I just can’t get into this. I’ve never been an F4 reader, and now I know why. These characters are BORING. I love the concept, but every issue feels sort of rushed, and there’s not enough time to make me care about anyone. I would rather it slowed down a bit, so they could stay at a location for 2-3 issues and make a nicely-paced story out of it.

This issue followed the formula we’ve seen a few times already on this spacetime adventure: the F4 show up, get themselves into some sort of trouble, the Thing does some clobberin’, and then they’re out. No talk about Reed’s problem, only very superficial interactions, and a quick resolution to a problem that any family would have talked over for quite awhile before engaging-in, but was instead done in haste. The entire conflict seemed absurd for such a scientific family. And where was the Big Bang?

The art is fundamentally solid, but nothing extraordinary. For a space story, I would have preferred something a little more psychedelic. It’s crisp and clean, but very vanilla. The whole book is very vanilla, really.

This book suffers from poor pacing and a lack of well-executed drama, and without eye-catching art, its a tough sell. This issue was no different, but provided a little more high-intensity action than previous, and the “villain” was a nice surprise. The problem is a lack of continuity between stories, and the plot threads that are being flushed out too slowly or too sporadically. If this was fixed, the possibility of a very fun book is here.