Fantastic Four #579 – Review

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

The Story: Tired of self-limitation among the scientific community, Reed looks to prepare the next generation of thinkers.

What’s Good: This is one of those issues of Fantastic Four that demonstrates why the title is perfect for Hickman, linked as it is with ideas he’s had since Transhuman.  That is, specifically, the refusal to accept limitations and glass ceilings and a simultaneously idealist and escapist belief in infinite potential and boundless possibility.

This is laid out in the book’s strongest scene, an extended speech by Reed at a conference scientists, where he condemns them for their inertia and self-limiting.  It’s a beautiful fusion of Romanticism and scientific thought, and a bold, exciting message of hope.  It’s also highly relevant to our world as well, with Reed actually calling out the decision to suspend manned space missions.  Reed’s speech is some of the finest writing I’ve ever read from Hickman particularly because it’s so pertinent to the human condition and contemporary society in its ideas and sentiment.  It’s also, of course, perfect for the Heroic Age.  Simply put, the sky is the limit but, in Reed’s eyes, we’ve stopped looking up.

This idea of “no limits” extends to a conversation between Reed and the Wizard.  The Wizard is wonderfully written by Hickman, stark raving mad and spewing just barely incomprehensible pseudo-science babble.  Reed’s explanation for his reasons behind taking in the Wizard’s clone is very well linked to the speech with which he opened the issue, almost as though Reed is putting his own words into practice.  He will raise the boy in order to prove that there are no limits to human potential; genetics, destiny, and predestination are bunk in the face of a nurturing environment.