Okay. I've
finally now got around to reviewing this, as promised, so here's my thoughts.
It gets off to a good start, with some classic lines that are very in-character from everybody. I think, to date, this is actually your most show-like intro to a fic ever in fact. It starts out like an AOI episode would, and has some great character moments such as Fry and the flicking screens, Bender's dismissal of Fry going back in time, the fraud joke with Hermes, etc.
Hehehe, and like Leela, I also saw the problem in the "Back to the Future"-esque photo fading in the future, but Farnsworth's "explanation" is actually funnier than any explanation could be.
I have to give kudos to your Farnsworth too: his lines are absolutely brilliant here. Fantastically in character, they could all just slot straight into the show. I especially liked, "The fate of my most expendable employee rests in your hands! You must stop at nothing to turn him into a stiff frozen corpse!"
Voice-disguising machine! *LOL* And a Star Trek: TNG reference later on too. Nice. And you've just
gotta have an abandoned amusement park.
Kudos for giving Bender another Napoleon connection too. They're always good. And Flexo wearing the Duke of Wellington's hat too is icing on the cake.
Love the magnet gag, especially with both of them. Though if it were an episode, the singing would probably go on a little long. As a fic it works okay though.
Bender bending the bars into the Schöner Brunnen ironwork has to go down as one of the best jokes in here too. It's just so Bender, and the fact he does it when he's got basically no time to it just fantastic. The following gag with Flexo just staring at the counter is definitely up there too. As is the dramatic battle having to move up to the top floor simply for effect.
Good use of Angleyne too, and an appearance by iHawk is always good for a laugh. And the twist with why Fry became scared of the robots is a great twist.
The seduction scene is hilarious, especially with the Nibbler getting squished gag.
I love the revelation that it was the time-travelling rocket that defeated the English at Waterloo, and Bender actually getting to meet Napoleon.
And that final revelation... well... very very clever indeed. The only small thing that stops it being foolproof though is that Flexo and Bender have different serial numbers. If you can explain that somehow, then it would work 100% fantastically.
Unfortunately (and this is something I should have picked up on and told you about earlier, but the fact had completely skipped my mind) the plot, once again, bears an uncanny resembelance to another Futurama comic: #7, where Bender asks the What-If? Machine what it would be like if he travelled back to 1999, and a whole Terminator-esque parody is done with Leela trying to stop Fry being frozen while Bender tries to save him.
Still, despite that, this is actually far, far better than the comic, which was actually pretty poor for the most part, and has far more inventive twists and turns, better uses of character, and is a lot more hilarious. The only real thing is for an AOI segment, it would be pretty damn long. Not sure whether that bothers you though, since it's a fanfic and not a show. Just saying that if you were to add another two of this length, it'd be quite a large fic overall.
To sum up: a hilarious and inventive piece. Probably your funniest yet actually, as far as big laughs go, because there's some seriously killer stuff in here. Everybody is brilliantly in-character, especially Bender, the Professor and Flexo. I'd recommend it highly to any Futurama fan.
