FF #14 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Juan Bobillo (pencils), Marcelo Sosa (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors), and Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Story: Doom makes the ultimate sacrifice.

The Review:  Jonathan Hickman’s calling card seems to be his labyrinthine plots, composed of a great deal of moving parts, all leading to an increasingly massive scope.  This can at time lead to some mystifying issues here and there and a constant lingering dread that it’s all going to collapse beneath its own weight, yet you can’t help but admire the ambition and craft.

However, now and then, Hickman’s approach leads to fantastic comic books like this issue of FF, where everything comes together like a meticulously assembled jigsaw puzzle.  Put simply, this is an immensely satisfying issue if only because all the pieces come together and they all fit so very well.  Better still, this is accomplished thanks to, not in spite of, flashbacks and time travel elements.

I loved how Val and Nathaniel, through their tinkering with future possibilities, end up taking something an authorial position.  Through them, Hickman lets us peak behind the current so that, not only do the pieces all come together, but we see exactly how and why they come together as they do.  In seeing Val and Nathaniel’s master plan behind the scenes, get to see a good part of the greater structure that Hickman has assembled in both FF and Fantastic Four.  Really, it’s cool seeing Nathaniel and Val in this sort of meta scene (fittingly, in a different time and place from the rest of the comic and all the other characters), but it also leads to a real appreciation for the mad scientist elegance of Hickman’s craft.

FF #13 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (writing), Juan Bobillo (pencils), Marcelo Sosa (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors), and Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Story: The Future Foundation cross the Bridge into the former home of the Council of evil Reeds, now owned by the mad Celestials.

The Review: Last month, myself and many other reviewers took FF to task for the bizarre artwork turned in by Juan Bobillo.  While Hickman turned in a solid enough script, the art was completely off-kilter and wacky.

Well, the artwork still sticks out like a sore thumb, but there are improvements.  Bobillo’s take on Doom is fun and his illustrations of the Celestials and any technology is detailed and generally entertaining and charming to look at.  But really, most of the improvement should be credited to the incredible efforts of Sosa and Sotomayor, who work their asses off to make Bobillo’s art as appealing as possible.  Sosa uses pleasant, thick lines while Sotomayor has made a dramatic shift from his work last month, opting for a bright, vibrant palette that makes the comic far more appealing.

That said Bobillo is guilty of some of the same crimes:  it’s still difficult to tell some of the kids apart, Dragon Man looks nothing like himself, and Reed still looks far too old and weathered.  That said, I’m coming to the conclusion that Bobillo isn’t really a bad artist, just hugely inappropriate for this title.  Hickman is trying to tell a grandiose epic tale with heavy cosmic elements.  A heavily stylized indie cartoonist just isn’t a good fit for a book like this.

Hickman’s script, however, hits enough high notes that it makes the issue more than worthy for Fantastic Four fans to give it a look.  For starters, seeing Franklin confront a gang of Celestials is a blast.  We don’t often get to see Franklin flex his very superpower muscle, but whenever he does, it’s always “fist pump” awesome, and that’s certainly the case this month.  Power-level aware comic geeks will also get a serious kick out of a little tidbit the Celestials reveal regarding Franklin.

Also, yet again, Hickman writes a fantastic Doom.  His talking in the third person, his general badassery, it’s all here in spades and as always, it’s a treat to read.  What Hickman does so well is portray Doom’s reasoning, both highly intelligent and with an arrogance that forms a key part of his decision making.  Doom’s logic may make little sense for another character, but for Doom, it’s elegant perfection.

Strange Adventures – Review

By: Various (see below)

The Story: A Vertigo anthology with a sci-fi bent.

[Note: The regular “what’s good”/”what’s not so good” format doesn’t work so well for an anthology like this.  Don’t worry, it’ll return…]

Case 21: (Selwyn Hinds, writer & Denys Cowan, art) A very clever story dealing with a dystopian future police state where a tattoo artist is forced to make some pretty harsh decisions.  It’s well written and has some nice dynamic artwork, including a topless lady getting into a fight with the jackbooted cops.  Cool twist at the end too.  I’d definitely be in favor of seeing more of this story.

The White Room:  (Talia Hershewe, writer & Juan Bobillo, art)  I didn’t love this story as much.  It is set in the future and deals with a couple of punk-kids’ experience with a type of virtual reality/drug called The White Room.  Misadventures in virtual realities or hallucinogenic trips just aren’t my bag, so my lack of enjoyment is 100% due to the subject matter.  Bobillo’s painted and pinkish-tinged art is very visually appealing.

Partners: (Peter Milligan, writer & Sylvain Savoia, art)  This story didn’t really scratch my itch either although I think there is a clever premise within it.  The problem is that the cool twist is revealed a little too soon in the story and that robs it of some of its juice.  For some reason, the artwork reminds me of Charles Burns, but I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s because the subject matter is kids with identity crises sitting around a campfire?

All the Pretty Ponies: (Lauren Beukes, writer & Inaki Miranda, art)  This was one of the stars of the issue for me.  What starts out as a Surrogates-type story where rich people are paying money to inhabit and take virtual/remote control of a bunch of poor folks has a very wicked twist.  Great art by Miranda too.  This is another I’d like to see more of.

Ultra the Multi-Alien: (Jeff Lemire, writer and art)  Is it any surprise that Jeff Lemire would give us a heart-wrenching and plaintive tale?  The art is typical Lemire, emotive and stylized, and will be immediately familiar to any fan of Sweet Tooth or Essex County.  The subject matter hits the same types of notes as those other works too.  I don’t want to spoil the twist, but the story deals with an astronaut who is far from home in more ways than one.  More please!

Refuse: (Ross Campbell, writer and art) This story wins the award for the grossest, holy crap moment of the issue.  I really liked Ross’ willingness to show such a nasty looking story and anyone who is willing to draw that has got some real potential.  But, I didn’t really understand the purpose of the story and why this mother is living in such a filthy apartment that her child has been taken away by social services.

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of May 18, 2011

Try as we might, there are always a few comics that slither through the cracks and don’t get the full review treatment here at WCBR.  Still, it probably makes sense to tell you whether we generally liked the issue or not.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews….

X-Men: Prelude to Schism #2  – In the category of “blatant money grabs” we have Prelude to Schism.  The Schism event itself should be pretty hot (written by Jason Aaron and a host of A-list artists), but clearly someone at Marvel figured that if they published a title like Prelude, the hardcore X-fans would buy it even if it wasn’t telling a necessary story.  We are now two issues into Prelude and we still don’t know what is really going on any more than we did at the end of issue #1.  All we know is that something horrible is coming to Utopia and there is a question of whether they should evacuate and that somehow Cyclops and Wolverine will fight over it (although we only “know” that last part for promotional materials/interviews).  It seems that this series will consist of Cyclops getting counseled by his various chief advisors.  Last issue, he got advised by Xavier.  This issue we get Magneto’s advice which comes wrapped in a pretty good story about Magneto’s origins as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.  Not bad, but we already knew that.  Art is not great as the wonderful Roberto de la Torre (who drew issue #1) is replaced by Andrea Mutti who I just personally don’t like as much.  Grade: D+ 

Generation Hope #7 – After a really shaky beginning (due to odd publishing decisions), Generation Hope has kinda found its footing as a series.  This second story arc was pretty solid as we saw Hope and her “lights” (with Kitty Pryde along as chaperone) head off on a mission to find yet another new mutant.  If you like stories about new characters, you’ll like this series because we’re still learning who these kids are, how they behave, what their powers can do, etc.  Also, from a sheer conceptual standpoint, there were some winner ideas.  For example, the new mutant is an unborn baby who is so afraid of being born that he is using his power to turn everyone around him into mindless attack drones.  Or you can look at how the good guys avoid this power: by having Kenji extend a meat-tentacle and “plug in” to each of their brains via the back of their heads.  Freaky.  It also led to a moment when they wanted to plug into the unborn baby’s head and my brain quickly said, “NOOOOOO!  They’re not going to show that are they?”  Thank goodness the meat tentacle just plugs into the back of the mother’s head.  Whew!  I thought some tentacle porn was coming!  So, the story in this issue was good and solid.  I still question whether we really need more mutants when there are so many who don’t get enough time in the main X-books.  Salvador Espin’s art is very solid from a storytelling standpoint, but isn’t otherwise good or bad enough to spend much time on.  Grade: B-

Alpha Flight #0.1 – How’s that for stupid numbering?  In theory, the whole point of Marvel’s .1 initiative was to create jumping on points for fans who were maybe afraid of jumping into the middle of a series.  Why you need a .1 issue when #1 is coming out in a few weeks is beyond me.  And, I’m giving the creative team a bit of a pass because this issue stinks of “publishing gimmick”.  The story really isn’t that compelling because I don’t think what we got in this issue is “the story” that we’ll get in the true #1 issue and it doesn’t even do that great of a job of showing new fans who these Alpha Flight characters are and what they can do, nor does it do lots of things to appeal to fans of the original John Byrne Alpha Flight from the early 1980’s.  If I had to guess, Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak had a really cool story for the “real” Alpha Flight series and someone in editorial or publishing said, “Hey!  The fanboys are positively salivating for this series.  Let’s come up with a quick .1 issue because they’ll buy it.”  I didn’t think the art got the job done either.  Alpha Flight needs old-school, superhero art.  Someone like Tom Grummet would be perfect; or Dale Eaglesham who will draw the regular series.  So, this issue wasn’t great, but I still think the regular series is worth checking out.  Grade: C

Astonishing X-Men #38 – Another creative change on this series after we got the much-delayed issue #37 last week.  Now we have Christos Gage writing and Juan Bobillo on art.  The summary is that the story is pretty good: The Astonishing X-Men go into space to rescue Agent Brand from a research facility overrun by the Brood.  It’s fun and jaunty and I LOVE the Brood and they will always have a soft spot in my heart because my first issue of Uncanny X-Men was #162 which was kinda the beginning of the original Brood story.  [God that was a great story!]  The thing holding this issue back from a higher score was the art, so we’re ending up with a pretty average issue.  I generally like stylized art, but this was just not working for me as a lot of faces (especially Beast) just looked bizarre and detracted from my enjoyment of the whole issue.  Nice job on Storm, though.  Grade: C

-Dean Stell

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