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October 18 2010

Marvel Comics
Story: Jonathan Hickman
Art: Steve Epting, Paul Mounts

It’s been impossible to read a Marvel comic over the past couple months and not know about this storyline. The ads have been everywhere and definitely sparked my interest. You tell me a long-standing fixture of the Marvel Universe is going to die, and I’m there. I’ve heard good things about Jonathan Hickman’s work on Fantastic Four going back to Issue 570, so I figured there was no better time than now to check it out.

The issue does a decent job recapping recent events, from the FF’s interactions with the High Evolutionary and an assembly of inter-dimensional Mr. Fantastics, to Doctor Doom’s loss of intellect during the “World War Hulks” event. Part of the issue focuses on the FF battling against the forces of the High Evolutionary, but it’s largely unimportant to the central plot of the issue.

The real star here isn’t even a member of the Fantastic Four, but rather Valeria Richards; Reed and Sue’s daughter. Valeria is as smart as her father, but as brash as her Uncle Johnny. She happens across a device in Reed’s lab that lets her in on what her father is up to. She realizes he’s overextending himself and putting everyone at risk. She turns to the most unlikely of allies for help and pays Doctor Doom a visit. The scenes between Valeria and Doom are easily the highlight of the issue.

This issue marks the first with Steve Epting as artist. Epting brings an interesting style to Fantastic Four; the visuals look like nothing I’ve seen from the series previously. Much like his work on Captain America, Epting uses heavy shadows for detail and emphasis, and while I personally love the style, long time FF fans may be put off by it.

All in all, the issue was fun, but not as spectacular as I was expecting. Then I read the epilogue. Those last two pages, told from the perspective of none other than the Silver Surfer, went a long way to setting up the future of this storyline. Those two pages alone have me eagerly anticipating the next issue of Fantastic Four.

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