Randy’s Reviews – Fantastic Four #4 by Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley

Fantastic Four #4 Review by Randy Young

Fantastic Four #4 Review

Fantastic Four #4 Review

Matt Fraction has given us such great reads like Immortal Iron Fist, Hawkeye and Invincible Iron Man. These are three books I can highly recommend to everybody to check out, knowing you won’t be disappointed. This is not the case with his young run on Fantastic Four. I have been enjoying the hell out of his FF, but this book leaves me cold.

Fraction’s stories are one and done. There is no real development as Marvel’s first family jumps from one adventure to the next. Hickman left us with a slightly older, more mature Johnny Storm. Fraction’s Johnny just runs around playing pranks on Ben. His version of Ben Grimm is a guy that pouts and looks out into space yet gets no real development. His Sue Storm gives Reed unhappy looks but doesn’t really do much more. His Reed Richard apparently just pines over the wife he has without ever telling her so. Hickman’s Valeria was one of the best parts of his memorable run, yet here she seems to be an average child instead of a super genius. Everything about this book is disjointed. The alien race that they meet is nothing special and never really shows what it is about them that had Reed so excited in the first place.

I might be a little harsh here. It could be that Fraction is telling a really epic story. It could be that the reason this I’m not connecting with this story is Mark Bagley’s art. His characters (adults) look no older than his Peter Parker and Mary Jane (teenagers) when he was drawing Ultimate Spider-Man. This race that the Four meet is ready to worship the beautiful Sue Storm, yet Bagley’s version of Sue is anything but. Also, I’m curious what happened to the cast Reed was wearing and the cellular degeneration that was happening that is suddenly gone when his arm is exposed.

This creative team doesn’t seem to be working well together and as a result I’d tell most people to stay away from this title until it changes.

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