"Ultimate Fantastic Four: Frightful"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Ultimate Fantastic Four: Frightful” as presented in Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection format.

            Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/Thing were altered in a teleportation malfunction and became the Fantastic Four. After their public outing, the team were returning to their home, the government think tank the Baxter Building, by helicopter with military escort. As their helicopter approached the Baxter Building, it was hit by an electromagnetic pulse. The Fantastic Four softened the helicopter’s crash landing into the Baxter Building roof. Upon disembarking, the Fantastic Four and their military escort discovered several identification cards belonging to Baxter Building staff scattered on the roof, including Franklin Storm’s, Sue, and Johnny’s father. As the Fantastic Four and their military escort entered the laboratory levels, they received a taunting message from Rhona Burchill, the setter of the trap. Rhona had been a Baxter Building applicant but had been denied admission due to Reed’s acceptance in the think tank. Upon discovering the Baxter Building staff tied up, the Fantastic Four and their military escort were incapacitated by Rhona’s robotic servant, Bobby. Rhona projected her life into Reed’s brain using a serum Rhona devised. Rhona started an auction on the Fantastic Four, selling them to Latveria. As Rhona attempted to load the Fantastic Four for transport, Reed was able to revive. Reed also revived the other members of the Fantastic Four. Realizing she was beaten, Rhona managed to escape, threatening revenge on Reed. Later, Reed received a distress message from a Reed Richards from a parallel universe.

            Crystal, princess of an advanced sect of humans living in a refuge called Attilan hidden in the Himalayas, fled to New York City, displeased at her impending arranged marriage to Maximus, brother of Black Bolt, king of the civilization. As the royal guards attempted to bring Crystal back to Attilan, Johnny attempted to come to her rescue and fought the guards but was beaten. Johnny and Crystal were saved by Crystal’s teleporting dog Lockjaw. After retreating to the Baxter Building, Crystal explained her situation to the Fantastic Four. Crystal was snatched away and brought back to Attilan, where she was scolded by her sister Medusa, the Queen. The Fantastic Four used Lockjaw to teleport to Attilan. The Fantastic Four were discovered and fought the civilization and the royal family. Feeling their refuge had been tainted by the Fantastic Four’s presence and the violence they brought, Black Bolt destroyed Attilan, and the civilization left to live in a new place where they would remain undiscovered by the human race.

            The Fantastic Four stopped a group of Chrono-Bandits from committing a time crime that would have eliminated the human race. Upon returning to the Baxter Building, Professor Storm tried to remind Reed that he was a scientist foremost and not a superhero. With the help of the Reed Richards from the parallel universe, Reed was able to build an interdimensional teleporter. Reed teleported to the other Reed Richards’ universe, only to discover he had been deceived. This universe had been overrun with a zombie plague, and zombie Reed Richards had used Reed to find a way for the zombies to find more food. As Reed tried to escape from the infected superheroes of this world, he was rescued by Magneto, who had not been infected, and who was protecting a small group of survivors who had not been affected by the plague. The zombified versions of the Fantastic Four used the teleporter to reach Reed’s uninfected world. The uninfected Fantastic Four contained the zombified Fantastic Four, then used Reed’s teleporter to travel to the infected world to save Reed. The Fantastic Four and the survivors used the teleporter to travel to the uninfected world, but Magneto stayed behind to destroy the teleporter to ensure the infection could not spread further. Upon returning to the Baxter Building, Sue and Johnny were reunited with their mother, whom they had been told died in a car crash fifteen years earlier.

                        Doctor Mary Storm had faked her death and abandoned her family to lead a scientific exploration into the lost continent of Atlantis. Doctor Storm had successfully discovered Atlantis and had come to Sue to ask for the Fantastic Four’s help in reaching a depth Doctor Storm’s team was unable to reach. Sue agreed to help, but Sue told her mother that after this, Sue never wished to see her mother again. While diving in Atlantis, Reed, Sue, and Ben discovered what Doctor Storm’s research believed to be the tomb of Namor, the King of Atlantis. Namor was awakened, and in his surprise, came into conflict with the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four were able to subdue and restrain Namor. Namor offered to reveal the secrets of the advanced sciences of Atlantis, provided Namor gave them to Sue. Sue agreed, much to Reed’s jealousy. Doctor Storm asked Reed for Reed’s help in translating the Atlantean carvings from around Namor’s tomb. Sue and Namor took a trip through New York City. Namor attempted to put the moves on Sue, and when Sue rejected Namor, Namor attacked Sue. Reed translated the carvings and uncovered that what the Fantastic Four found Namor in was not a tomb, it was, in fact, a prison. Johnny and Ben tried to come to Sue’s rescue, but Namor overpowered Johnny and Ben. Reed arrived in his Fantastic Oh-Five, a robot with the combined powers of the Fantastic Four, but even that was not enough to defeat Namor. Reed used a helmet that converted Reed’s thoughts into three-dimensional constructs, but the power it required was too costly, and the device was shut off. The Fantastic Four were able to overpower Namor, but in defeat, Namor summoned a water monster. Sue was forced to give into Namor’s demands in order to make Namor retreat. Doctor Storm left to meet with the new owner of the company that provided funding for Doctor Storm’s work, Victor Van Damme/Doctor Doom.

            Reed traveled to the past to the day of the teleportation accident that gave the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom their powers. Reed found the Fantastic Four were intent on making sure the teleportation accident didn’t occur, a decision that surprised Reed. Back in the present, Johnny was celebrating his birthday. Johnny played a prank on Ben that made Ben a laughingstock at the party. The Fantastic Four realized how much the transformation into the Thing upset Ben, and as Reed had been unable to cure Ben, the Fantastic Four concluded the only way to fix Ben would be to ensure the teleportation accident never occurred. The Fantastic Four enacted this plan, and the world changed. The Skrulls had provided the human race with a drug that gave them superpowers, and everyone on the planet except Ben Grimm took them. Thor was president of the United States of America, and Reed Richards was vice president. The Super-Skrull was making a visit to Earth to meet with President Thor. However, the Skrulls were secretly not benevolent and used this same tactic to assimilate technology and resources from races of planets before eliminating them. Sue found this out, and the Super-Skrull eliminated her. The Skrulls used the drug to eliminate the entire human race, save for the one human being who hadn’t taken it: Ben Grimm. Ben fought the Super-Skrull, then had to use time travel technology to prevent the Fantastic Four from averting the teleportation accident. With the world back how it was supposed to be, Ben was again depressed… until he met a blind woman named Alica Masters, who was not put off by Ben’s outward appearance as the Thing.

            While on a double date with Ben and Alicia, Johnny fell ill. Reed, refusing to destroy the zombie Fantastic Four, continued working on finding a way to return the zombie Fantastic Four to the infected universe after discovering in ten days’ time, inter-dimensional transference between the two universes would not be possible for another fifty billion years. The Fantastic Four discovered Johnny had an alien incubating inside him that would be potentially devastating to every living thing on Earth, and that the alien would hatch in seven days. The military planned to exile Johnny to the N-Zone to protect all life on Earth. With no one else to turn to, Reed, Sue, and Ben went to Latveria to see Doctor Doom to ask for his assistance. The zombie Fantastic Four escaped captivity, and the top half of the Baxter Building was sealed to contain them. Doctor Doom agreed to help Reed get rid of the alien in Johnny, provided Reed allow Doctor Doom to secretly swap bodies with Reed. Seeing no other option, Reed agreed. Doctor Doom in Reed’s body, Ben, Sue, and Reed in Doctor Doom’s body returned to the Baxter Building. The zombie Fantastic Four planned to use Reed’s teleporter to bring the zombies of the infected world to an uninfected world. Doctor Doom in Reed’s body used a spell in an attempt to banish the alien in Johnny to the N-Zone but instead summoned it to Earth. The alien needed a human host, and Reed in Doctor Doom’s body had to find a way to get rid of the alien, stop the zombie invasion, and return to Reed’s body.

            Okay, now that we’ve got the plot summary out of the way, let’s move on to the individualized segments of my review. We’ll start off with, as we always do, my own individual input on the graphic novel. I will say that I found this book to be relatively enjoyable. I found the portrayal of the Baxter Building as a government sponsored think tank to be an interesting concept. I enjoyed the Ultimate introductions of the beings who are otherwise known as the Inhumans, and of Namor. I thought the zombie story arcs were well executed, and I liked how Magneto was forced into the position of a protector of humans. I actually found myself enjoying the return of Doctor Storm into Sue and Johnny’s lives, she was just a character I loved to hate, and the helmet scene with her was hysterical. I enjoyed seeing a world where everyone had superpowers and how the one normal person who didn’t subscribe to the Skrulls’ miracle drug had to save the whole human race. I loved seeing how far Reed was willing to go for his friends Ben and Johnny, both to try to find a way to cure Ben of being the Thing, and of saving Johnny from the alien. Changing history and swapping bodies with your worst enemy shows the signs of a truly devoted friend. That said, I honestly didn’t feel like these stories really stood out. To me, they just weren’t anything super special or spectacular. I liked these stories, but I just wasn’t totally wowed or blown away by them. Also, Thor should not legally be able to be president of the United States of America, according to the Constitution since he was not born in the United States. I’m not even sure if he’s even legally an American citizen. Now, as this is a graphic novel, we have to focus on the art as well as the story. I will say that I did not enjoy Jae Lee’s work in this graphic novel. Visually, I don’t like the way Lee draws faces. I was a fan of Greg Land’s work on the rest of the graphic novel, though. Another thing I critique when I review a graphic novel is the title, how appropriate it is for the graphic novel as a whole. The potential given choices were “Think Tank,” “Crossover,” “Tomb of Namor,” “President Thor,” and “Frightful,” the latter four all being three issue story arcs and tied as the longest story arcs in the collection. Given these choices, I do feel like “Frightful” was the best possible choice as title for this collection. Finally, I’m going to talk about the cover. This collection’s cover features the Fantastic Four in the foreground, with Doctor Doom in the background, holding his hands up with strings coming from his fingers, attached to the Fantastic Four. I feel like this cover is trying to say that Doctor Doom is holding the Fantastic Four like puppets under his control. I also don’t feel like this truly happened in this collection, so I feel like this was not a good choice to use as a cover. I feel like there could be better choices for covers that would more accurately represent this collection and deliver on the promise given on the cover.

            Next up, we’re going to discuss accessibility. Now, I know some of you might not know what I mean when I apply the word “accessibility” to a book review, and some of you have been to at least one of my over seven dozen other reviews and already know what I mean by this, but I do have to explain it again. The question I’m posing is “how accessible is this book?” What I mean by this is, how well can a person who knows absolutely nothing about the Fantastic Four obtain this book, read it cover to cover, and understand everything as it is presented with no outside knowledge of the subject matter? I will say that this book is vaguely accessible. It’s marketed as Vol. 2, and it does begin exactly where Vol. 1 left off. It builds on a storyline that has already been constructed. However, this does have a sense of self-containment. It collects issues from one series only, and does not tie in to any events or storylines from other comic series from the time of release. It does feature characters from other series in supporting roles, but knowing their full histories is not imperative to understanding this particular volume. If you’re new to Marvel Comics and are looking for a place to start reading, I don’t recommend picking this as your first choice, but if you do read the previous volume first, this series is fully accessible.

            Moving on, I’m going to give this graphic novel a numeric score. I score media on a very basic scale, on exact whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If a book gets a score of a one, that means it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever read and that I regret every cent I spent on purchasing it and every second I spent reading it and wish I could take it all back. If, however, I score a book at a ten, that means that this is one of the best things I’ve ever read and spending the money on it was worth every cent and the time I spent reading it were some of the best hours of my life. I’m often a very tough critic. I don’t just give a book a ten unless it truly is perfection and there was nothing I can complain about. When I score a book, I’m considering if the story was thoroughly enjoyable, if the art was consistently visually appealing, if the title accurately describes the essence of the storylines, and if the cover is an accurate depiction of the content inside the book. So, based on all of these factors, mixing everything together and blending out a score, I’m ranking this book as… a six. The stories were not of the highest caliber, the art was for the main part visually pleasing, the title was adequate, but the cover did not deliver on its promise.

            Finally on our docket of topics to discuss is my recommendation segment. This segment always answers two separate questions. Question number one is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is, regardless of if I would personally tell you to read this book or not, what qualities of a reader would find this book most appealing? To answer my first question, the answer is yes, I do recommend this book to you. If you’ve read this review and are now completely invested in reading this book based solely on the words you’ve just spent the past few minutes reading, I would tell you to go to your preferred online retailer, your favorite bookstore, your local comic book store, your public library, or try to mooch it off of a friend who loves Marvel. As for the type of reader who might like this, we’ll go beyond the obvious of fans of the Fantastic Four, Marvel, and the creative team, and I’ll say readers who enjoy zombie stories would like this, horror fans could find this enjoyable, and readers who enjoy stories about utopian societies becoming dystopias might find this book up their alley.

            Okay, we’re getting to the point where I’m about ready to wrap everything up. There are a few things I’d like to discuss before I hit post. The first is that I have been doing this blog for almost six years now. In that time, I have published over 190 posts. In the past, I have posted short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials. There is plenty of other content on this blog, so if you ever have some more free time and are in the mood, please continue browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com for more of my work. I’ve reviewed prose novels, comic book events, and manga, as well as reviewing over seven dozen other Epic Collections. I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released, and if possible, put up a review as soon as I can after reading it. I post on a very frequent basis because of this. These two types of content are my main focus on his blog at the moment. If you liked this review and have time, feel free to check out my review of “Ultimate Fantastic Four: The Fantastic” for more Ultimate Fantastic Four content. My next review is going to be “Deadpool: X X Baby” you can expect that to be posted within the next two weeks following this review, so keep checking back for it. I’ll be doing this blog for as long as I possibly can, so you can expect this blog to keep coming for quite a while. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!