Dark Reign Fantastic Four #2 – Review

By Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Sean Chen (Pencils), Lorenzo Ruggiero (Inks), and John Rauch (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: The first issue of Dark Reign: Fantastic Four left me fairly underwhelmed. The story didn’t really go anywhere until the final few pages and overall, I found reading it to be rather boring. Normally I would drop a mini-series after such a slow start, but I’m really interested in seeing how Jonathan Hickman handles the Fantastic Four, considering that he will be taking over the ongoing series once Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch finish their run. Whenever that may be…

The Story: Franklin and Valeria take care of the unexpected visit from H.A.M.M.E.R. soldiers as Reed Richards plugs away on the Bridge. Meanwhile, Sue, Johnny, and Ben find themselves tossed from reality to reality as Reed scans alternate ways for the registration act conflict to have ended peacefully. He learns something very interesting during the process…

What’s Good: The second issue of Dark Reign: Fantastic Four is, thankfully, quite a bit more interesting than the first. Reed’s search through alternate realities is pretty gripping thanks to a combination of Hickman’s creative possibilities and the art team’s great looking scenes. The same goes for the situations Sue, Ben, and Johnny find themselves a part of. In other words, the high concept story is putting the skills of the creative team to good use.

What’s Not So Good: The biggest complaint I have about the issue is that anything that doesn’t feature Reed seems largely inconsequential. What Sue, Ben, and Johnny do in one reality seems to have no bearing on what they do in whatever reality they find themselves in next. While that may sound like a nitpick, keep in mind that the segments take up a fairly large portion of the book. Sure they look nice, but the issue as a whole left me feeling as though Hickman has only scratched the surface of what he has planned…and with only three issue to go I fear things might end up feeling either rushed or not fully realized.

Conclusion: I really like the ideas that the second chapter of Dark Reign: Fantastic Four presents. Hickman, no stranger to high-concept, definitely makes that aspect of the story work. Unfortunately, the book feels only slightly above average as a whole because too much of it ends up feeling like filler. If a better balance can be achieved between the various storylines at work, I really think the mini-series could turn into a must read.

Grade:  C+

-Kyle Posluszny