Product Description

Two of Marvel's hottest creators join forces for the latest adventures of Marvel's First Family of Superheroes! Who is Mrs. Fantastic? And how will her return into Reed's life rock the Fantastic Four? Readers also get to meet the Invisible Woman's brand new super-team! Other adventures featured ask the questions: Who are the New Defenders and why does their appearance on Earth foretell the eventual extinction of mankind? And who has liberated Doctor Doom from his incarceration awaiting trial - and why? Collects Fantastic Four #554-561.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #185647 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Millar and Hitch re-unite for Marvel's first family!
It's been one of the most hotly anticipated FF runs to come around in years. Writer Mark Millar and red-hot penciller Bryan Hitch, the two men who made their names on the acclaimed Ultimates run together again on one of Marvel's A-list books. No doubt Marvel made a big deal of this to the point of even posting a trailer on their website and giving the book a modern make over. Clearly they were going all out on this so was the hype justified? Yes.....and no.
Millar has developed the reputation of being a fearless writer. Much like his fellow Scot Grant Morisson at DC, he's the guy Marvel goes to if they want a majour status quo shake up (Civil War for example). But Millar has decided not to take an aggresive approach this time round. Instead he's decided to go for a slightly darker approach. The first story contains a visit from an old flame of Reed Richards jokingly called "Ms.Fantastic". She tells Reed that the world may be coming to an end in just 10 years time so a gathering of billionaires has put her charge of building a "New Earth" designed be a utopia. However like all utopias things don't turn out that well and the planets security system CAP goes "2001 Space Odessey" and starts a rampage leading to massive team-up between the FF and the Avengers. "Great to see us all fighting together for a change" as The Thing puts it. In the end it's just your typical FF story as suprise, suprise Reed builds a wacky device and the world is saved. Decent story with some good action but nothing too spectacular. Also some FF purists will not like how Sue is compared to Reed's old flame "Ms.Fantastic." The second story shows an improvement though. This time Dr.Doom drops by warning the team that a group from the future are out to get them to save the future. We also see and old but slightly familiar older women hired to be the babysitter for Franklin and Valeria. She discovers something shocking about little Val. Now this I liked because I've always found Val to be a slightly useless character so I'm glad that finally someone has decided to do something about her. The climax is a shocker. I won't give too much away other than to say it might go down as one Doom's finest hours.
Millar's story-telling is fast paced as ever and I'm glad to say he's kept some of that witty dialogue in there for The Torch and The Thing. Some fans don't like him for it but I was actually willing to see him do something really drastic and shocking that would rock everyone's socks off that we'd be talking about for years to come but that doesn't seem likely. Maybe he has too much respect for the FF to do that. Hitch's art is excellent and well thought out as ever but there are some small things that bug me about it. I'm not a fan of Reeds new shaved head and the Thing looks messy at times. The women are beautiful looking as ever though and much like in Ultimates, the detail shown in the action scenes are stunning.
If you are a devoted fan of the two Brits then you may enjoy it. It's hard to judge however how well it will go down with hardcore FF fans. I doubt very much they will see this a classic run and Millar/Hitch have a long way to go to compete with Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo as the best modern FF run.