Here we are again, with another Fantastic Four #1.
I hadn’t been reading the FF adventures for quite some time, but I came on board when Johnny Storm died and Jonathan Hickman brought us the snazzy new black and white suits and the concept of The Future Foundation, and the acclaim and shake-up that went along with that allowed there to be two books focusing on this team at the same time, when it usually has a hard time selling the one that’s been rolling along since they ushered in the Marvel era of superheroes back in the ’60s. Then came the changeover to the Matt Fraction era, which send the core Four off to other dimensions while establishing a new FF to keep watch in their absence. While there were certainly some cool things about that era, by the end of it I’d trailed off and stopped following the titles. Nothing turns me off quicker than not particularly liking your take on Dr. Doom (although I did check into FF for Ant-Man’s brutal takedown of Doom and could not deny its power).
As much as we as goodly nerds are loath to admit it, it seems difficult these days to maintain interest in Marvel’s First Family. They are about hope and potential and being shiny, inspirational sci-fi hero/explorers. They don’t have the inherent angst of the X-Men, nor are they beloved movie stars like the Avengers, which means you can kind of understand why they’d decide to shake things up with nontraditional casting for their next go-around at the cineplex… and if that works, you have to start pondering how they’re going to try and change the makeup of the comic version of the Fantastic Four to mirror that. Perhaps Johnny Storm will find some way to pass his powers onto Marcus Johnson just like Nick Fury did. Get ready for Battle Burns!
For now, though, James Robinson and Leonard Kirk are trying to take the FF in a new direction with the all-new Marvel NOW Fantastic Four #1, and they’ve got another costume redesign to drum up some interest, going with a standard “cool” color scheme of red and black. Hey, I’ll admit that the slick black and whites were a huge part of what got me to hop onto Hickman’s run, so I don’t underestimate the power of a fresh aesthetic. However, instead of the shiny, the new creative team is bringing us the Four in despair.
We open with the Invisible Woman writing to her children, trying to explain how her family went from a bright, limitless future to a struggling marriage to a broken shell of a man, an alcoholic Human Torch and Ben Grimm in jail for murder. How did any of this happen? We’ll find out in time, as we then jump back to happier times with, of course, a giant monster fight in Manhattan. Fin Fang Foom is on a rampage, and the team has to distract him and hold him at bay long enough for Reed Richards to get his doohickey to go kablooey on him, although rather than say ‘that’s that’ when it’s all over, Reed is actually concerned at Foom’s lack of motivation for such an attack.
A bit later, Reed and Sue are lamenting the fact that Valeria has apparently decided to go live in Latveria for a while instead of at home with her family, as she’s annoyed that Reed was keeping secrets from her – all things I’m assuming are fallout from the end of the last run on the book which I didn’t read. Also, Ben rekindles things with Alicia Masters, and Johnny goes to his agent and signs a contract prohibiting him from going to the Negative Zone or other dimensions again, as he’s been gone for quite a while – a few times, actually, what with dying and then jaunting off with the fam for an educational year that didn’t turn out as planned. Then, trouble is afoot when some gateway in the Baxter Building lab opens and weird toothy robo-gremlin things come pouring out. Is it a new Annihilation Wave? They’re not green, but black, although there are certainly plenty of bugs in the Negative Zone that might not match Annihilus’ particular color scheme. We’ll find out next issue.
It’s an interesting new start, to be sure. Marital problems between Reed and Sue are nothing new, neither is Johnny going off on benders (hell, one of the more memorable issues of HIckman’s FF featured Johnny taking Peter Parker on a wild ’80s style party weekend that ended with an unfortgettable splash page of Annihilus on the toilet). Ben Grimm in prison, though, is cause for concern – as is Reed apparently being incapable of science now for some reason. The arc is appropriately entitled “The Fall of the Fantastic Four,” and it looks like Robinson plans to rip this family apart something fierce. I do like Robinson, but I’m not sure I like the voices he’s using for Reed and Sue just yet, although I grant it may take some time to find his legs. Kirk also delivers some epic action – The Thing punching Foom in the face is a stand-out – and he puts a lot of emotional weight behind the eyes of his characters, which should serve this story well.
By the way, there’s no mention of the red-and-black outfits, not even some witty aside, and the FF kids are still in the whites. There is a bit of chicanery with the Foundation kids that momentarily breaks up the somber tone of the first issue, but all in all, it’s a truly ominous affair. Hickman was able to make this team work by embracing the huge-scale cosmic events this family deals with, while Fraction’s run succeeded on its embrace of the gee-whiz fun and interpersonal drama. It remains to be seen what shape the Robinson era will take, but it’s probably going to be a bit depressing for a while. Let it settle in.
