Fantastic Four: The New Fantastic Four

Collects: Fantastic Four #544-50 (2007)

Released: May 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 168 pages / color / $15.99 / ISBN: 9780785124832

What is this?: Reed and Sue take off for a honeymoon, so Storm and the Black Panther fill in for a couple of adventures.

The culprits: Writer Dwayne McDuffie and artist Paul Pelletier

In the comments for my review of Justice League of America, v. 3: The Injustice League, I mentioned that I would be reading more of writer Dwayne McDuffie’s work, specifically his Fantastic Four run. (Of course, I said I would be getting to it in a month or two, but it has been more like a year or two; maybe I was speaking in code like Spock and Kirk in Wrath of Khan?) Still, in fulfillment of that promise, we have Fantastic Four: The New Fantastic Four.

McDuffie is a long-time comic book veteran. I remember his work for Marvel in the late ‘80s / early ‘90s, and his work on DC’s Milestone imprint is well-regarded. Despite being one of the guiding forces of the animated Justice League / Justice League Unlimited series, I doubted he would get a chance to write a big comic book title. I was pleased to see I was wrong — and wrong pretty spectacularly, actually, since he wrote A-list titles for both Marvel and DC.

I want to start out with the good things about the writing in New Fantastic Four. Bringing new characters onto the team is an excellent idea, especially if it’s only for a half year of issues or so, and Black Panther has been so closely tied with the team over the years that he makes a natural candidate. I adore McDuffie’s humor in this one: nice character interactions and self-deprecating humor about themselves and about the conventions of the genre. That’s just one sentence in the review, but it should weight a lot more in the evaluation: enjoyable humor goes a long way to smooth over whatever rough spots are in the plotting. And I especially like the use of the Frightful Four as opponents in the issues bridging the two halves of New Fantastic Four; the Wizard’s plan this time was uninspired, but a more grounded set of opponents (albeit in an exotic locale) was exactly what the plot needed between the two cosmic adventures.

The first half of the book was a sequel to McDuffie’s miniseries Beyond. I liked some parts of Beyond, but I didn’t think it needed a follow-up. Gravity is a fun new character, yes, and resurrecting him is a fine idea. But bringing the former Deathlok on the mission to retrieve Gravity was unnecessary — he doesn’t do much, if anything. And using Gravity in the second arc of the book made it seem as if McDuffie was apologizing for killing the character in the first place; when the heroes need someone wielding an elemental force, he’s the first guy the heroes think about? Really? And invoking the presence of the Watcher to make us believe the story was more important than it was is laughable, especially when the story later makes a joke about how everyone except Deathlok has been to the Watcher’s home, and a herd of Watchers show up in issue #549.

The Watchers, more than anything, serve as the epitome of why I feel ambivalence toward New Fantastic Four. On one hand, the book goes for the big stories, the ones with the traditional Fantastic Four cast of supporting characters in them: Galactus, his heralds (the Silver Surfer twice), the Watcher (twice, plus the aforementioned herd), the end of all life. And on the other hand, it does this with a repetition that distracts from the danger involved. McDuffie seems to be really hammering some ideas home — hammering them so hard, in fact, that they are driven about a foot into the plot. Gravity is important, as he briefly becomes Protector of the Universe, holds off Galactus, and helps Dr. Strange perform psychic surgery on Eternity. The Watchers make things important. The Black Panther has an intellect as great as Reed Richards and can defeat Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and Stardust (another herald) … essentially at the same time. Black Panther threatens the Watcher with the Ultimate Nullifier to get information instead of asking … because the Ultimate Nullifier shows up in important comics? (I don’t know.) Black Panther and Storm are in love (no one’s going to be able to convince me of that). Reed and Sue can be really scary — so scary they frighten their teammates, who feel as if they might do something uncharacteristic, even though they’ve known each other for more than a decade.

By using these big events, McDuffie looks like he’s trying to prove something — that he can write the big events, that Black Panther is an A-list character, that Fantastic Four should be about the cosmic challenges. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t need to be convinced of the first two. But the success of the issues with the Frightful Four shows that none of that is absolutely true, anyway; McDuffie and the Fantastic Four do well with grounded stories, and the Black Panther, although still pretty badass, can be humbled in battle. More importantly, Gravity and the Watcher doesn’t have to be involved. (By the way, does anyone know how the Trapster escaped the Wizard’s time loop from #519?)

I was worried about the art, looking at the cover by Michael Turner (look at Sue’s waist and how her torso is bent; that has to be painful), but I should have remembered Paul Pelletier’s work is wonderful. It’s attractive, it’s expressive, it’s kinetic, and it tells the story. Really, it’s everything you could want in comic book art without adding on the stylistic flair of, say, J.H. Williams III. Again, this is short praise — Pelletier’s work really does make New Fantastic Four so much better.

I want to like New Fantastic Four, and there are many moments I did like, as I read it. But taken overall, it’s hard to enjoy the repetition and the constant demand for the story to be considered important. If you don’t take it seriously, I think you can really enjoy New Fantastic Four; if you do, however, it may grate.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Fantastic Four, v. 3 (hardcover)

Collects: Fantastic Four #514-24 (2004-5)

Released: November 2005 (Marvel)

Format: 256 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785120117

What is this?: A pair of trade paperbacks — Disassembled and Rising Storm — showing the FF fighting villains and bad PR thrown together in one hardback.

The culprits: Writer Mark Waid and pencilers Mike Wieringo and Paco Medina

I swear I read Fantastic Four, v. 3 (hardcover), but looking through the book days later, not much is jogging the ol’ memory.

Something about Fantastic Four since John Byrne’s run makes all the major plot developments slide through the skull without making contact with more than a couple of synapses. Oh, there are plot developments that grab the attention briefly, but then they fade from the memory until they kill Sue again and you realize you haven’t thought much about what’s happening with Fantastic Four lately. (Or until Reed has an extended run as Mr. Fan-Fascist or the creative team brings back an extra kid or whatever shiny object grabs someone in editorial’s attention.) Other Marvel teams can have drastic roster changes, and the status quo can change for years at a time on titles like X-Men and Avengers. But the Fantastic Four are a family — a static, unchangeable family that won’t let anyone escape.

So that’s what writer Mark Waid is up against here. Poor Waid, I would think; but that’s sort of his strong point. He’s steady. Give him a superhero setup, and he’ll give you a half dozen stories on it. Sometimes they’ll be great, like his Captain America and Flash runs. He’ll rarely have a dud run. The worst that will happen is that he’ll play with the company’s toys in a largely humdrum way, then put them back where he found them. And frankly, comics will always need a lot of those guys, even though they’re not in fashion now.

Waid plays with the standard tropes of the Fantastic Four in a couple of ways. In the first arc, “Dysfunctional” (#514-6), the team fights the Wizard and his new — new, I say! — Frightful Four. New lineups haven’t worked for the Wizard in the past, and they won’t work in the future. It’s not really a spoiler to say they don’t work here, especially since the Frightful Four meets their downfall the way they often do: betrayed by a woman. Wizard does the evil mastermind thing and throws away a loyal minion for no reason. A girl Johnny is interested in has surprise powers (like Frankie Raye!). It all feels done before, which isn’t surprising. Waid and co-writer for the arc Karl Kesel’s big, most original idea seems to be to position the Frightful Four as a kind of family, a dark reflection of the Fantastic Four, but that just feels forced, with family dynamics worse than the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

In “Fourtitude” (#517-9) and “Rising Storm” (#520-4), however, it gets better. Aliens show up to kill Sue, Johnny and Sue switch powers, and then Galactus shows up to use Johnny as a herald. A very crappy herald, but that’s not anyone’s fault. It’s actually kinda amusing, with general dimbulb Johnny trying to get a handle of Galactus, cosmic powers, and trying not to commit genocide. Waid even gets to work in Quasar, which is nice — it’s always pleasing to see a minor character used in an appropriate role, giving the Marvel Universe some coherency. It even leads to some interesting characterization for Sue and Johnny, although it’s the kind that can easily never be referenced again.

The pencils come from Paco Medina (“Dysfunctional”) and the late Mike Wieringo (“Rising Storm” and “Fourtitude”). I like Weiringo’s art; he certainly could draw some mean monsters and aliens, and his Galactus is sufficiently imposing, if conventional. His depictions of the alien incursion during “Rising Storm” is underwhelming, however; it looks more like someone built tall, fancy pilings than an alien ship wreaking havoc. I never really adjusted to Medina’s pencils, though; his faces and females seemed a little … geometrically off. The inking is strangely heavy at points in his last issue as well, giving it the look of bad reproductions in a few panels.

Still, there’s too much of a feeling of … inconsequentiality. These are relatively interesting stories — well, “Rising Storm” and “Fourtitude,” at least — but when the day is done, the toys are neatly back in their box, and the day’s fun is forgotten.

Rating: (3 of 5)