Fantastic Four #8

Fantastic Four #8 was interesting.  Because Instead of returning to see his loved ones; during his day (for some reason the others kept saying week) of being human.  Ben Grim decides to visit the past and beat up the Yancy Street Gang who were shakedown loan shark type 1930s gangsters.  He meets some of his relatives and helps them out.  But this nice storytelling is ruined by some off stage event back on the time machine with Reid, Sue and the kids and now the Thing is in trouble.  Mind you he is not in trouble for going to beat up people in the past but for something else he might have done while attending college.

Fantastic Four #7

Fantastic Four #7 happens in the very very very very far future the end of time actually.  In addition Blastaar is still alive.  The residents of the future are very nice and helpful allowing the Fantastic Four to fix their ship.  The kids do something very clever.  The Fantastic Four steal Blastaar for what appears to be a stupid reason and dump him into the Negative Zone.  Ben Grim has turned human and is currently not the Thing.  The merry band is on Ben’s request is apparently heading home.

Fantastic Four #6!!

Fantastic Four #6 was a good story and a vast improvement from what has happened in the past few issues.  In this issue for whatever stupid reason the family has decided to visit the birth of the universe just seconds after the Big Bang.  There they find a living thing possibly an alien stranded, now if you had read the first two pages of this issue you would know this person was condemned to die at the end of the Universe.  The Thing, who is having some issues that include glowing eyes, goes out and rescues the stranded person.  It turns out the person they rescue is Blastaar of Baluur a rather powerful villain that has fought the Fantastic Four before.  A fight ensues that causes a lot of damage to the ship and has the Thing hanging from the outside.  In order to save everyone Franklin uses his power to move the ship and everyone further along the time stream possibly to the end of the universe.  We are treated to viewing the death of Blastaar.  It was almost an anti-climactic death for such a powerful character of the Marvel Universe.

Fantastic Four #5AU (Age of Ultron)

Fantastic Four #5AU (Age of Ultron) or we get to kill off the Fantastic Four.  This is the story of how Sue Storm is one of the survivors hiding in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier in the main Age of Ultron comic book.  So the story starts sometime in the past or future and the Fantastic Four – The Thing, Human Torch, Reid Richards and Sue Storm leave their children behind to go help defend Earth.  They arrive too late and they are all killed off one by one in very dramatic fashion.  Sue somehow survives even though she was being hunted by a pack of Ultrons.  She was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building by the She-Hulk.  The story ends with the kids back on the ship wondering what are they going to do now.  Considering who they are and the powers they have shown in the past there is little they cannot do to fix the timeline.  The question is if the writers will allow them to be more than another sideshow in the Age of Ultron story arc.

I hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July!

Fantastic Four #5

Fantastic Four #5 was kind of weird.  I say the issue was weird because this time the Fantastic Four Family head to ancient Rome to ask Jullius Caesar a question.  The kids and Johnny Storm (Human Torch) want to know if Caesar really did live with pirates and over pay his own ransom.  It turns out that Caesar was actually a time traveling alien and hilarity ensues.  Reid and Sue have some alone time to discuss Reid’s illness.  All ends well and the timeline is only a little changed.  We flash to what we are told is “Last November” and get to see Caesar has survived.  While I did call this issue weird I have to say it was a vast improvement in story telling reaching all the way to entertaining.

Fantastic Four!

Fantastic Four #4 continues the travels of the team in time and space.  I do not even know where to start in saying how disappointing this issue was.  Once again Reed Richards the so called Mister Fantastic has done something so very selfish and idiotic.  I really do not like the new and evil Illuminati version of Mr. Fantastic.  I was also not happy that the only way the writers felt they could include the Thing and the Human Torch was by having them fight.  As the writers like to point out by having Reed be evil the Thing and Torch have not changed at all.  I’m just so disappointed in this comic the writers had a chance to fix all that was wrong with the Fantastic Four with this reboot and instead they just made things worse.

FF!

FF #3 was kind of interesting.  This issue was almost entirely good plot development of the replacement Fantastic Four.  Not sure they are not being tricked by someone evil, but let us see where this goes.

Fantastic Four!

Fantastic Four number three was rather disappointing.  After a buildup of two issues the first real adventure is a fight with a giant planet / star thing that tries to eat the Fantastic Four and kids.  But no real surprise since this new Reid Richards is now the most selfish person in the Marvel Universe.  This series had real potential and now I’m not sure if I will continue to buy it or not.

Catching up a little

Iron Man continues to entertain with issue four.  Tony Stark after some snappy dialog with Pepper Pots goes to the Paris Catacombs in search of the remaining tech magic that will create supers.  He finds something much more evil and deals with it.  I continue to like this story.

Marvel Universe vs the Avengers while a great title lacks several things.  The most important of these is that the Avengers have yet to fight the Marvel Universe – it is just a Hawkeye told though his eyes.  It seemed to me from the previews this comic was going to more along the lines of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe where we would actually see conflict among heroes.  But instead we get yet another bland zombie story.

Hawkeye continues to be very good and entertaining.  This is the end of a two part story line that started grim but ended up being a trick on the readers, but that is ok the comic and story was still excellent.

Fantastic Four number two was cute and entertaining, I hope that is what they were going for.  Two issues of setup and they are off seems like the setup could have been done quicker.

More Comics!

The All New X-Men #1 sucked.  I just finished reading the issue and well the art was good.  Really I feel ripped off for spending money on this comic.  Note to Marvel Comics, the DC comics reboot worked because they wrote good stories.  It was also a true reboot and not just the aftermath of this year’s big cross over event.  What happens next year?  Another bunch of #1 comic reboots?

Next I read Fantastic Four #1, now that was an interesting comic. The Fantastic Four was one of the first comics I bought regularly.  So I was amused to see Johnny Storm the Human Torch is alive again.  I am not sure how that did not make the news at all.  Then the Thing was defeated by the Yancy Street Gang, again.  Seriously I am amazed that after all these years the Yancy Street Gang is a threat to the Thing.  The Thing can and has gone head to head against the Hulk for goodness sake.  Anyway we shall see where this story line heads.