Fantastic Four #555

What can I say about this weeks POW that Conor hasn’t already touched on? Though I agree with him that this title should be more Sci-Fi than Super Hero and Millar certainly handles these characters exceptionally well, I still think this could have been better.

 

Even though I don’t usually find myself being overly critical of the whole “cover vs. content� debate, I must admit that having the cover image in no way reflect what happens in this issue pretty annoying. There was no exodus to Nu-World to be found in this installment, and Sue doesn’t even appear in the book, let alone Franklin or Valeria. Could I be nit picking, maybe but it still rubbed me the wrong way, possibly because a massive evacuation as implied on the cover would have meant that something major would have happened and we would have been thrust into action, but this was not the case.  Instead we were treated to a tour of Nu-World and arc set-up, part 2. I don’t mean to give the impression that this is a bad thing by any means, just not what I was expecting or looking forward to based on the cover image and my own speculation.

 

Hitch did a fantastic job penciling the pages for Nu-World, giving the reader such a grand scope of the project that it was nearly palatable. I was instantly reminded of the great visuals of Earth 2 in the modern remake of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and that’s impressive. These pages might even be too good, because I found that a lot of the other panels felt somewhat lack-luster in comparison. Take the battle between Johnny and his new “flame�. (Pardon the pun, but I don’t think she was given a name yet.) Not only did most of the bridge sequence lack Hitch’s usual attention to detail, but I’m still not sure what this new female super villain’s power is. Can she “force push� objects? Maybe she has telekinesis? Perhaps she can form huge gusts of wind? These are questions that could have been answered by the art, text, or a combination of the two but we’re left guessing. The fact that there were no sound effects also felt kind of odd.

 

All in all, this was still an enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to following it, but I do feel that it could have been a little more solid.