Adolph Hitler cradled in his hands a glowing cube. Standing behind a horde of Nazi Soldiers, he shakily pointed to a group of four beings standing strong against his soldiers. In a harsh, German tongue, Adolph yelled out,

<”Kill them! Kill them all!”>

And with that, shots were fired rapidly and in succession. One by one, though, the bullets seemed to stop in midair. The reason for it lied with the only female among the four deviants. Her arms were crossed across her chest, a ‘4’ vaguely seen through her arms. She sighed and turned her head upward at a man whose body was completely consumed with fire.

“Johnny,” she began, a hint of irritation in her voice, “How on Earth did you allow Hitler to get a hold of your ‘Super-Box’?”

“’Super-Box’,” Johnny scoffed, “It’s called a ‘Super-Strobe’, Sue, and it fell into Reed’s time portal when I was messing around with it.” He flew over the first wave of Nazi’s and let loose a fiery blast, melting the guns right in their hands.

“Tell me there, Johnny,” began a gravely voice coming from the largest of the group. His body was made up of orange stone with bright blue eyes contrasting off of his appearance. “What is a ‘Super-Strobe’ for?”

“Always with the condescending, eh Benjamin,” Johnny taunted the large man as he flew over the second wave of soldiers. “It’s for my band. Reed made it for me.”

“Yes, well, I made it solely for the…scientific reasons,” said the last man. He stood the farthest away from the Nazi’s and ran his fingers through his graying temples. He chuckled silently as he heard Sue give off a “Ha” at his last remark. He looked over at Johnny and watched as he burned away all of the other guns. He then turned to Sue who was looking over at him.

“You know,” she said to him, in a very matter-of-fact way. Reed nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. He needed to end this now.

With a slight reach of his arm, Reed turned his arm from resting at his side to fifteen feet away from him, messing with a device behind him. Pressing a few buttons of it, it lit up, signaling that the power was on. Reed looked up once more just in time to see Johnny fall to the ground after being hit by a grenade.

“Johnny,” Sue yelled out as she watched her brother fall to the ground.

“I got ‘im,” assured Ben as he ran through a barrage of bullets and soldiers. Clearing a pathway and swatting away the excess soldiers, he picked up Johnny over his left shoulder and ran with him towards Reed.

“Start it up now, Stretch, we need to get outta here!”

“Ben’s right,” began Reed turning back to his device. Pressing a couple more buttons, Reed activated his time machine, causing a rip in the space-time continuum. Stepping aside he yelled out orders for his family to move through the portal.

Ben and the semi-unconscious Johnny went through first for safety reasons of course, followed by Sue, who was covering the rest with a force field. She turned back towards her husband before going through, eyes fixated past him. She said his name with a hint of irritation to get his attention. When she had it, she nodded towards Hitler. Reed turned to see what his wife meant.

“Oh, right,” he said, everything coming back to the genius again. With a quick stretch of his arm, he reached past the soldier and right to where Hitler cradled his hands. Grabbing the Strobe, he began to pull his arm away, save for a quick punch in the jaw to Hitler. The Nazis stood in absolute awe as the arm quickly retreated into nothingness, following its owner.

The Baxter Building, Present Time

Exactly 3.8 seconds after entering the time portal from 1945, the heroes known as the Fantastic Four returned to their era, albeit abruptly. Entering through Reed’s lab, they were flung a good 10 feet before coming to a complete stop, knocking various objects down, breaking some equipment, the usual. Ben, the one who always did the most damage, couldn’t help but poke fun at his friend.

“Jeezus, Stretch,” Ben began, “Couldn’t ya have made the landing a little more graceful?”

“Well, after Johnny knocked the strobe into the portal, I simply grabbed the closest time machine after you came. Unfortunately it was one of the old models.”

“I still don’t understand the big deal. What does it matter if friggin’ Hitler had the strobe anyway? Would he’a won?”

“Well, quite frankly I don’t know but we couldn’t just find out, now could we?”

“That’s all well and good to me. Frankly, I don’t care when we time travel,” said Sue, taking off her black gloves to fix her hair a bit, “What I don’t like about traveling through time is when my idiot younger brother decides to do stupid things with time!” She ended her sentence by walking to the now fully conscious Johnny and punching him in the arm. With a girlish “Ow” from him, Johnny defended himself.

“It was an ACCIDENT, what part of that don’t you understand? Besides, we all know a Super Strobe couldn’t have done anything really.”

“I didn’t,” Ben said, “What in the Hellsa ‘Super Strobe’ anyway?”

“It’s the exact same as a Strobe light seen at many concerts, Ben,” explained Reed, “But the ‘super’ thing about it is it gives off flashes of flight, but also causes a sort of psychedelic twist in the mind. Really it’s a type of brainwashing when you think about.” Reed chuckled at the thought of it. “It’s really just to make you like hearing terrible music.”

Johnny’s mouth sat agape at Reed’s comment. “Dude,” he began sullenly, “Sue and Ben I’d expect it from, but not you, Reed.”

“Please,” said Reed, “How couldn’t I have said that?” Johnny nodded in agreement, seeing the necessity in the joke. Sue sighed.

“Whatever,” she said, tying her hair in a ponytail. “Oh before I forget, Reed, I’m going to be out of for a bit. Crystal and I are going out to eat and then we’re touring all of the preschools and daycares in the area for Valeria.” Reed looked a little confused at this, raising one eyebrow in interest.

“What’s wrong with her going to the moon?” he asked, completely not joking.

“I think I’d rather her be somewhere a little more local,” she said, a smile on her face as she kissed her intelligent yet simple husband’s cheek. “Also, I think I want her to get more used to somewhat normal situations, too. A Dr. Doom kidnapping shouldn’t be a part of anyone’s weekly schedule.”

“Fair enough,” Reed said with a nod of his head. “Have fun and tell Crystal we all say ‘hello’!” Sue gave Reed another quick kiss and then exited the lab, smacking off the dust that had attached itself to her during their turbulent reemergence into the lab. Walking through the doorway, Sue walked right past a tiny robot floating right by her head. With a quick glance to it, she knew right away what it was.

“Hello, HERBIE,” she said, in a very quick passing and walked right out of the lab.

“Yes, Mrs. Richards,” it said politely back. The robot was no more then two feet high, but thanks to its hovering capabilities, was always able to maintain eye-contact with everyone, to the annoyance of some. Particularly…

“Mr. Grimm,” it said, again in a polite manner.

“Aw, jeez,” muttered Ben, turning to face the robot. “What’s up there, HERBIE?”

There is a call for you on line three, Mr. Grimm. Would you like to take it or shall I put it into Mr. Storm’s ‘never talk too again’ list?”

“Nah, I’ll take it,” Ben said as he walked out of the lab as well. HERBIE, of course, floated right along with him.

“Very good, Mr. Grimm,” it said in a happy tone.

“Yeah, yeah will ya just get outta my face now?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that command.”

“Aw, jeez.”

After everyone except for Johnny left, Reed began to pick up what really remained intact of his lab. This was, of course, without the help of Johnny, who sat on one of Reed’s desks and played with the Super-Strobe. Pressing a button on it, Johnny looked as a compartment of it opened up, but seemingly nothing came out. Curious, he poked his eye into the hole, only to be temporarily blinded by a flash of light.

“Ah,” he yelled in shock, not so much in pain. “Yeah, Reed, I don’t think I’ll be using this now for the band.” He tossed the Strobe carelessly behind him, it landing perfectly into the pocket of one of Reed’s Fantastic Four jackets that rested on his desk chair.

“Why not?” asked Reed a little disappointed.

“Well, I’ve been trying to leave the band. I think I’d do better as a solo artist and—OHMIGOD,” he yelled out.

“What’s up?”

“I totally forgot my designers…I’m supposed to meet my designer in twenty!”

“Your…designer?”

“Yeah.”

“For what?”

“Uh…dude! For my clothing line,” Johnny said in a tone trying to remind Reed of something that should have been very obvious. It was not.

“You have a clothing line now?”

“Duh! ‘StormWear’! I think I’m supposed to go to this fashion show too. Y’know, to get ideas.”

“Ah,” Reed said, now understanding what his brother-in-law was talking about. Typical Johnny, he thought, One idea onto the next!

“I gotta go then,” said Johnny, opening a window in Reed’s lab. With the window now open, wind poured through the room causing many of Reed’s notes to swirl in the air. Hopping into the window sill, Johnny turned and yelled out to Reed, “Catch you later,” before jumping out of the twentieth floor window yelling his catchphrase: “FLAME ON,” and with that, fire consumed his body as he flew off towards the inner city.

Reed stretched his arm towards the window, closing it before notes flew out the window.

“Typical Johnny,” he said, shaking his head with a slight chuckle as he went about his work.

The Baxter Building, the common area

“Y’ello, Ben Grimm speaking.”

“Ah, Mr. Grimm,” said a surprised voice on the other end of the phone. Ben raised a rocky eyebrow after being a little creeped out from the voice.

“Uh, can I help you?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Grimm. My name is Taylor Smith from People Magazine.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll cut to the chase, Mr. Grimm. I’m calling to tell you that People wants you for our July issue.”

“You…what?”

“We would like to run an article featuring you.”

“About me?” he asked, even more confused than before, when the call started.

“Oh yes. People are absolutely fascinated by you nowadays.”

“Well, uh. What did you wanna do?”

“We’re going to run a full cover issue about you. We simply just want an article about your life in general. Would you be willing to do this?”

“Um…I guess so.”

“Excellent! Where would you like to meet?”

“Um…Lorenzo’s on 5th? Around five I guess.”

“Absolutely! We’ll see you there!”

And with that, both ends of the phone hung up, leaving Ben only with a puzzled look upon his face. HERBIE floated around his head in silence until…

“How did everything go, Mr. Grimm? Is everything all right?” Ben just sighed while the irritation kept chattering.

New York City

“Pretty pricey, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but I want Val to get something out of her stays here, y’know. I don’t just want a sitter.”

“True, but don’t you think that your money could go towards something better?”

“Mm. Point taken.”

Sue Richards stared at the brochure of the Somerset Day School of New York through red-shaded sunglasses as she sipped her coffee. She walked about New York City looking for information for various schools and daycares to send her daughter, Valeria. With her was her longtime friend Crystal Maximoff, a member of the superhuman race known as the Inhumans. Crystal turned to her friend and asked:

“So where to next?”

‘Well, I think…” Sue began, but she cut herself off as something caught her eye.

“What’s up?” Crystal asked, a look of confusion on her face. Unfortunately, the sight in front of her answered everything. “Oh, great.”

The Baxter Building, Reed’s Lab

Finally focusing his attentions to his equipment and with no noise to distract him, Reed began rebuilding his various gizmos. He then tried distributing them into the “order” he once had for his lab, although Reed’s version of “order” meant he could simply tell you what pile the something was in. As he stretched from side to side of his lab, Reed was able to zone out everything around him as he often found himself doing when dealing with science. It was because of this, Reed hardly even noticed that reality in the corner of the room was being warped to form a portal.

Reed hummed a tune while chaos was about to erupt once more in his lab. As the portal formed to completion, a whir was heard from it, catching Reed’s attention. Turning to see it, his mouth sat open as the noise grew louder and louder until finally, a being began to form.

“Oh my God,” he yelled as the person flew through the lab with Reed having to stretch to the farthest regions of his lab just to not be affected by the shock to the ground. The person, a woman, wore a completely green suit, with various holsters for guns and other arsenals. Covering her face with her arms, she moved her arms down to her sides and propped herself up on the floor, revealing her long, green hair. As she sat on the ground, she looked to Reed in two ways: one with her bare eye and the other behind a green lens as her glasses had become disheveled due to her bumpy ride. Fixing them to fit her face appropriately, giving off a wry smile to Reed with green lips. Reed angrily looked at her.

“I swear to God, if you’re the new Madame Hydra I’m going to-“

“Relax, Mr. Richards. I can assure you I have no affiliation to HYDRA.”

“Then who are you?” The woman walked towards him, Reed taking a defensive stance. Stopping a good four feet away from him, she stuck out her arm initiating a handshake.

“My name is Brand. I’m an agent of S.W.O.R.D.” Reed looked down to her hand and then looked back at her gaze.

“So you’re one of Nick Fury’s people.”

“Hardly. S.W.O.R.D. is not affiliated with any other organization. We’re in a league entirely of our own.”

“You’re not really answering any of my questions, Agent Brand. What in the world is S.W.O.R.D. anyway?”

“We’re an organization that spans the entire universe. S.W.O.R.D. stands for ‘Strange Workings and Order Reinforcement Divisions’. If something goes wrong anywhere in the universe, we’re there to fix it.”

“That’s wonderful,” Reed began, “But why are you here in my lab?!” The frustration in Reed’s tone was all too apparent to the woman, who simply smiled at him.

“He said you’d get like this.” Reed raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Who said…?”

“Something urgent has happened that requires your attention, Dr. Richards. I suggest you come with me.” Going into one of her holsters, she pulled a tiny device and pressed a button. This reopened the wormhole in which she had just entered.

“Please come now.” Reed stood where he was firmly, fists clenched in aggravation.

“Why can’t you tell me what’s going on first?”

“It is not my place.”

“And if I refuse to go with you?” Reed glared at her fiercely. She smiled in amusement.

“Trust me, Dr. Richards,” she said, “It would be in your best interest if you came. Glorious opportunities await you, now!”

NEXT ISSUE:

A return and the most incredible job offer Reed never could have managed to ever think of! Plus: three classic FF villains make waves for the remaining Four! Don’t miss out on part II of “Sentience”: ‘Family Circus’