Pick of the Week
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
Pulls
Art by Barry Kitson
Cover by Mike Choi
Size: 0 pages
Price: 2.99
It’s almost not fair.
The modern age comic book writer tends to play the long game and tell stories that are years in the making. The more intricate versions of these stories often involve having many balls in the air, and unfortunately, by the time most of those stories end, at least a few of those balls have been dropped.
Not Jonathan Hickman and his epic Fantastic Four story. No, Hickman’s not dropping any balls. In fact, he’s keeping balls in the air so long that I had totally forgotten about them.
Now, having beaten that metaphor to death, let’s just talk about why Fantastic Four #603 was awesome.
Jonathan Hickman has been writing Fantastic Four for almost two and a half years now and it is really starting to feel like this is where all those years of stories are coming to a head. In his very first story arc entitled, appropriately enough, “Solve Everything”, Reed Richards built a device that allowed him to look into other dimensions to see the outcome of every possible decision. That lead directly to the Council of Reeds and to where we are at this moment. Hickman has pretty much been telling one long story from the very beginning, and he’s done it in the very best way possible.
One of the knocks that Hickman has taken since he began on this book is that he has meandered into side stories that were seemingly unconnected. Patient readers now know that in the end it would appear that everything Hickman was exploring mattered to his overall story. And that’s the best way to tell an epic comic book tale: break it up into smaller pieces that on their own are (hopefully) entertaining, but put those pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle and a single satisfying image is revealed.
What we have here in Fantastic Four #603 is a big ol’ mess. And I mean that in the best possible way. The Kree, led by the Supreme Intelligence, have decided that they’ve had enough of the Inhumans and have brought their whole armada to bear. This is a problem because the Inhumans live on the Moon and the Kree are going to destroy the Moon, the Earth, the whole damn thing. So, as you might imagine, the Fantastic Four (plus a back from the “dead” Johnny Storm and his Annihilation Wave army) have their hands full. But wait—there’s more! A bunch of creepy Celestials have shown up and as if that’s not bad enough they’re Mad Celestials and they talk funny. So that’s a lot for the Richards and their extended clan to deal with.
Oh yeah, Galactus has also shown up too. It’s not a party until Galactus shows up.
One of the best things about this issue was that the story felt epic. It felt sprawling. It actually felt like there were stakes, and that those stakes were high. That’s what we want to read, right? We follow these stories and these characters on a monthly (or, lately, a bi-monthly) basis in the hopes that a handful of times a year these stories will pay off in a really satisfying way. In a story like this that involves god like creatures doing battle in the space above Earth with everything hanging in the balance you expect, nay, you need a grand scale. You need the story to feel like a sweeping epic. And most importantly, you need those big emotional beats that play off the big action beats. You got all of that and more in Fantastic Four #603, including a pretty awesome tie-in to something that Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch did in their run on Fantastic Four and a last page cliff-hanger that kind of made me want to pump my fist.
I miss Steve Epting’s art on this title, I really did think his more grounded style was the perfect counterpoint to Hickman’s grandiose stories, but if I can’t have Epting I’ll take Barry Kitson. He ably handles big action, which is so important in a story like this, but where he excels is in his character work. You’ve got a family locked in a deadly space battle with invading forces and crazy cosmic gods and in order to make a story like that work you need to relate to those human characters. You need to feel their fear, their pain, and their anguish. You need to be able to look at Sue Storm’s face and read the bravery and determination as she stands up to a Celestial. There are many scenes in this issue that would work just as well without dialogue because Kitson does a great job conveying the emotions of the moment on the faces of the characters.
When I finished this issue I sighed. This is how it should be. This is how you tell a big sci-fi superhero epic.
More importantly, this is how you tell a Fantastic Four story.
Conor Kilpatrick
Mad Celestials are creepy/weird/like Voltron.
conor@ifanboy.com
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I’m liking this more than I ever expected to enjoy a FF book.
Celestials are like Daleks to me…I’m sure they have a screeching voice that goes with that bizarre voice pattern. Also, to continue the Who-nerdiness, I have the Doctor Who theme stuck in my head whenever I read this series…Weird.
Anyways great review Conor. This was a pretty damn good issue with some great action pieces and Kitson killed it on art. I miss Epting too but I’ll take Kitson in anything after this run. Although having said that, I do think the ending felt a tad rushed. After the awesome Galactus fight it was like: “everyone reunites, oh shit it’s the celestials!, quick go to that MASSIVE tower with the appropriate Power Ranger gun to win”…I don’t mean to make it sound bad because this was a 4-star book. It made the choice of Chew #24 as my POTW a litle easier.
Front runner for Marvel’s best book right now.
I’d bet Thunderbolts as the dark horse to win that race!
Loved this issue. I can’t wait for the next. What was the tie-in to Millar/Hitch’s run?
I think it was when Galactus thumped into the ground leaving a crater. I could be wrong it’s been known before.
in their run galactus was dead in the future, i believe what happened with the celestials killing is how it happened
I was entirley sure if he was supposed to be dead or not. Still better than when Bucky “Died” that time I thought he was just off looking for his arm.
Wasn’t not was. Where’s the edit button?
And now that’s in the wrong place. I’m going back to bed.
Unless Uatu has shown up, they aren’t in serious trouble yet. Looking forward to getting this next week.
I’ll agree with TheNextChampion that the middle felt a tad rushed, though, Hickman had certainly set everything up. Maybe if there was one moment to breath during the whole ordeal, it would not have felt so rushed. It certainly did not hurt the issue overall, and this is one of my most anticipated books every month.
On the one hand, this books feels like it is wrapping up. On the other, with the last page, it might just be the beginning.
I gave this book a 5/5, but my POTW honors went to The Flash.
Yeah it’s weird that it felt so rushed considering Hickman has been on such a slow pace since joining the series. Maybe someone in editorial thought the penultimate issue of the epic story needed to ‘get on with it’ as Monty Python would say….It doesn’t hurt the issue in that it ruins it, cause it was probably close to POTW for me as well.
Also, did anyone notice a bunch of pacing problems in books this week? Aquaman, All Star Western, and even my choice for POTW in Chew suffered from either minor to major pacing problems.
If I had to take a guess, I would say that it was probably the result of the 20 page-count constraint. 2 more pages would have probably allowed this issue to “breath” more. I believe Hickman knew how he wanted the issue to end (single page splash), so that became the fixed point he was managing to. It was a matter of how to get there as efficiently as possible, given where the issue started. He had to devote a lot of page space to the larger-than-life cosmic stuff that was going on. An 8-panel grid was not going to do Galactus justice, so a lot of real estate got chewed up there. I think he actually did a good job, all things considered.
@ctrosejr: To be honest I thought both Marvel and DC have done good jobs telling a story with fewer pages. Others have been saying a lot of negative things about it but I haven’t had much of an issue.
….Well that’s a lie because All-Star Western is the only book that SUFFERS from lower page count. Again the pacing in that book, especially this week’s issue, drove me bananas.
The reduction to 20 pages was the worst thing to happen to comics last year. So many books have had awkward/rushed endings or weird transitions I’ve lost count. I’m sure it will get better as writers adjust but right now its my #1 pet peeve.
comics definitely feel shorter but i cannot think of a comic with a rushed ending. but that just might be what i’m reading.
Yeah, it’s amazing that FF has found it’s way into being something, should I say, fantastic. But I agree, Hickman has played his grandiose storytelling well. It’s been fun to see him bring out a lot of the old FF nemesis and characters from their long line of mythos. I think what he’s doing is painting a scale equivalent to say, Green Lantern Corp or a Secret Wars all within the FF universe. Pretty cool stuff.
Not to seem creepy or anything but didn’t Ron have the pick this week?
He did, but there was a scheduling conflict so we swapped weeks.
I wish Barry Kitson drew every issue. Ever.
Wow, such a light week for me, but just about everything I read I would give a 5 out of 5. I think just about every book I got could be a POTW.
I love my light weeks when they’re all great reads. And this POTW review just made me wanna run out and get a copy of FF 603. Good review, Thanx Conor and community.
Intrigued. I have to pick up the trades.
And you meant ‘bi-weekly’, right? As in, every two weeks? I’m old enough to remember when my some of my favorites were bi-monthly.
I think he means semi-monthly. 😛
Bi-monthly = once every two months
Bi-weekly = once every two weeks
Semi-monthly = twice monthly
Semi-weekly = twice a week
bi-monthly also means every two months and every two weeks
I REALLY miss Epting on tis title.
I was predicting I, Vampire to take it this week. Holy cats!
I, Vampire was so good. Probably one of my favorite books right now. Like Fantastic Four it was totally epic, but in a much smaller way. Either one is a perfectly fine POW for me, I would have liked to see I, Vampire get some love though; maybe it will happen with the upcoming croessover
I, Vampire was so good. Probably one of my favorite books right now. Like Fantastic Four it was totally epic, but in a much smaller way. Either one is a perfectly fine POW for me, I would have liked to see I, Vampire get some love though; maybe it will happen with the upcoming crossover
THREE AND A HALF YEARS??!! Seems like the multiple Richard thing happened a year ago. Oh, man, where does the time go.
Gonna have to collect this run. Seems like something I shouldn’t pass up. Thanks for the review, Ron.
whoops. Meant Conor. Ug. Soooo tired.
I’m not sure it was 3 and a half years ago. I haven’t been back collecting comics that long and I jumped on FF at the start of Hickman’s run. In fact I’ve just looked it up, he started end of 2009. So just under 2 and a half years.