With this issue I finally figured out what Hickman is doing here. It was tough to figure out at first, because the pacing has been so weird for such a big storyline. I mean as of right now, we are one issue away from someone dying on the Fantastic Four! But Hickman took the time to show Ben Grimm have one day of humility as a regular person again with no real plot progression. Again with this issue, and more then likely his entire run so far, the slow pacing is finally explained here.

Everything is basically put into place with the plot. We got a crap load of story within the confines of this issue. Sue is dealing with Namor and underwater politics, some classic villains are making their final moves, and oh yeah we have Galactus standing over New York City with a pissed off Silver Surfer. Although it seems like a lot is happening, and there is, Hickman does a great job not making it overwhelming for the reader. Just enough taste of each plot point with some good drama and dashes of humor to make it entertaining to read. He also keeps the mystery of ‘who will die?’ going fairly strong even at this point. Pretty much everybody on this team is in risk, even the children. So it’s refreshing that in this day and age with the internet and advanced previews that a major story has had so little to go on for us to figure out.

Epting continues his solid work on the series with this issue. Although I don’t think he can top the first two issues of this run so far. He certainly isn’t losing any steps with this issue. There is a lot of Jack Kirby in his designs this time around, especially with everything involving Namor. I mean the creatures he deals with in negotiations look something right out of a Kirby design. Epting also handles scale pretty well here. I mean with Galactus you gotta make him look big; but there are some nice angles in these pages where he really looks taller then a skyscraper. Also some great, muted colors in this by Paul Mounts. If anything this duo is making me yearn for them to come back on Captain America because I miss them doing it.

You know the last issue with Ben was really the best of the run so far. But I really enjoyed this issue in terms of the story progression, more fantastic art by Epting, and Hickman just making the overall mystery of the death still be a mystery. Not many writers, even good one’s mind you, can keep a mystery going for this long into an arc. Overall this has been such a fantastic run by Hickman and Epting right now that even if not the overall best of the run; you still can’t find any better Marvel comic then this issue right now.