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.

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 8/8/12

The Mighty Thor #18

Story - Matt Fraction & Kieron Gillen
Script - Matt Fraction
Penciler - Alan Davis
Inker - Mark Farmer
Colorist - Javier Rodriguez
Letterer - VC's Joe Sabino

This weeks top of the pile is a book I isn’t part of my pull list from the comic shop. The Mighty Thor #18 has the honor of being read first due to the fact that it is the beginning of a story arc that will contain the book Journey Into Mystery, which I do subscribe to and enjoy. They Asgard books are doing a crossover event called “Everything Burns” which will be a huge battle with the fire giant Surtur.

Written by Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen with pencils by the phenomenal artist Alan Davis, this was a book I wanted to read to see if it was worth adding the extra title to collect the whole “Everything Burns” event, or to drop Journey Into Mystery since I find these cross book storylines a pain.

As far as the story goes, I think it will be pretty good. It seems for the last couple years Asgard is in one existential crisis after another and only Thor can save the day. But I mentioned that I am only picking up Journey Into Mystery, which tell the story of a young, reincarnated Loki. Without the pure malevolence, I find this Loki a wonderful character. He tries to fight against his nature to do bad. He tries to do what’s right. But no one thinks he has changed that much from his old evil self. However, there was precious little of young Loki this book. I’m sure he’ll have more of a presence as the story continues.

Well, I liked this book. But what made it better than average was Alan Davis’ artwork. His style hasn’t changed over the years, and that’s a good thing since his style is wonderful for comic books. His draughtsmanship is top notch and clearly advances the narrative. Unlike some comic art where there are expressionless and featureless figures. His expressions and figures are unique. And I had to take about 5 minutes to look at the group battle double page spread.

So when the next issues of this story come out, I'll liked this issue enough to continue getting the story. But I'll wait till the end of the crossover event to read the complete tale in one sitting. I find this much more rewarding.