By Jonathan Hickman, Dale Eaglesham & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5303-0
The Fantastic Four has long been considered the most pivotal series in modern comicbook history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions.
More a family than a team, the roster has changed many times over the years but always eventually returns to the original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, who have together formed the vanguard of modern four-colour heroic history.
The quartet are better known as maverick genius Reed Richards, his wife Sue, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious younger brother Johnny Storm; driven survivors of an independently-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.
When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found that they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and eventually, project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was mutated into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.
Throughout its history the series has always been more about big ideas than action/adventure and this compilation – gathering issues #570-574 from October 2009 to February 2010 – highlights the first forays of a truly mind-boggling run from scripter Jonathan Hickman (The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Secret Warriors and much more) who truly lived up to the series’ “Big Sky Thinking†antecedents…
It all begins with the breathtaking 3-parter ‘Solve Everything’ – illustrated by Dale Eaglesham – and ‘Is It Playing God If You’re Truly Serious About Creation?’ wherein certified super-genius Richards, driven by childhood memories of his demanding father, faces the greatest challenge and most beguiling seduction of his fantastic life.
After defeating the latest mad assault by scientific criminal Bentley Wittman – giant robots piloted by hideously modified clones of the deranged hyper-intellectual super-foe – the villain upsets and destabilises the victorious Richards by challenging him to examine some cold hard facts.
The Wizard postulates that the world is broken and about to tear itself apart but everyone is too busy applying band-aids to try fixing it…
The exchange stays with Richards. Even as the family goes about its usual business Mr. Fantastic discusses things with his three year old daughter Valeria – a savant even smarter than he is – and then retires to his private lab to mull things over.
The Room of 100 Ideas is the place where Richards has made his greatest breakthroughs and triumphs, the sanctum from which he has changed the world over and over again, but it also harbours one last dream and goal…
Idea 101: Solve Everything…
Now he uses a long-mothballed device to contact a mysterious inter-dimensional organisation of intellectual supermen to help him fix the world and at last discovers that the benevolent Council is completely composed of alternate Earth iterations of himself, all waiting patiently for him to join their elevated ranks. The self-appointed champions of rationality and guardians of the multiverse feel it is time he lived up to his true potential. He is sorely tempted…
The grand tour of perfect possibilities continues in ‘You Stood Beside Me, Larger Than Life and Did the Impossible’ as the newcomer proves his worth by killing an attacking planet-devouring Galactus and a legion of Silver Surfers on Earth 2012, all before popping home to touch base with his friends and family at breakfast. They are preparing for son Franklin‘s upcoming birthday and, even though Richards cannot share his new experiences with them, Sue knows something big is troubling him.
After a frank but vague discussion, the distracted super-mind promises to have everything sorted one way or another in seven days…
His time “in the lab†in actuality finds him travelling to every incredible corner of Creation where his agglomerated alternates police and improve the lot of all humanities. Over and again their combined efforts have created a fantastic technological paradise but still Richards has unresolved, inexplicable reservations, especially at night in bed, thinking about his family and recalling conversations with his own father…
The intellectual idyll is rudely shattered in ‘We Are Men We Have No Masters’ when the multiversal Council is attacked by Celestial Space Gods intent on using their inter-dimensional discoveries to take control of all realities. The apocalyptic battle decimates the ranks of the Richards before a solution and ultimate victory is achieved, and, as the cosmic dust settles Reed at last makes his decision – the only one a really smart man can…
Originally published as ‘Adventures on Nu-World’ (and illustrated by Neil Edwards & Andrew Currie) the next tale focuses on the Thing and Human Torch as they take a long-anticipated vacation-break on an artificial resort much like a cosmic Las Vegas, blithely unaware of two extremely important facts.
Firstly, that Reed and Sue’s kids have stowed away aboard their transport, but probably more critical is the realisation that the man-made world is in the midst of a civil war prompted by the entire planet having slipped into the event horizon of a Black Hole…
With a host of guest villains including Skaar, Son of Hulk, ‘These Are the End Times’ follows the slow procession and brutal struggle to total obliteration and highlights the astounding gifts of toddler Valeria who secretly solves the problem and gets (almost) everyone home safely…
The story portion of this splendid celebration of all things Fantastical concludes with ‘All Hope Lies With Doom’ (originally ‘Days of Future Franklin’ by Edwards & Currie again) as the boy’s birthday finally arrives and the extended family – including Dragon Man, uncle Spider-Man, the kids from Power Pack and mutant orphans Artie and Leech – enjoy the party of a lifetime. It’s only slightly spoiled when a time-travelling raider crashes the affair, and he’s soon sent packing by the adults – but not before he delivers a secret warning to Valeria and a unique gift for the birthday boy.
Valeria isn’t worried: after all, if there’s one person she can trust, it’s her grown up brother Franklin…
This collection also includes a huge Cover Gallery by Alan Davis, Mark Farmer, Dave McCaig, John Rausch & Javier Rodriguez with variants from Eaglesham & Paul Mounts, John Cassaday & Laura Martin, Marcelo Dichiara, Christopher Jones & Sotocolor.
Smart, tense, thrilling and exhibiting genuine warmth and humanity, this is a grand starting point for new or returning readers with a view to recapturing the glory days of fantasy and science fiction, and especially a different kind of Fights ‘n’ Tights theatre…
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.