Reckoning War is a storyline by Dan Slott, taking place in Fantastic Four (2018) (and serving as his Grand Finale).
When an ancient enemy returns, one connected to the origins of the Watcher, the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk, and the Jack of Hearts are all thrust into a war with the Reckoning.
Reckoning War provides examples of:
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: Uatu is rebuked by his people when he goes to them for aid against the Reckoning, even though their threat to the universe is entirely the Watchers' collective responsibility. They hope that things will resolve themselves without intervention, in spite of the fact that the last time the Reckoning went on a rampage they burned down the majority of the universe, with the fallout rendering those sections uninhabitable to any life. Taken even further with the reveal that the Watchers themselves were directly responsible. One of them invented the Ultimate Nullifier to stop the Reckoning, which was what rendered vast swathes of the universe uninhabitable.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Uatu is forced to view the What If universe showing what would have happened if he hadn’t intervened during the initial invasion of Galactus on Earth: showing Reed Richards finding a way to stop Galactus once and for all, world peace is achieved a year later and the universe’s Uatu states that he had made the right call. However, this ends up averted a few issues later where Nick Fury, Sr. shows him the rest of the vision - the Zero Energy generator Reed made would end up erasing that entire universe, making Uatu realize he had made the right call in interfering.
- Arc Welding: Elements from Slott's run on She-Hulk and Avengers: The Initiative come into play here, such as the gauntlets belonging to Gauntlet and Southpaw, and the Tactigon.
- Artistic Licence - Space: The Moon has been destroyed. But all it amounts to is some annoying falling rocks that don't make much damage, and the loss of tidal waves. But things would be much more bleak: with all the amount of moon pieces getting into the atmosphere all at once, the atmosphere would heat a little too much, perhaps to the point beyond what life can withstand. And the loss of tidal waves is not just a minor inconvenience as the comic suggests: it means extinction for all sea species that rely on sea currents. See here
. - Bad Future: During She-Hulk (2004), Justice Peace shows She-Hulk a future devastated by the Reckoning War, a terrible event caused by her. She-Hulk argues that since she has seen the war coming, she can avoid doing whatever it is she does that causes it. However, Love tells She-Hulk that she has already done the very thing that will cause the war. Sure enough, the war begins here.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Reckoning War has come to an end with the Reckoning done away with. Reed Richards and Jack of Hearts are revived and the damage caused by the war is undone, including revealing a vast section of the universe never seen. The Watchers have been depowered, save for Uatu, who now has all of their power. Uatu vows not to watch or interfere, though Rocket doesn't believe it. Galactus is revived, but now hungers for knowledge, which the Silver Surfer agrees to join him in his quest to explore the new sections of the universe. However, Johnny refuses to rejoin the team and leaves with Skye as her people might have a way to reverse the damage Doom did to him. Doom also took advantage of the chaos to obtain technical data on the Forever Gate, allowing him to build his own.
- C-List Fodder: Cormorant kills Southpaw, a minor character from Slott's She-Hulk run, and Grasshopper of the Great Lakes Avengers, in order to get their equipment.
- Continuity Nod: Southpaw notes as Cormorant kills her that she was supposed to be a Future Badass.
- Convenient Terminal Illness: Essentially applies to Reed's upgraded Watcher knowledge; while the knowledge was going to kill him, it also allowed Reed to use the Ultimate Nullifier to end the conflict, the weapon draining Reed's Watcher knowledge and powers while returning him to his original intellectual level.
- Deadly Upgrade: To help combat the Reckoning, Reed uses Uatu's Ultimate Machine to give him all the knowledge of the Watchers. Unfortunately, this is too much for any mortal mind to carry, and Reed predicts he'll soon die from it; at one point he explicitly states that his brain will burn out in 39 hours.
- Detonation Moon: The Reckoning War kicks off with the Moon being destroyed. The heroes believe that the invading Badoon is the cause of this. The FF end up discovering this wasn't the case, that it was the Reckoners who attacked the Moon, trying to stop Uatu from warning his race of their arrival.
- Fully Absorbed Finale: For Slott's She-Hulk (2004). The titular conflict was first seeded by Slott way back during that run (and Jennifer is a co-protagonist alongside the Four).
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Uatu is left screaming from grief after he is shown an alternate universe where not only did Earth manage to repel Galactus without his interference, but the discovery they made to do so allowed them to usher in a utopia. He's brought back when he's shown that this would not last as the power source they discovered would have a catastrophic meltdown that destroyed the universe.
- Grand Finale: For Slott's Fresh Start run on Fantastic Four.
- Guest-Star Party Member: She-Hulk and the Jack of Hearts. Justified because of Jen's history with the Fantastic Four, the scale and scope of the crisis, and that the road to Reckoning War began in her book 15 years earlier.
- Invisible to Normals: The TVA shows up, to confirm that the Reckoning War has started. Thanks to their machines, nobody can see them... except for She-Hulk, who is now sensible to it.
- Kick the Dog: The Cormorant's return is just a string of stomping heroes to retrieve the pieces of his armor. After killing Gauntlet, he trounces the Great Lakes Avengers to rip off Grasshopper's legs, commenting that none of them (including the inexplicably present Squirrel Girl) were unbeatable, and finally he rips off Southpaw's piece of the armor as she helplessly pleads.
- Last of His Kind: Uatu is now the last of the powered Watchers, having used the resetting of the universe to strip his people of their powers.
- Papa Wolf: Reed deliberately provokes this aspect of Ben's persona to keep him fighting by claiming that he just activated a self-destruct to destroy his portal that would have killed Ben's adopted children, as well as Franklin and Valeria, allowing Ben to attack him so that he can be sure Ben won't lose focus later.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: When Johnny learns that the loss of Reed's Watcher-enhanced knowledge also deprived Reed of the knowledge of how to fix Johnny's constant flame-on status, he departs with Skye and the rest of her people to find another treatment.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Uatu uses his new powers to undo the damaged caused by both his kind and the Reckoning, expanding the Marvel Universe massively by removing the Barrens.
- Space Age Stasis: When the Reckoning finally takes the fight directly to the Watchers, the Watchers' advanced weaponry turns out to be outclassed. The Reckoning leader mocks their complacency in contrast to the Reckoning spending all of this time preparing for this war.
- Spanner in the Works: Meta example. According to Slott, Al Ewing nearly ended up becoming this during development. If anyone else at Marvel knew its cosmic history so intimately and could seize on the threads that nobody had touched in 50 years, it would be Ewing. So Slott understandably got very nervous when Ewing unknowingly came within striking distance of some of those threads in preceding years.
- The Omniscient: Reed Richards absorbs the full knowledge of the Watchers. Now he knows everything (or everything they know, which is almost everything).
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In issue #20 of She-Hulk (2004), She-Hulk removes Qyre the Watcher's mouth, ensuring the anonymity of a reclusive alien race. This is followed by the massacre of said race by an unknown armored figure. The only witness to the tragedy is Qyre, who is subsequently captured. With She-Hulk's one single action, there's no way for anyone to be alerted about this situation, leaving the villain free to plot a war that would eventually unfold within the pages of Fantastic Four (2018).Mysterious mass killer: Ah! This will be a ripe spot to plot and plan. The perfect beachhead for my war on creation!
And to think, I owe it all to this "She-Hulk". Thanks to her...
...only one being can look into this dark sector of space. And he's not telling.
Are you, "old friend"?
Yes, plenty of time to prepare my forces. Years. Centuries. However long it takes. And when the time is right...
...THERE SHALL BE A RECKONING! - Worf Effect: In issue #43, one of the heroes Cormorant defeats is Squirrel Girl, who even mocks her "Unbeatable" title when he leaves.
- What If?: Reckoning War: Trial of the Watcher involves Uatu being forced to see a world where he didn't intervene during The Coming of Galactus.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Uatu calls all the Watchers to prepare for war, as the Reckoning is back. Nobody is interested, and in fact they are enraged, he has been ignoring their sacred oath of no-interference for years and this is the straw that broke the camel's back.
- Reed gets this throughout the event due to pulling off various dangerous stunts that he could have handled very differently.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Due to using a device of Uatu's to help solve the crisis, Reed's intelligence has grown so massive that it's killing him.
