Top of the Pile 11/14/12

Fantastic Four #1
Written by Matt Fraction
Pencils by Mark Bagley
Inks by Mark Farmer
Color by Paul Mounts
Published by Marvel

I really liked the previous run on Fantastic Four by Johnathan Hickman, and with the renumbering of the NOW! Marvel is doing, this is their restarting of their original super hero group. And it looks pretty good, in a traditional kind of way. It has the same "family" feeling I remember with the John Byrne run on FF years ago.

The story maintains the setting and characters, with all the children from the Freedom Foundation running around the Baxter Building. Also, Johnny Storm still has pull in the Negative Zone after taking over from Annihilus. But the story starts off with Mr. Fantastic getting bit by a dinosaur and starting an irreversible degradation in his unstable, cosmic irradiated molecules. Meanwhile, Franklin Richards is having bad dreams and dreading going into space.

I like Matt Fraction’s work. It’s not quite as far out as Hickman’s, but it has some super sci-fi moments. And so far with the first issue, he has left the narrative wide open allowing for the potential to run the Fantastic Four through some crazy stories. I’m looking forward to where it might go.

And the art by Mark Bagley is fine. His character drawing is very good and his space ships and sciency backgrounds are detailed and interesting. And like I say, as long as the pictures doesn’t distract from the story, it’s a good thing.

I have always thought the Fantastic Four was a good book for any public library. The art and stories are consistently good. And though the Avengers and X-Men might be the big, popular Marvel properties, hopefully this book will find a good audience.

Top of the Pile - 7/18/12

Sorry for not having an entry last week. I was getting ready to attend the San Diego Comic Con for a couple days and didn’t make it to the shop. So I have a pretty big stack this week. What I would have picked for my top of the pile last week was I, Zombie. I thought it was the final issue of that run, but it turns out there's one more coming.

This week however goes to a Marvel book, Fantastic Four #608. There are other good books that were close to the top including Daredevil #15, Saga #5 and the new Captain Marvel #1. But the Jonathan Hickman run on the Fantastic Four book has been a fun ride for the past couple years. And another definite plus is the Frank Cho cover of three superwomen. That’s why I put this at the top of my pile.

On reading, this book is one of exposition. It’s not the most exciting, but Hickman is building the larger story. It starts with T’Challa and Reed Richards entering into the Wakandan necropolis because of dreams the T’Challa has been experiencing. While T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, the current Black Panther, along with Storm and Invisible Woman go on their own vision quest to confront the Jackal God who has been attacking Wakanda.

The art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Karl Kesel and Paul Mounts is better than good. The Egyptian motif is prevalent through the book. And with some dramatic angles and interesting facial expressions, I’m glad I put this one at the top. I suspect there are other books that would be better as a single issue this week, but I’m happy that this issue of Fantastic Four didn’t disappoint.