Fantastic Four #583-588

Fantastic Four #583-588

Originally released in 2010

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Steve Epting (#583-587), Mark Brooks and Nick Dragotta (#588)

The casting for the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Fantastic Four movie was announced yesterday, so that seems like as good of a justification as any to jump back into Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run.  The storyline boldly advertises that one of the Fantastic Four will die, but death in comic books is not a permanent thing by any stretch of the imagination.  Unless a character's death is crucial to someone's motivation, like Thomas and Martha Wayne in Batman or Spider-Man's Uncle Ben, they're not going to stay dead, especially if we don't see a body. (and even if we do see a body, there are still ways out, like a character going into a comatose state that closely resembles death in order to recover)

As a result, even if one of the Fantastic Four does die in this storyline, it won't stick, but it serves as a way to shake up the status quo and let the team try something new while exploring concepts like grief and loss.  Hickman does his best to make it unclear who will die, though, putting each member of the Fantastic Four into a situation that seems fatal and extremely difficult for them to walk away from - Reed is dragged to the other side of the universe by Galactus, who uncovered the corpse of his future self that was killed by the people of Nu-World and wishes to prevent this from happening.  Sue is helping to negotiate between the various undersea kingdoms that call themselves Atlantis, but she's stuck at the bottom of the ocean and Namor's temper is causing problems.  Meanwhile, Ben has taken the serum that will let him be human for one week, and unfortunately, this happens to be the week that the forces of Annihilus choose to invade the Baxter Building in order to force open a portal to the Negative Zone and send a second Annihilation Wave into the universe, leaving it to Ben, Johnny, and the Future Foundation to stop it.

As all of this is happening, Valeria (Reed and Sue's daughter, and Doctor Doom's goddaughter) is making a deal with Doctor Doom - Doom has suffered brain damage recently, and Valeria is offering to fix it if Doom helps Reed at some point in the future.  There's a lot going on, but Hickman does a good job at juggling these plot points.

Sue seems like the least likely to be in danger out of the four of them, but Namor makes for an interesting wildcard in this situation.  It's never clear how much of what he says is the truth, based on misinformation, or outright lies in order to manipulate events to reach a conclusion that he wants. (there was a point where I thought that he had used everyone as puppets to reach a point where Sue would be forced to be in a relationship with him, or outright marry him, in order to join the various undersea kingdoms together)

Steve Epting's art is great here, with the Silver Surfer being a stand-out; Epting does a good job with depicting him as a cosmic being where it's never really clear whose side he's on.  There's an outstanding scene where Ben (in his human form) meets Alicia, and seeing the two of them on the verge of tears, finally being able to be together like an ordinary couple, could very well bring tears to your own eyes.

There's another scene that's even more touching in hindsight - Johnny uses this opportunity to give Ben the sort of day that he's missed out on ever since becoming the Thing, which includes meeting with old friends.  The friends in question aren't identified in the comic itself, but they're very clearly Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, serving as a nice tribute to the two men who created the Fantastic Four.

The real waterworks come in the final few issues.  Right from the start, Mark Brooks gives us a look at Ben after he finds out about the "death" in question, and the look on his face is utterly heartbreaking.  I realize that mentioning that is a bit of a giveaway that Ben isn't the one who dies, but this image stuck with me.

This issue, advertised as the "final" issue of the Fantastic Four, is almost dialogue-free for the first two-thirds, focusing on the mourning of the entire superhero community over the apparent death of one of the members of the Fantastic Four.  The story continues in FF #1 (which I assume is short for Future Foundation), which involves Spider-Man taking over as the fourth member of the team.  Hickman, Epting, Brooks, and Nick Dragotta (who drew a story where Spider-Man has a talk with Franklin about processing grief and loss) all do an amazing job here, and I'm interested to see how Spider-Man meshes with the team, along with finding out what else happens in FF #1.