Fantastic Four #574 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Neil Edwards (pencils), Andrew Currie (inks), Paul Mounts (colors), and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: It’s Franklin’s birthday, but who’s the mysterious visitor who invades the Baxter Building come nightfall?

What’s Good: If anything, every single one of Hickman’s issues of Fantastic Four have all felt very true to the core values of the series: good wholesome fun with a dash of sci-fi wackiness/action.  This month’s book continues that trend.

Franklin’s birthday forms the bulk of the issue, and for the most part, it’s fun.  The Spider-Man cameo was good for a laugh, and it’s hard not to enjoy seeing the character act as a birthday performer and child entertainer.  Hickman basically writes Spider-Man almost as a kid’s party magician….except for the fact that he’s Spider-Man.  Children’s birthdays in the Marvel Universe are just like ours, only far more awesome.

And of course, with Spider-Man’s presence comes the hilarity of his relationship with Johnny.  Torch’s seething jealousy for the character is as funny as ever under Hickman.  The present he gets for Spidey is bound to make you laugh, as well as the sight of Johnny accusing someone else of being a show-off.

Spidey’s not the only guest to bring the laughs though.  The child found in the Wizard’s lair back at the beginning of Hickman’s run is also a guest at the party (it’s good to see Hickman’s not forgotten him), and surprisingly, despite the dark nature of the character, his page of dialogue with Sue is a real laugh.  He’s morbid, apathetic, and depressed…but he loves cake.  Sue’s completely ignoring his macabre dialogue definitely helped.

The last bit of the issue hints at big things to come.  I loved what Neil Edwards did with the art here.  A mysterious visitor gives Val portents of the future, and Edwards renders said portents as child’s crayon drawings.  I got a real kick out of seeing a cackling Dr. Doom illustrated in crayon.  Also, I had to say, when Val revealed the visitor’s identity, my jaw literally dropped. How Hickman has Val address the visitor for who he really is was oddly touching.

Fantastic Four #573 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Neil Edwards (pencils), Andrew Currie (inks), Paul Mounts (colors), and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Johnny, Ben, and the kids go to Nu-World for a vacation but what they find there is a far cry from being a resort.

What’s Good: Probably the best thing the issue has going for it is its generic tone.  The book is a wacky, retro sci-fi adventure.  While Nu-World has become a dystopian mess, Hickman uses this as an excuse to fill the issue with a scuttling, disembodied brain and a hero with a goofy helmet blasting apart robots by the dozen with his ray gun.  It’s cheesy, but definitely fun, like a bad 70s sci-fi flick.  There’s also a depiction of a pseudo-scientific, transcendental sort of mass suicide that sort of reminded me of Logan’s Run with astronauts.  I’m probably alone on that, but it’s cool nonetheless.

I’ve never been a fan of the kids, but Hickman actually made me enjoy their presence.    Both Val and Franklin have a comical way of undercutting Ted Castle and his planetary problems, but in different ways.  Val makes it all seem so simple through her intellect, while Franklin approaches the situation and his circumstances on an entirely different level, as a child would.  There’s a beautifully paced sequence where he offers a grieving Ted Castle a sandwich, tugging the heart-strings while providing a laugh.

Through his wacky sci-fi hijinks and his use of the brain and the kids, Hickman takes what could’ve been a heavy-handed, grindingly tragic affair and turns it into something much more light and fun.  That said, by the time the issue ends, he still gives a little glimpse of the epic nature of what actually unfolded, finishing the book with a beautiful retrospective montage, narrated in a simple fashion that metatextually breaks the comic into its component parts and making it seem all the grander in retrospect.

What’s Not So Good: Despite all this, under perhaps a more cynical lens, it’s hard not to be very well aware of the fact that this issue was more or less written to serve a simple purpose: sweep Nu-World under a rug.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it, but it can be a bit frustrating when a writer’s purpose is so abundantly clear.  The comic is as much a story as it is a means to an end.

Of course, if Hickman is writing this issue solely to be done with Nu-World, that also means that several characters are treated cursorily, perhaps not with the respect they deserve.  There’s not one but two character deaths, both of which are insultingly brief, abrupt, and underwhelming.  Like Nu-World itself, it’s clear that Hickman just wanted them out of the way.   The Nu-World characters have little page-space, don’t flesh themselves out much, and basically show up just to remind us that they’re there.

Furthermore, while the art isn’t atrocious or anything, Neil Edwards is a far, far cry from Dale Eaglesham.  His artwork just feels very generic, with little sense of individual style or flair.  It does the job without attempting to do anything more.  Edwards also struggles with headshots.  Two panels in particular, one of Johnny and one of Psionics, are total botches.

Conclusion: Enjoyable for what it is, but it creaks a little at times due to the weaker art and Hickman’s obvious motivations.

Grade: B

-Alex Evans

 

Fantastic Four #572 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Dale Eaglesham (art), Paul Mounts (colors), and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: The council of Reeds takes on the Celestials, leading our Reed to make a crucial decision.

What’s Good: This issue’s ending was a thing of beauty and a reminder of what the Fantastic Four should be about.  If anything, Hickman’s conclusion to his first arc is almost a chastisement: ultimately, the FF are not about the wacky science hijinks or the epic cosmic struggles.  Rather, it’s about family.

Hickman illustrates this through making Reed choose between family and his own lofty goals, as he’s forced to take a hard look at the increasingly isolated lifestyle he’s been living.  This leads to a final scene that is grand, beautiful, heart-warming, and maybe even a little tear inducing.  It’s a feel-good read that hits home, blending flashbacks with very effective narration by Reed’s father.  I can’t overemphasize how beautiful this last scene is, nor how touching the last splash image of the book.

In the earlier portions of the book, props have to be given to Hickman for being absolutely merciless with his characters.  Suffice to say, some of the versions of Reed don’t make it, and their deaths are sudden, brutal, and decisive.  More amazing still is how, in the space of three issues, Hickman has actually made me care about these guys, despite only just meeting them a couple of months ago and their being duplicate Reeds.  I was genuinely surprised at the emotional moments Hickman was able to conjure up through them.

All of this is beautifully rendered by Dale Eaglesham, who really shows his range this month.  The flashbacks are warm and intimate while the battle with the Celestials is all-out mayhem.  Eaglesham essentially depicts both big and small, public and personal, in a fashion that makes both sides seem grand.

What’s Not So Good: While it’s clearly intentional, this was still “Reed Richards #572.”  All well and good, but a little irritating when our only scene with Ben and Johnny is only written as a means to get them out of the way.

The biggest problem with the issue though is the fight with the Celestials.  Having a gang of the big dudes fighting an army of Reeds will by nature be chaotic.  In fact, I didn’t even realize that the battle was over when it was.

Part of this is because that the actual means for concluding the struggle are a confused mess of ambiguous deus ex machina.  This has pretty much always been the case with the infinity gauntlet by its very nature, while our Reed magically produces guns that just somehow work against Celestials thanks to some impromptu pseudo-scientific babble.  And of course, Reed has a stack of these lying around at home.

Conclusion: The conclusion to the battle is a bit of a mess, but the rest of the issue is absolutely outstanding, with the ending being one of the finest moments I’ve seen in an FF comic in quite some time.

Grade: B+

–Alex Evans