Top of the Pile - 12/19/12

FF #2
By Matt Fraction, Mike and Laura Allred
Published by Marvel

The Marvel NOW is going along pretty well. Of the books I have picked up, I have liked them fine. But the Jonathan Hickman Fantastic Four and FF were two books I looked forward to each month. And now that Matt Fraction is writing these, I’m a little more skeptical. Where Hickman thought cosmically with alternate universes and time jumps, Fraction is only dealing with one alternate universe. This saves on much confusion. The FF book tells the story of four replacement members of the Fantastic Four, (Ant-Man, She Hulk, Medusa and Ms. Thing) who are minding the story while the real Fantastic Four is away. Technically for only 4 minutes, something goes wrong and the replacements term of service is much longer.

I like this book. With all new characters, personalities are much more pronounced in this new iteration of the book. There is some fun moments and good action. In this issue, much like the first issue of Fantastic Four from 1961, The Mole Man attacks because he’s offended that these upstart newcomers are not the “real” Fantastic Four.

And with the unique artwork by the Allreds, this book should be fun as long as the creative team sticks together. I really enjoyed his work in I, Zombie and his style is so different than most Marvel books, it is definitely a positive aspect of this book. The humor also comes in a visual style as Medusa is ringing a bell for a maid to serve her, and being ignored as all the others are eating breakfast together.

So is this good for libraries? Indeed. Rated T+, there is the usual fantasy violence. But as for language and sex, there is nothing that wouldn't be appropriate for a young adult collection.