Product Description: In The Fantastic, witness the beginnings of the Four - Reed Richards, Johnny Storm, Susan Storm, and Ben Grimm - super-hero icons for the new century! When high-school genius Reed enrolls at a secret government-sponsored school for the most gifted minds in the world, he unwittingly embarks on the journey of a lifetime! In Doom, Reed and his friends must learn to adapt to their amazing new situation. But before they can even begin to get accustomed, former classmate Victor Van Damme - who was transformed by the same experiment as the Fantastic Four - returns to exact his revenge!
Great YOUNG Fantastic Four Stan Lee and Jack Kirby struck magic when they created the Fantastic Four. Not only did they reinvigorate the superhero comic for Marvel, but they moved the bar for the rest of the comics industry as well. One of the greatest things Lee and Kirby did was make the Fantastic Four a family in the truest sense. Still today, they love each other and strive to get along, but they fight and argue over personal issues as well as political ones that took place in the outside world.
There's no discounting the familial ties of Batman and Robin, Superman and his cousin, Supergirl, and even the Captain Marvel family. The Legion of Super Heroes was even a family. But the Fantastic four was just unique at the time.
Over the years, fans have wondered what the Four were like as kids. Except for Johnny Story, because he was presented as a teen from the beginning and only starting aging the last couple of decades. There were limited mini-series that kind of touched on these missing years, but it wasn't until Marvel became successful with its Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch that the Fantastic Four was given a relaunch as an Ultimate title.
The Ultimate line is really reader-friendly. Basically each of the characters in the Ultimate universe gets a reboot while still staying, more or less, true to the roots of the originals.
Mark Millar (writer of the ULTIMATE AVENGERS) and Brian Michael Bendis (writer of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN and ULTIMATE X-MEN) teamed up to write the first six-issue arc. Millar provided the plot and Bendis turned in the finished scripts.
The beautiful thing is that they started out with Reed Richards as a newborn and quickly followed him throughout his life. I loved the fact that he didn't fit in as a kid, which was what I'd always imagined for him instead of the pipe-smoking college graduate we were treated to. When he was getting a swirly in the bathroom, I was dying of laughter. Reed Richards suddenly became more human and more sympathetic than I'd ever before known. Then when Ben Grimm, football jock extraordinaire, strides through the door and puts an end to all the torture, my heart swelled with pride. THIS was how the two of them knew each other, and how they built this lifelong relationship that has gotten them through everything they've dealt with.
One of the best things about this new series is the science that's built into it. In the regular Fantastic Four series, Reed is an acknowledged master of nearly everything. Peter Parker was bright enough to concoct his webbing and web-shooters. And don't get me started on Bruce Banner.
The fact that Reed was exploring the nature of the universe was totally awesome. The writers worked in a new explanation of the Baxter Building as a think tank, and Willie Lumpkin (the postman) even became a recruiter and special ops soldier in his reboot.
Susan Storm, Reed's love and guiding light, is depicted as a scientific whiz-bang as well, specializing in biology. Johnny is regulated to the role of tag-along troublemaker, which fits the character perfectly and makes him a great foil for when times get way too serious. Her father is the director of the Baxter Building think tank and provides parental authority/resistance as well as the adult voice to balance the young people about to embark on fantastic adventures.
The first arc is somewhat slow in development of plot, but it is rich in the development of character and exploring this new world where everything long-time fans know is taken and twisted, shaken and stirred. Yet it remains remarkably true to the spirit of Lee and Kirby's initial vision of the team. They have to deal with the Mole Man and a rampaging monster that breaks up from the underground into the city street. And they have to learn how to accept their changes and reinforce their relationships with each other.
I love these books for their sheer sense of adventure. But it's also the feeling of nostalgia and familiarity, of being in a safe place, that I relish as well. While I was reading this book, I was eight years old again, discovering the Fantastic Four for the first time. Only this time so much of the characters was more accessible and understandable.
Warren Ellis wrote the second six-issue arc included in this book, and it centers on Victor Von Damme, who soon becomes Dr. Doom. As it turns out, Van Damme was also transformed during the N-Zone experiment that changed the Fantastic Four, and his changes are even creepier than the original.
Ellis drives home the science edge to the series as well as plays with some of the political maneuvering that Dr. Doom eventually went to in the original Fantastic Four series. I enjoyed the fact that Doom was not an infallible villain, but that he was a very good one and highly motivated. And there's no question about him being the victim in this series. Even though he was affected by the same radiation that changed the others, he was evil before his changes.
The artwork this time is by Stuart Immonen and there is a drastic difference between his and Kubert's pencils. You can't help but notice it if you read the two arcs fairly closely together. However, Ellis spins his story out in different ways and Immonen gets to flex his muscles in different parts of the world, providing for a very different look.
The Mole Man gets beaten back in the first arc, but his menace isn't ended. And Dr. Doom is definitely going to get even deadlier.
Long-time fans may have trouble transitioning to this new Fantastic Four, but it won't be because of the storytelling and the art. They're decidedly different, but I'm really enjoying that. The older issues can now be picked up in trade editions as well, so fans can dig into either era.
But it's the young fans that are going to find the most to love about this series. It's so much more of a Spielberg world and something they've grown up with. I tried reading these comics initially on the month-to-month basis, but I finally gave up. As graphic novels with whole stories in them, though, they're gems.
Jesus saves I suppose I would class myself as a "Fantastic Four" fan - I loved the original Lee/Kirby run as well as some of the modern takes on the heroes like the "Unstable Molecules" storyline. So, I came to this with high expectations which were met....eventually.
The "origin" story arc represents everything that I hate about Bendis and Millar - turgid dialogue, pointless spectacle, paper-thin characterisation and eyes always on the lowest common denominator. It was like watching some of my favourite characters pushed through a wood chipper.
Thankfully on the second arc, Warren Ellis takes over on writing duties and teaches us all how it should be done. The dialogue zips along with energy and his reinventions are with an eye firmly on the modern world. His Doctor Doom is not just a genius in the realm of academia, but a tech, culture and political savvy manipulator. While the bourgeois FF concern themselves with sci-fi indulgences, Doom connects with the real world to gain power and poses an all-too probable threat that is truly chilling.
This volume looks gorgeous on the shelf, sadly only half of it actually warrants the space.
pretty good... 1. i don't like the ultimate universe idea at all. i dislike the infinite earths dc junk also. when you have iconic characters i don't think it's good to confuse the average non-comics fan (or even the average comics fan) with earth-2 superman, superboy prime, ultimates nick fury, etc. they water down the legacy and the impact of the great classic storylines and characters. 2. this is nowhere near as good as the lee/kirby fantastic four. 3. despite the above, this is a pretty good comics collection. it's not mindblowing like the lee/kirby ff, and it's a totally different ultimate universe take on the greatest team in comics. it's still a good read though. but just don't confuse the alternative ultimate universe with the real 616 universe.
THE FANTASTIC have arrived among the ULTIMATES . . .
Thanks to Brain Michael Bendis, and . . . Mark Millar, The Fantastic Four gets a the long expected upgrade it needed for those who never had the chance to read the various recreations of the "Greatest Super hero [family]" created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The characters are thankfully teenagers around my age, so I suppose I could connect a lot better with these carnations as opposed to the original. Reed Richards, a character I could never bring myself to like in the original FF, is humanized by Bendis and Millar with a background story that resembles to a point, Peter Parker's. While granted it is the usual stereotype-character story, I didn't mind it at all. Richard's father this time around his a big hairy-armed brute and his mother is typecast as the mother who would no nothing to oppose her raging husband. Thrown into the mix are two ignorable younger sisters; Enid and a nameless baby girl. Reed is basically the misunderstood family member and longs for the fatherly affections his father gives his best friend Ben Grimm.
After a mishap at home with one his experiments, several years later Reed is inducted into a "Think Tank" program in which the government enlists the brightest children ever to grace the earth and put them all into the Baxter Building. There he meets Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Victor Von "Damne" (Doom if your wondering) a bit later. In the usual Bendis style, the writer takes his time introducing you to the characters before throwing them into their life changing event, crafted in an interesting way. When they do of course get to this point, the drama and action really pick up in the final pages of the TPB. The Fantastic Four are nicely developed in "THE FANTASTIC" story arc. From Reed to Ben, they are very reminiscent of their counterparts to a point, only younger, much less mature and knowledgeable in other things aside from their specified field of expertise. The introduction of the Mole Man as the villain was a nice starter, you could really detest this man and not feel sorry for him. Victor Von "Damne(?)" was nicely characterized, and is even better in VOL. 2.
To make a long story short, Bendis and Millar craft an intelligent retelling of the fantastic four. To be frank it won't please everyone, especially not the HARD-CORE Fantastic Four fans. There are indeed glitches in the writing concerning the age of Reed and Ben, but it something that's gonna have to be looked over. The artist, Adam Kurbert I believe, was an excellent choice for this starting of the series (better than Jae Lee). Each frame of action is described excellently and art in and of itself (most of the time) is a splendor to behold. His description of facial expressions (I.E, Johnny discovering his arm is on fire and he tries to put it out) are priceless and genuinely funny to boot. There are some problems in the drawing, such as the constantly pointed out size difference of Ben Grimm and Reed Richards during their childhood. Another gripe: Reed doesn't have the trademark gray sideburns in his hair (sighs dejectedly). All in all ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR volume one is a great way to start up the series and in my opinion a good way to introduce these "superheroes" to a younger audience. Highly recommended. ------ [a 5 out of 5]
A major disappointment. Like I've said in some of my eariler reviews, sometimes this is just no fun at all. Whilst it's always funny to rip into, say, Pop Idol or something, here it's just... sad.
The Ultimate series of Marvel comics was a potentially awful idea done to surprisingly awesome effect. Taking the well worn ideas and characters from the Marvel Universe, going straight back to square one and re-imagining the origins and original characters could well have blown up in the writers faces. But not so. The writing in some of these books is simply superb, and sometimes makes the impossible seem scarily possible. Ultimate Spider-Man, of course, is a constant delight, with top class banter, witty one-liners and some brutal action (with the exception of the heartbreakingly average Venom and Carnage re-do's), and then there's the Ultimates (the Avengers) and... oooh, oodles more. Like I said - top idea.
But not here. Again, the characters are made teenagers, which is fine for, say, Spidey, who WAS a teenager in the first place, but a sixteen/seventeen year old Ben Grimm just doesn't cut it. Also, the script lacks major bite. After what we've seen with Spidey et al, we really do need something special to warrant another spin on the Marvel franchise (especially for its oldest family) and there's nothing here that excites or, crucially, convinces. In short, it just makes you pine for the original books.
The most galling thing though, is the sham that is Dr Doom (or, I'm sorry, Dr Damme). Change what you like from the original comics guys; the crummy banter, some dodgy storylines, but DO NOT REPLACE the original character names. So, what, a guy called Victor Von Doom isn't realistic, but having a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BOY design and build the Fantasti-Car, an interdimensional rocket ship, is?? As the Human Torch himself said, "dude.. that's Fantasti-crappy."
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
