The Andromeda Attack!

The Fantastic Four go over diagnostics of their headquarters following their battle against the living computer known as Quasimodo. During his observations, Reed detects that energy is still being siphoned form his computers from somewhere in space. While Reed puzzles over this latest mystery, Johnny decides to take off and spend some time with himself. Soon after, Agatha Harkness takes young Franklin along with her for his lessons. Sue takes a moment to express to Reed how they should be spending more time with their son, but Reed is too engrossed in his work to listen. Sue gives up and walks out of the room, leaving Reed to his work. The patriarch of the Fantastic Four calls over Ben to see his continued work, but Ben decides that it is too complex to understand and pays his leave as well. Reed continues to examine the energy siphon and determines that it is coming from the Andromeda galaxy. His continued scans suddenly change the nature of the beam from a siphon to a transmission. Richards is suddenly shocked when the alien beam causes a strangely dressed woman to materialize in the middle of their headquarters.

The woman, speaking an alien language, is in a panic and rushes to Reed for aid. Before he can understand what she is trying to say, a Skrull --calling himself Skrull-X -- suddenly teleports into the lab and blasts her. Reed lunges into his foe, but is shocked when the Skrull suddenly lights on fire when he tries to wrap his malleable body around his foe. Mister Fantastic is saved from horrible burns when the Thing returns to the lab to learn what all the noise is about and engages the super-strong Skrull. While the Thing and Skrull-X battle it out, Reed recovers his stasis-ray and blasts their alien foe, rendering him inert.

They quickly rush the injured woman to the medical lab where they are rejoined by Sue. As Reed fills her in on what happened, the alien woman comes to and explains that she has learned their language and that her natural recuperative powers will allow her to recover from her injuries. The alien woman introduces herself as Suzerian Adora, ruler of the planet Xandar in the Andromeda Galaxy. She explains that years ago her planet came under attack from alien invaders. To repel those invaders they sent their greatest warrior in a ship to deal with them, but they could do nothing to stop these invaders. Great energies were stolen from their planet and it was left shattered. However, life continued to exist on four chunks of the shattered world. Adora tells the tale unaware that it was the Watcher who was involved in saving many of her people. Her people soon discovered that strange membranes existed on the four surviving parts of their world, and they quickly constructed tunnels to each of the four worlds and rebuilt a new utopian society. This proved to be short lived as their world soon came under siege from the Skrulls. Seeking assistance from another world Xandarian scientist Xar developed the teleportation device from Earth. Adora insisted on going, despite the protests of her lover Tanak Valt. Suddenly they were attacked by Skrull-X. When Tanak is easily knocked aside, Xar pushed Adora through the transporter that brought her to Earth, leading to the events that just transpired. Agreeing to lend the assistance of the Fantastic Four, Reed has Sue fire the Fanasti-Flare to call Johnny back, but he ignores the call.

At that moment, Johnny is deep in thought and has decided that he made a mistake in dropping out of college and decides that he should try to continue his education. He decides to check out Empire State University and lands on campus. There he is instantly recognized and attracts the attention of a girl named Liane, who Johnny tries to show off to. Unimpressed with his devil-may-care attitude, Liane calls him dull and walks off on him. It is here that Johnny also reconnects with Frankie Raye, but when Johnny tries to impress his sometime former girlfriend, she tries to explain that she cannot handle his life as a super-hero. As if to punctuate this, Johnny receives a call from Reed on his communicator belt telling him to return to the Baxter Building immediately. Caught between his duty and the woman he is interested in, Frankie gives him the answer by walking away from Johnny. Back at headquarters, Johnny tells his teammates that he plans on staying behind while they go off to Xandar, wanting to pursue his education further and sort out his life, promising to come to them when he has everything sorted out. The rest of the Fantastic Four are happy to hear this and wish Johnny luck. After showing Johnny how the teleportation beam works, the rest of the Fantastic Four and Adora use it to teleport to Xandar.

Johnny soon flames on and tries to find some people to talk to about his future. When he passes by his friend's garage, he finds that it is closed for the day. Johnny then decides to try and reach out to the super-hero community. This also turns out to be a dead end, when a visit to Avengers Mansion finds that the group is busy in a conference. Johnny then tries to contact his ally Spider-Man, but the wall-crawler does not answer his summons. Johnny is unaware that at that very moment Spider-Man is in a battle for his life against the Man-Wolf. Johnny returns home to find that an urgent telegram was sent to him from Security University, a prestigious school for the wealthy and famous to send their children where they can be educated in a secure environment. The telegram tells young Mr. Storm that he has been invited to join the school and is asked to stop by their campus in Lainsville.

Johnny decides to check it out and is really impressed when he arrives, unaware that some mysterious figure has been watching since he arrived on campus. As Johnny looks around, an unseen blast of energy strikes a building threatening to dump debris on a number of students. Johnny flames on saves all the students that are in harm's way. After the daring rescue, he meets with Dean Joseph Wayne who offers to show Johnny around the school. As Wayne and Storm walk off, Johnny's mystery foe -- the Monocle -- observes from afar, satisfied that everything is going according to plan.

Recurring Characters

Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, Thing), Franklin Richards, Agatha Harkness, Frankie Raye, Queen Adora, Skrull-X, Monocle, The Watcher, Master Xar, Nova-Prime, Edwin Jarvis, Spider-Man, Man-Wolf

Continuity Notes

• Reed mentions the team's battle with Quasimodo from last issue.

• Skrull-X is later revealed to be a robot in Fantastic Four #212.

• Adora tells a somewhat abridged version of the first attack on Xandar. It was originally told in Nova #1. This original attack was initiated by the Luphomoids led by Zorr. Their "greatest champion" was Rhomann Dey, who died in combat and passed his powers and ship to the Earth teenager Richard Rider who became the hero Nova.

• Johnny gets reflective of on his life as follows:

  • He talks about how he dropped out of college. Johnny briefly attended Metro College in Fantastic Four #50-52. He basically stopped going after the events of Fantastic Four #54 when he and his college chum Wyatt Wingfoot went searching for a way to rescue Crystal who was trapped behind a Negative Zone Barrier around her home of Attilan at the time.

  • Speaking of Crystal, Johnny once more rehashes his former relationship with her, the pair dated from Fantastic Four #65-105 when the pollution of the outside world forced her to return to Attilan. She later met and fell in love with the Avenger known as Quicksilver in Fantastic Four #131-132. The pair got married in Fantastic Four #150.

  • Johnny's fear of being a "Fonze of the 1970s" -- particularly identifying that it is the 1970s -- should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616.

  • Frankie Raye was a brief girlfriend of Johnny's, they began dating in Fantastic Four #164. She was last seen in Fantastic Four #191 when Johnny blew off their date so he could save Reed from the Plunderer. She is not seen again until Johnny attempts to reconnect with her in Fantastic Four #232.

  • Frankie's hostility toward Johnny in this story is a little more complex than the fact that he is a super-hero. It's revealed that she suffers from pyrophobia as explained in Fantastic Four #238. It stemmed from the fact that he stepfather Phineas Horton -- creator of the original android Human Torch -- accidentally doused her in chemicals that endowed her with flame powers of her own. Horrified by what he had done, Horton used hypnosis to submerge those memories and give her a fear of fire.

• Johnny uses his flame powers to call Spider-Man and ask him to meet him at their "usual place", which is the Statue of Liberty. This is a routine that the two heroes have maintained since Strange Tales Annual #2.

• This story references Spider-Man's battle with the Man-Wolf, which occurred in Amazing Spider-Man #190.