Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Ultimate Fantastic Four vols 6-8, 10-11

I devoured these Sunday. Got all of them from my handy local library (Milwood! Best branch library ever!). I'd read a couple of them before, but it was great to read these in some semblance of order.

I like the Ultimate Fantastic Four books for their taking of the FF's trademark world-bending storylines (Cosmic Cube turns the earth into a fair replica of hell!) which were often silly, and making them tense and interesting. Reading these volumes in rapid succession was a thrill ride.

The villains are actually scary in these stories. They have an edge they lacked in the more innocent silver age stories.

Looks like the plotters dropped the ball at one point. At the end of, I think it was vol 8, Reed has a gadget in his hands that can do almost anything, and he's using it to fix all sorts of things that went bad in the story, and then he virtuously throws it away...rather than, for example:

- create world peace
- fix the paraplegics of recent wars
- I dunno, maybe turn Ben Grimm normal? I mean, usually he's obsessed with fixing Ben. But throw a magic wand into his hands and he forgets?

I'm not going to comment on each issue. I will say that if you like the Ultimates style of story, you should read these. They have a very similar vibe to the Ultimates. And the tensions within the team, especially Reed and Sue in these issues, are great.

OH: Mustn't forget: zombie fantastic four? Best villains ever.

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