FANTASTIC FOUR #606

Review by: TheNextChampion

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Avg Rating: 3.5
 
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Story by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Ron Garney
Cover by Ron Garney

Size: 0 pages
Price: 2.99

Ever since this series went to a ‘one and done’ format, I’ve questioned whether I enjoy Fantastic Four more for it. Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan’s Hickman epic story line for three years had some of the best moments in this family’s history. But now with Hickman leaving the series for good soon he’s just throwing things on a dart board and writing an issue from it. This issue is no different as Hickman writes himself a ‘Fantastic Voyage’ like….Voyage for Marvel’s First Family. It’s a fun ride for sure but what a shame it gets bogged down in mediocre art.

This issue might be called sappy once it’s revealed what the team is doing towards the end but I found it very sweet. I won’t give it away here but it was a nice tribute to one of the oldest supporting characters for this series. It’s a bit too obvious that they are inside the body of someone but still it’s a fun adventure to read. Of course Ben has to beat up some white blood cells and of course Hickman makes those things look like something out of a Stephen King novel. Again though it’s a fun issue and the way Hickman writes it makes it intriguing to figure out what is going on by the end of it.

The art however is a different matter. I know people like Ron Garney and trust me, I see the talent here. But for the love of god, someone has to get this man an inker. He inks his own work and it really shows how rough it is. One page can look pretty clean but then you turn the page and it’s sketchy as hell. The book is so uneven that it was really angering me that no one told Garney to redo some of these pages. There are other times where characters look different from page to page. Sue in particularly has a different facial structure from past to present in context of the story. The coloring by Jason Keith also looks pretty rough to me and sometimes it makes his pages look flat. Maybe that’s all on me but I couldn’t help noticing just how rough this issue looked.

I am so happy Ryan Stegman is coming in soon to finish Hickman’s run because Ron Garney is ruining this for me. What’s there looks good on paper (ha!) but if you look real closely on these pages you’ll see some pretty rough pages and mediocre designs. The story here was sweet to read and it saves everything for me in the end. Let’s just hope Stegman’s pencils are an improvement once we get to him.

Story: 4 - Very Good
Art: 2 - Average

Comments

  1. I have liked Garney’s art better in the past (Hulk and Captain America come to mind), but he had an inker at those times, IIRC.

    Agreed on your points with this review.

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