Ultimate Fantastic Four: The Fantastic Review

 

Since the next part of the road to First Steps is the 2015 film and since that movie takes a loose inspiration from this comic book. I figured it'd be fun to review it. Just like I did with the Galactus stuff. Now enough of the intro let's get to the review.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: The Fantastic is a 2004 comic book storyline that can be found in issues #1-6 of Ultimate Fantastic Four, which much like the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy I reviewed previously, it's also part of Marvel's Ultimate Marvel imprint. The artist for all six issues was Adam Kubert and the writers were Brain Michael Bendis and Mark Millar.

The story is, a young Reed Richards is recruited to a Manhattan think tank and help them enter the N-Zone. Reed, his best friend Ben Grimm, siblings Sue & Johnny Storm, and Victor Van Damme are about to be teleported to the N-Zone but things go wrong and the group are mutated into something. Now the group must not only figure out what went, but also try to understand what their powers can do. But they must find out quick, because underground an evil force is brewing and it's ready to come to the surface.

• Negatives

I've got nothing.

• Mix

The real mix was character depth. Reed and Ben have the most going on. They're friends so we get quite a few moments of them getting along, but we also have moments (particular after the accident) of them fighting. So there's something with them. Sue and Johnny are fine. They service their purposes for the story and I didn't grow to hate them in any shape. However I can't say the same for the villain Mole Man. He's very generic and has no gravitas. He do witness his backstory but it's one-dimensional "They didn't see MY brilliance! They didn't see MY genius! Thus I will kill them!" I mean that sort of character can work, but it didn't here.

• Positives

One good thing is the fresh take. During the original Ultimate Marvel universe, the gimmick was to take the classic characters and give them an update. And this story continued that tradition. They may be the Fantastic Four, but they're not like the ones in the main Marvel continuity. As suppose to being a family like the more mainstream ones, this Four is more like friends long before they become a family. There's also their origin. It's more grounded than the one in the main universe.

There's also the pacing. Now some areas are a bit slow, which is to be expected when reading something (even if he was a co-writer this time around) by Brian Michael Bendis. Because Bendis is far dialogue heavy but, I was still able to read this in one day. Sure I did they same thing when I read Stan Lee & Jack Kirby's Galactus Trilogy, but it took awhile. Not with this one though, I got by it quicker than I thought.

The last thing I'll praise is Adam Kubert's art style. Now I have heard Adam's name being brought up quite a bit along with his brother [Andy]. But I don't recall if I ever read something with his art work attached to it. But after seeing images like these,

I am definitely gonna look more into his work. Especially if it looks as dynamic and larger than life as it does now compared to these. By the way if you think these look good, these images are only from the first three issues. So just think of what the other issues have.

So this wasn't as good as I was hoping, but it's still a pretty good read overall.

My final rating is, Good.

Okay that's all for today. So if you would, come back on Thursday, Jun 5th, for a special announcement regrading a brand new segment coming to my blog. Until then, enjoy the rest of the day.