Hold on give me a minute here…..

*Shutters in Ecstasy*

Oh yeah that’s the stuff.

You know how sometimes when you see something you love, that feels like it’s been gone for a long time, comes back to you? And then all of a sudden you get this brief feeling of joy? Well maybe it’s just me but….God damn how great is it that Steve Epting is back on this series? Seriously, after two issues of TERRIBLE work by Greg Tocchini we finally have ‘the’ guy back on this series. It didn’t take long to make me love Epting all over again.

You open the book and you get these great pages of the Inhumans attacking the Attalians with the Evil Reed Richards. There is so much going on in those pages you gotta really look at them in detail to see every individual fight going on in the battle. Plus you see all of these homages to Jack Kirby in these pages throughout it’s almost like the spirit of Kirby is in Epting. (Of course Epting will take all the credit) But Epting also manages these great character moments throughout. The pages with Susan question Nathaniel over the course of the story (so far) has a lot of great reaction shots you normally wouldn’t see in comics. It’s like seeing storyboards for a movie in seeing what you want the actors to emote in the scene. Finally, Epting handles the ‘poster’ like moments really good too. The pages with the ‘Evil FF’, or Black Bolt’s return, to the final page reveal are handled as dramatic as you can imagine.

The story goes back on track too with Hickman finally going back to the story at hand. I’m not sure why but I love the Evil Reed Richard’s. They have a lot of great lines in this issue with one being REALLY happy to see Dr. Doom appear considering their previous histories with other Dooms. Again the sequence with Susan and Nathaniel talking is the best moment of the comic. A lot of tension with these pages and I’m so sure there is more to Nathaniel then meets the eye. But there are also some great moments with The Wizard, The Mad Thinker, and Doom himself that I would kill to see a ‘Council of Doom’ comic by Hickman. (Instead of FF turning into the kid’s series in the future) Hickman is just perfect for all of these characters it’s amazing. I haven’t had fun with a Fantastic Four comic since….well since re-reading the Lee/Kirby books. (I’m not a fan of a lot of the ‘classic’ runs of FF)

Maybe I made this POTW because the ‘orgasmic’ return of Steve Epting. (Sink that image for a minute) Maybe it isn’t the strongest issue by these two in both iterations of the series. But this issue was just a lot of fun and Epting returning gives us some really damn good looking pages. It took a long time for me to accept this change in the team but I think it’s finally set in for me. Even with a two issue hiccup it’s the most fun Marvel comic you’ll have to read right now. Let’s hope Hickman has a long time, a very long time, with this family even with the ‘finale’ of the FF coming soon.