Marvel's first family has had a rough time of it recently. First their comic book was cancelled and then their movie absolutely tanked critically and financially. As a long time fan of the Fantastic Four and all of the family drama they bring to the Marvel Universe, I hate to see them mistreated like this. Their stories over the past few years have been bland and have had no major impact on the mythos thus far. In my run, I wanna shake things up for them. I wanna push them to their psychological ends with an unexpected villain. Keep in mind that all of the events in this run may not happen in just the Fantastic Four book; it could spill over into Avengers or other team books. I hope you all enjoy my plan to shake this incredible team. I now present...
The Fantastic Four
We meet the team as they all in their mid to late twenties. Reed and Sue are married and have two children already. We open on a bank robbery in process. From the bank, five members of our first group of antagonists emerge, THE BEES. They all are wearing golden masks and black clothing. From out of the frame Reed confronts them saying that its all over. The Bees drop their bags of cash and pull out blaster guns, technology far too advanced for lowly bank robbers. Each Fantastic Four member takes a Bee with two Bees swarming Sue. We pan out to see the full fight. Reed is contorting around the blast, Johnny is dodging the blasts with a trail of fire behind him, Ben is taking the fire straight on with his raised forearms and Sue has a large force field up to defend against the oncoming fire. We come back to each member as we see Reed physically take the blaster from the Bee and land a punch. Johnny blasts his Bee into submission. Ben charges his Bee and uppercuts him hard enough to send him flying. Sue launches a force bolt at one assailant while the other begins to run down a nearby alley. The Four convene, as Reed explains how the robbers should not have access to such technology. He lays out a plan for finding the fifth Bee, however, before he can finish there is a swooshing sound from out of the frame. CLOAK appears from teleportation with the fifth Bee. Reed explains that the situation was under control. Cloak understands but he says he was on his way to the Four anyway. He explains to them that DAGGER is in dire need of medical attention due to her powers acting up and placing her in coma with risk of overwhelming her. Reed agrees to do some tests on her.
Back at the Baxter Building, Dagger is laid out on a table. Sue is monitoring her vitals. She says that Dagger’s pulse is rapid. Reed continues to do tests. Cloak is with Ben in the viewing room. He explains to Ben that Dagger has been his light for years and that she keeps him from feeling like a monster. She is his whole life and without her he almost definitely would have turned to a life of crime. Ben relates to Cloak’s feelings saying that the Fantastic Four have given him a way to forget about life before his powers.
The next day the Fantastic Four are alerted to another bank robbery. Not willing to leave Dagger alone, Sue volunteers to stay back and run the scans. Cloak joins the Four as they come upon another robbery by more Bees. These Bees have much heavier artillery. The fight goes on for a while. Cloak gets blasted back against a wall and falls unconscious. Johnny gets hit as well. Reed and Ben are forced to face five Bees now. Reed calls in Sue for assistance. Sue comes to the scene within moments and the three of them are able to disarm and defeat the Bees. Sue says that the Dagger’s vitals, which she is reading off of her armband, are rising to dangerous levels. At this, Cloak teleports by himself to the Baxter Building. He finds a seizing Dagger on the table. He shakes her and tries to calm her down but nothing that he does works. The beeping sounds become deafening and then finally, they stop. Cloak stands over Dagger, his head low.
At the funeral for Dagger, many Avengers and close friends show up. Cloak stands front and center. Reed puts his hand on Cloak’s shoulder.
Weeks later the team is going about business in the Baxter Building. Sue tells Reed that she needs to go see her father in his nursing home. She leaves and is on her way. When she gets to the nursing home, she signs in at the front desk and proceeds down the hall. She reaches the door, but before she can open the door, Cloak teleports in behind her. He asks her why she left Dagger’s side and when Sue explains that Reed and Ben needed her help and that Cloak had been knocked out in the fight along with Johnny already. Cloak does not take this answer well. He thinks that Sue should have stayed with Dagger like she said she would before he left with the team. He teleports away before Sue can say more. Sue calls Reed and tells him about the altercation. Reed tells Ben and Johnny that they should be on the lookout for Cloak and that he may blame them for Dagger’s death.
Hours later, Ben is in his room with the television on. Cloak appears at his side and says he needs answers. Ben explains that they still have no idea what went wrong with Dagger’s powers and that even if Sue had stayed there would not have been much for her to do. He tells Cloak that he gets that it’s hard to lose someone he cares about but that Dagger would want him to move on and continue the work they had done together. Cloak says that Ben has no idea what Dagger would want and teleports away. Ben alerts the rest of the team that he got a visit from Cloak and that he’s pissed.
The next morning, Sue goes to wake up the kids. She opens the door to their room and as she opens it she hears the all too familiar swooshing sound. She throws the door open and rushes into the room. She goes to each kid and makes sure that they are alright. She then notices a small knife on the ground between their beds. Utter horror covers her face. She immediately tells Reed that this is out of hand and that Cloak has officially become a threat.
Reed calls on DOCTOR STRANGE. The team needs some way to be safe from Cloak’s teleportation. Doctor Strange explains that Cloak is essentially a self-contained portal through the dark universe. Without Dagger’s light, he most likely is looking to sap energy from the fear he can cause in them. Doctor Strange agrees to set up a field blocking the dark universe around the Baxter Building, but outside of that he cannot protect them.
The team spends the next few days trapped inside of the Baxter Building. Stress and tension builds within the team until finally Sue cannot take it. She leaves the Baxter Building and goes back to Dagger’s grave.
Sue stands over the grave and as if on cue, Cloak teleports in behind her. He tells her that she killed Dagger. Sue turns to face Cloak who is strung out and crazy looking now. Sue tells Cloak that she never killed Dagger, but Cloak killed everything Dagger stood for. In all his selfish grief he blamed the world and the people around him instead of carrying on her legacy honorably. She would have never wanted to see Cloak like this. She would be repulsed with who he is.
Cloak is speechless. He says that Sue has no idea what Dagger would have wanted. Sue replies by saying that Dagger was Cloak’s light and just because her body is gone does not mean that her spirit cannot guide him. Cloak disappears into his portal. Sue bows her head over Dagger’s grave, knowing that she said what needed to be said.