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Fantastic Four is back to family, adventure, and some serious super science. Click the jump to read.
Fantastic Four #1
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Mark Bagley
Published by Marvel
Somehow, Matt Fraction (writer of Fear Itself and Invincible Iron Man) did a good follow up to previous writer, Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four. Fraction paid close attention to the three main things that make Fantastic Four wonderful: family, adventure, and super science. Yes, super science is fundamentally fun and Fraction makes it his business to make it enjoyable. At times, some writers can either get carried away by writing science and delivering something that can be confusing to a lay audience, but Fraction does a superb job at making it easy for readers to understand what’s going on. Fantastic Four is an impressive first issue; it’s basically what you remember from past Fantastic Four shows and comic books, which is the beautiful family dynamic of superheroes.
Synposis: What is it like being part of the Fantastic Four family that is filled with tons of fun and super science?
Good: Fraction did extremely well at setting up all the Fantastic Four characters by individually presenting each character in Issue #1. Not only do you see individual presentations of these characters, but you also see both the ‘super’ group and family dynamic explored in this issue. The Thing shines with his hilarious moments of dialogue as he gets into situations where he is being recorded on Youtube. Sue Storm’s maternal instinct to bond with her children (Franklin and Valeria) is endearing and to see her parental style as it compares to her husband, Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) who is more addicted to his lab research than nurturing his family members. Of course, we can’t forget about Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) who is just his normal cheeky self as he tries to court his girlfriend, Ms. Thing in …outer space. Fraction really sets up all their personalities for new readers to sink their teeth into.
Artist, Mark Bagley shows off his precision and detail in this issue. He does quite a bit with suspense storytelling, filling up the pages with tons of panels. He makes use of each page with all the characters, even those who have minor roles have a purposeful place in this issue, making the readers want to spend more time absorbing the artwork as well as the story that Fraction is writing.
Bad: There is not much bad in this issue on Fraction’s part. It’s a first issue, which is where he needs to set up the story as well as the characters. Bagley is more of a ‘wighead artist’, where some characters’ have similar facial features. His distinctive usage of similar features, for example squared jawlines cause his female characters to look the same.
This issue shines brightly as one of the newest Marvel Now comic books this month. Hopefully, Fraction does not go into doing specific character storytelling where you’re going to see one shot character issues. An example of this would be only seeing Mr. Fantastic being the main character in one issue and then seeing The Thing have his own issue in another. The whole point of doing Fantastic Four is to see the group dynamic shine.
Rating: 4.8/5
What did you think of Fantastic Four #1? Are you reading this issue? Why or why not?
Here are more images from this issue below!
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