In this column, our resident ‘comics guy’ Fred Azeredo expounds on a single comic book issue every month. Not necessarily the biggest, not necessarily the best, just one he thinks is worth discussing! See if you agree!
You can’t blame Marvel for rolling out a new #1 to tie in with their latest big-screen release—it makes obvious business sense—but in this instance, it feels more than a little superfluous. Scripter Ryan North has been on the title since 2022, and remains so. The same One World Under Doom storyline is also carried over from the last run, so the writer and the ongoing narrative alike remain unchanged. Admittedly, Cory Smith’s replacement with Humberto Ramos on art duties is a change, but both keep so close to Marvel’s house style that the difference is scarcely noticeable. In every way, this feels like an editorial decision pushed through artificially at the expense of storytelling.
But that’s all a bit pedantic, I know. Who cares about the number on the cover? Is it any good? Well, it’s… okay. My main complaint here is that, like most of North’s run, the book is intermittently clever but ultimately betrays a shallow view of Marvel’s First Family. Look, they’re bantering! Look, tenth- grade science! Look, a vaguely novel twist on a classic SF plot device! This is, I guess, what those only somewhat familiar with the FF must think the Fantastic Four are. North certainly remains true to that, but he also misses important nuances. Notably, Sue describes her husband Reed as “as sketchy as he is smart, and he’s the smartest man on the planet”. Is some marital counselling in order? The plot itself, in which Doom scatters the Four throughout time and they use a Forever Stone to contact each other, is fun but hardly groundbreaking.
This is all perfectly readable, of course, but it feels oddly like pigeonholing Marvel’s greatest ensemble at precisely the moment when they should be most celebrated. We still remember a decade ago when the publisher unceremoniously axed “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” to prevent their rivals at Fox from getting free publicity. The Fantastic Four are riding high again, but that’s mostly because the MCU has bet its increasingly uncertain future on them. Marvel persists in denying this storied title the reverence it deserves; DC, for all its faults, has published Action Comics since 1938. Instead, we get comics like these, just diverting enough to hook some filmgoers for a few issues. When the high-water mark of Jonathan Hickman’s modern classic run is right there, that’s simply not good enough.