This was a fun pallete cleanser and time capsule spotlighting Johnny Storm, Human Torch and Ben Grimm, The Thing during that period of Marvel Comics between Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars and Dan Slott's relaunch of the Fantastic Four title when Reed, Sue and the kids Franklin and Valeria were noticeably absent from the Marvel universe.
Breathes out
Phew. That was a long sentence.
But yes, as a fan of the Fantastic Four and the various characters involved, but not having read much with them (reading more and more as time goes on but still lots to check out) and especially considering how much I love Zdarsky's writing I was excited to check this out.
The main highlight of this book has to be the emotional weight on Johnny and Ben, that's the main driving force behind it. As readers we know Reed, Sue and the kids will be back eventually (especially reading this retrospectively when we know they did come back), but the characters don't, so it was quite satisfying and refreshing to see their absence actually have some weight, even if only for this brief amount of time.
I mentioned this was a nice time capsule as well as a pallete cleanser, and that's partly because of the status quo of the Fantastic Four characters, but also because of the current status quo of Doom at the time this story was published. As someone who hasn't read any of Doom as the Infamous Iron Man (or any solo Iron Man in general actually but I digress) it was fun to get a taste of it here, especially right at the end of that version of the character. He was a nice foil to Johnny and Ben in the first arc, representing and tying back to their past as part of the FF team, as well as showcasing this "good" version of Doom against heroes that have always been on the side of good like Johnny and Ben in this case.
The weakest part of this book was probably the art in the second half. I adoreeeeeee Jim Cheung's artwork so it was great to see him draw issues 1, 2 and 6 here, especially with the covers he did, and I love Valerio Schiti's artwork as well, but it was a bit jarring to go from Cheung's unique style to Schiti's very stylish and dynamic house style feel. That said it wasn't as jarring going back to Cheung from Schiti when reading issues 5 and 6. I fell in love with Frank Martin's coloring on Cates/Stegman Venom with JP Mayer coloring so it was great to see him coloring both Cheung and Schiti here.
Declan Shalvey's art on the annual with Jordie Bellaire on colors was fun, but mainly I just didn't like Ramon K Perez's artwork on the second arc of the book. It's a shame because I love his art with Mike Spicer on colors over on Stillwater at Skybound also written by Zdarsky, but yeah here with coloring by Federico Blee it just didn't do it for me unfortunately.
Overall a fun book. Not a must read, but I would recommend it if this review has got you interested in it. If you're a fan of Johnny and Ben and their dynamic within the Fantastic Four team, you will probably enjoy it.
If you want more of Joe's comic thoughts and reviews, you can find him on Twitter @JoeLovesComics and on the League of Comic Geeks also @JoeLovesComics.
You can also find his podcast on Twitter @JoeTalksComics, which you can listen to through Anchor, where you can find links to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify, or you can click those hyperlinks directly.
Comments