WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #37, now on sale
The Fantastic Four are some of Marvel’s most important heroes, with the first family and their loved ones helping define the core of the Marvel Universe. But that doesn’t mean they’re perfect, and can actually be tempted by some very shady decisions.
In Fantastic Four #37 by Dan Slott, Nico Leon, Dono Sanchez-Almara, and VC’s Joe Caramagna, Alicia Grimm comes dangerously close to crossing a major moral boundary and was only stopped by the surprise intervention of her most personal foe.
Alicia Masters was introduced in Fantastic Four #8 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and quickly became one of the most enduring figures in that corner of the Marvel Universe. The blind sculptor was the daughter of the Puppet Master, an early foe of the heroic team. However, she instead revealed a soft heart and became a major figure in their lives. She fell in love with Ben Grimm, and the pair were recently married — adopting two children (the Skrull Nickki and the Kree Jo-Venn) along the way. But Alicia has also shown a more defensive and vindictive side recently. Utilizing radioactive clay and the techniques taught to her by her step-father, Alicia has been forcing others to carry out her will — notably including forcing Lyja to leave Earth and stop making life difficult for Alicia and her loved ones.
It’s a very dangerous path for Alicia to be walking upon, as she’s been effectively controlling the actions of others with this clay. But she almost takes it too far in Fantastic Four #37. While taking their adopted children around their neighborhood to take back all the candy they’d quietly conned out of their neighbors, the Grimm family is targeted by the Profiteer. The previous captor of the children, the Profiteer hopes to steal them back and force them back into combat for the entertainment of her guests. Jo-Venn lashes out and slaughters his way through her soldiers, horrifying Ben and Alicia. Ben convinces him that he has to stop seeing himself as a soldier and to never kill their enemies.
In the aftermath, Mr. Sheckerberg — secretly controlled by Puppet Master — finds Alicia in her workshop. She’s using the radioactive clay to sculpt the likeness of Jo. She intends to “fix” him by forcing him to stop killing, changing his mind by force. Using Sheckerberg, Puppet Master actually implores her to not take this step. While he can understand her choices to protect her family, the Puppet Master argues even he would never cross the ethical line and try to forcibly control her. He begs her to be a better parent than he was to her — which seems to get through to Alicia. By the time Sheckerberg regains his senses, Alicia is revealed to have destroyed the sculpture and spared her adopted son her well-intentioned brainwashing.
It’s ultimately good that Alicia didn’t go through with her plan, as it would have been a major ethical boundary she would have crossed. But it’s still horrifying that Alicia — the same woman who convinced the Silver Surfer to believe in humanity — could be pushed to this point. That she does all of this out of love just implies she could (if correctly pushed) go down the same path as the Puppet Master, doing terrible things out of love. If Alicia isn’t careful to take the Puppet Master’s words to heart, then she could be tempted to use the radioactive clay again. And while it might make a potent tool in an emergency, it could be the temptation Alicia needed to become a far darker figure going forward.
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