Fantastic Four #571 Review

FANTASTIC FOUR #571

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Dale Eaglesham

+ Putting the fantastic in Mr Fantastic.  Reed Richards hasn't been this fun to read in about a hundred issues, way back when Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo first took over the book.

+ Dale Eaglesham is putting out some of his best work ever.  His Reed is a little too buff for my liking, but everything else is golden.  It looks like he just needed a change of scenery to get the creative juices flowing again after some lackluster (at least for him, were still better than most anything on the market) final issues on Justice Society of America.

+ Jonathan Hickman is also doing some fun and wonderful things with Marvel's first family.  Where Mark Millar's recent run went with style over substance for its shock moments, there was very little actual science or 'fantastic' in the book.  Hickman has a clear grasp of Reed, who's been the focus of these early chapters on the run, and has turned this into the science adventure book it should be.

+ The "Multiverse".  Marvel has dabbled with a multiverse before, but never so blatantly has it been approached and it's kind of funny that it's now officially better than DC's own Multiverse, which DC has struggled to do anything with since reintroducing it back in 52.  Looking forward to exploring this new and exciting place, even if it's through the army of Reed Richards making up this multiversal Council.

- While Hickman understands Reed and his relationship with Sue, as of right now, everyone else is a mere characiture of their past selves.  The Human Torch is still the petulant teen, but in a man-child's body.  The Thing is, well, the Thing.  He has his gruff, rocky exterior (both personality and physically) and the heart of gold, but mostly just been used for the odd one-liner here and there.  And the Invisible Woman is just Reed's wife.  She's there to show concern for him, but lacks any real independance or defining characteristics outside of Reed at this point.  It's still only two issues in and this is decidedly a Reed-centric arc, but I hope to see some personality and fleshing out of the other members of this family at some point.

- Dr Doom's get moldy when stored in the basement.  Using electronic collars to 'lobotimize' Dr Dooms from across the Multiverse and then locking them all in the Council's basement is the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things.  Which Reed okay'd killing Galactuses, but opted for letting Dr Doom off with a lobotomy?  Stand up.  You're off the council.  If you can kill Galactus, you can kill Doom.  We all know one Dr Doom is going to wake up the rest and we'll have the Dr Doom Corps War on our hands (that actually sounds awesome, so may retract my negative for this point).

Verdict - Buy It.  Very, very solid start to Hickman's and Eaglesham's run on Fantastic Four and each issue has been better than the previous so far.  Would like to see more of the other Fantastic Four members, but also understand it's only two issues into the run and there's time to explore them later.

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