he has been taken off of psychotropic medication that his true recovery is being facilitated. 

Luna: Ok, maybe playing ‘whose family is most dysfunctional’ wasn’t the best idea we’ve had. Ahura's been crying in the bathroom for an hour. We can’t get him out…

Don’t think about their age.

I have this headcanon that Luna likes to paint, specifically watercolour painting. I think it was in Son of M, but Luna describes her powers as seeing different colours around people, and I think it would be cool if she began to express the emotions that she sees around people in art. I think watercolour painting is the most accurate to how she sees these coloured auras around people.

Is that sleeping girl supposed to be Luna?? It feels so random putting an unknown character in between Monet and Tommy, but it makes no sense for Luna to be in Budapest... Or am I just crazy and see a girl in pink with blonde hair and immediately assume it's my girl?

Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #1 (2024)

written by Steve Orlando art by Lorenzo Tammetta & Frank William

Everyone wants John Krasinski as Reed Richards, but I’m over here advocating for John Krasinski as Future Franklin Richards.