Overview
Since James Robinson has jumped on board, Fantastic Four has
been in one emotional roller coaster. With Johnny losing his powers, Thing in
jail for “murdering” puppet master and Reed and Sue separated from their
children because of once too many lies and an endearing consequence that
destructed the entire the city, the separation between the groups is keeping
them at bay and making them go through emotional rifts. Robinson has given them
a struggle to dealing with their problems and it keeps us intrigued by feeling
compassion and sadness for what they are going through and the story is keeping
us at the edge of our toes to hope these heroes can strive for the better
someday. So, it’s an emotional story telling that very compelling. I honestly
feel the writing of the Fantastic Four has been its best since Jonathan
Hickman. It’s been a really great series and I hope it keeps it pulling me
because I love deep emotional stories especially with the Fantastic Four which
are heroes that has brought its greatness through family. So, it looks like
Robinson it keeping the family separated in darkness and hoping something will
keep them together which I feel is great because that what the Fantastic Four has
always been about. But it’s not just the writing that gives the emotional feel,
it’s also Leonardo Kirk beautiful art that gives great emotional face
expressions that shows us how these characters feel and it allows to feel great
sympathy for the characters deep emotion. He also does great action and
everything else is just in great detail to give beautiful artwork. So, overall
it’s very compelling series that has good writing and art. So, it’s one series
people should look out for and buy for a good read. But, sadly this week’s
issue must have went through a rough patch of bad storytelling and a bad
replacement artist that doesn’t capture the same emotional feel as Kirk. So, be
prepared for a bad issue which you may avoid of not getting or enjoy as usual.
Story
As Thing is in jail, he talks to Sharon (She-Thing) of the
whereabouts to where she’s been, Johnny is out partying to keep himself
together. Reed struggles to fights off the Frightful Four all by himself as Sue
looks for her children.
The Good
There’s not much of anything good in this issue. It’s filled
with bad storytelling that looks rushed and unorganized. So, I guess all I can
say is that it’s nice to find out about where Sharon’s been and at least the
story plot moves forward with a surprise guest.
The Bad
I did not like this issue at all mainly because it has
really bad storytelling and they weren’t giving good logical reasons for these
characters to feel a certain way. For example, Sharon was mad at Thing for
being there when she never contacted him when she had problems with her life.
She just expected Thing to magically know and go over to her to solve her
problems. I guess the problem was that this character hasn’t been around for a
long time and Robinson was itchy for a reason for her to be there and he
couldn’t find a good one. Another thing that bothered me is dragging of telling
where she’s been because she kept hitting him as she’s telling him. I feel
Robinson should have just avoided the action and focus on telling the
backstory. It really feels unnecessary to them to be fighting as she is telling
the story. They don’t even explain how Sharon gets to jail, she just is. Another example of the non-logical reasoning
is Reed fighting off Frightful Four which a bunch D-liters that Reed usually
defeats just using his tech or intelligence. But the reason he can’t win is
because of unexplained magic or he can think straight because Sue isn’t there.
It kind of makes Reed undependable or defenseless for every situation when he
usually isn’t. I guess Robinson should have given time to explain how the
Wizard got the magic for us to understand why Reed is defenseless. Another
thing that bothered me is Johnny thinking of his college friend is being
concerned because Reed and Sue “told him to”. But gee you couldn’t think that
maybe he’s feeling concerned because he’s your "best friend" and that "he worries about
you"? It’s just a lot un-logical reasoning’s going on that makes the Fantastic
Four look like they stuck on stupid.
Another bad thing in this issue is the art. Marc Laming had
really bad trouble with the face expressions because they were static and
looked the same when the characters are feeling mad, sad, etc. It seems like I
can’t even tell if they were yelling when they were. Also the action layouts were
just unorganized and sloppy. It just had one hit across the page and the next
thing you know the characters are on the floor with just that one hit. So, it
seems that this replacement artist is trying to rush in the issue to just get
it done. Plus, the art is nowhere near as good as the previous artist which
makes me feel disappointed and out of place.
Theme
The theme in this issue is “someone to lean on”. When people
are going through their problems and things get too rough that they depend on
someone to support them or be there to get their spirits up or remind
themselves that they can do better. But sometimes people feel their friends are
too sucked up on their own problems that they can’t help their problems. So, it
makes them go through deeper rift of losing themselves and making the problems
bigger. This is what I saw with the Fantastic Four, all of them are trying to
things by themselves. But when things get rough they looked to the other side
to see that something’s there but it isn't. So, they get into the deeper hole
to lose themselves like for example Johnny without his powers is useless, thus
he feels like he’s wasting him being around Reed, Sue and Ben.
Verdict
I give this issue a 2/5 or 4/10 stars. It’s not a really
good issue. The unexplained logical reasoning’s is giving room for bad
storytelling. It just rushing to get the plot forward to the end and everything
seems to be filled with nonsense in the middle. Marc Laming does a terrible job
on telling the emotional compelling story that this series usually tells it. A
lot the face expressions are face less with no movements and the action is so
unorganized it looks like a quick and be done with it job. So, the art isn’t concise
or detailed as other issues. I guess it was just a rough week to get this issue
done. So, sadly this issue might not be worthy of a pickup if you’re stretching
for enough comics to buy. But if you want to know what’s going on you can pick
it up, you just might not enjoy it or think it’s your money’s worth. It’s just
saddens me to see a series I love go through a rough patch. I just hope it will
get good again in the next issue. So, it’s really up to you if you want to pick
this up.
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