On The Rack: Fantastic Four #1 Review
The newest characters to get the “Marvel NOW!” treatment and be rebooted are the Fantastic Four. With a story by James Robinson and art by Leonard Kirk, Fantastic Four #1 focuses on the super-team’s most unique attribute: the fact that they are a family. Refreshingly, the issue does not waste time retelling the Fantastic Four’s origin story, but instead focuses on their relationships with each other.
The Fantasic Four get some action.
Of course any team made up of the world’s most brilliant scientist, his best friend, his wife and her baby brother is bound to have its fair share of drama. In this new redesign of the classic team, we see Sue Storm writing to her children, lamenting the fall of the Fantastic Four (which is incidentally the name of the story arc), and setting the ground and tone that their new title will take. Her letter basically outlines the destruction of the team but leaves the details of how they break apart vague. What she does hint is that their personal relationships will break down. They won’t be destroyed by a villain, but the Fantastic Four will destroy themselves.
Anyone who has read a Fantastic Four comic before will find the team’s conflicts predictable. Reed Richards struggles to connect to his wife emotionally, Ben Grimm is depressed because of his appearance as the Thing, and Johnny Storm is a loose cannon. Nothing new. But Robinson puts these struggles front and center; external threats are easy to deal with, it’s thrilling to think of how the Fantastic Four are going to overcome their own character flaws to keep the team together.
