Fantastic Four #602 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Barry Kitson (art), Paul Mounts (colors), and Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Review:  This issue of Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four reminds me of those really badass episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that I totally geeked out over as a kid…and then rediscovered years later in college, only to geek out over again.

It’s a gigantic space battle with tons of ships and multiple participants.  The result is epic, large scale combat that is everything a cosmic book should be.  Better still, like those great DS9 episodes, Hickman knows how to ratchet up the tension by bringing in new sides/participants to the conflict.  When the tide seems to be shifting one way, someone else shows up to the battle to change the dynamic entirely.  All told, it’s massive stuff with lots of action and, despite being a gigantic scale space battle, it feels emotionally meaningful.  In a medium full of hollow action scenes, that’s pretty significant.

As usual, Hickman does a great job of hitting his narrative high-points.  There’s a sense that he continues to up the ante and there are enough moments that, individually, will either make you smile, inwardly cheer, or, in a couple instances, give you chills of awesomeness.

As far as the cheering/smiling bit goes, Hickman does a great job with Sue this month.  As he has done throughout his run, Sue is nothing less than a badass and Hickman never shies away from her very high power level and the unique uses her powers can be put to.

Fantastic Four #601 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writing), Steve Epting (pencils), Rick Magyar & Mark Pennington (inks), Paul Mounts (colors), and Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Story: Johnny brings the cavalry.

The Review:  This past summer, Marvel and DC both put out company-wide events that were pretty underwhelming.  Truth be told, however, I haven’t really, really enjoyed an event from Marvel or DC since Civil War.  Blackest Night was all right, while everything else since has ranged from “sucked” to “disappointing.”

This arc of Hickman’s Fantastic Four, and issues like this one, show that Hickman succeeds where these events have failed.  In this issue, for instance, he manages to tell a story with universe wide implications and a fairly large cast, but at all times, there is an emotional core to the story that makes it all meaningful and gives the story heart.  Hickman balances the large-scale events with personal emotions in his characters, and the result is what I’ve been waiting for: an event that actually has a soul.

Of course, that’s the irony, isn’t it?  This isn’t an event at all, it’s just a story-arc set within Fantastic Four and FF.  That alone shows how impressive this issue is.  Despite being highly centralized, it feels massive in scale and effect.  The battles are immense, the stakes are enormous, and there is a substantial number of moving parts in the story.  The result is something that feels downright epic and, moreover, it all feels like it has been built up accordingly.  A lot of events are promoted as having been built up to for years, but in the case of Hickman’s Fantastic Four, that’s actually true, and one can feel the narrative weight of that.