Today, the hottest, hippest Fantastic Four hits the shelves with enough style and panache to choke a supermodel. Look at that new layout! Look at the cover! I feel cooler just standing next to it. Strangely, Marvel’s first family has never looked older than that cover shot (even considering the last cover with Michael Turner at the pencils where they were supposed to look older…), matured but trendy like watching an older set of celebrities on Hollywood tabloid special. And that is one of Mark Millar’s finest talents: making comic heroes seem larger than life in the most modern of senses, turning four color heroes in to glossy superstars.
After the cut: more on Fantastic Four #554; no particular spoilers, but why not go grab a copy anyway?
Now, I’ll be honest: my gold standard of Fantastic Four fare is Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo’s run. it was everything I wanted that I didn’t even know I wanted in the first place. Almost effortlessly, Waid and Wieringo crafted a book that was science-fiction family hour, that had themes that related to the reader but with a gloss of the incredible. There were villains and heroes and loss and a special appearance by the King. With this in mind, there is no possible way Millar’s Fantastic Four could be compared to what has come before it. While Waid went for the heart of the First Family, Millar is poised to take on the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.
And why not? The man loves hyperbole.
Bryan Hitch draws a more complex looking set of heroes; like I said, they look older and there’s a kind of ‘zazz’ to their lives. People remind you of movie stars and places look like they do on the covers of magazines. Everything is realistic but pulled from the high life, giving just the edge of surreality that fame often has to it. And interestingly enough, the fame doesn’t rest all on Johnny Storm’s head. The more public frontman of the team, it’s starting to look a little like the Reed and Sue Show as they get their time in the spotlight, from forming a new ‘all heroine’ organization with She-Hulk (who’s … dropped out of superheroing in her own book, just ignore that) and the Wasp (who’s worried about Hank thinking she’s leaving the Avengers? When is this book set again?) to a school teacher’s break room gossip on how if she was Mr. Fantastic’s wife, she’d never let him out of her sight. These are sexy, sexy superheroes.
It’s hard to throw a brick in the Marvel Universe and not hit a celebrity hero. It seems to be the way of things: put on a cape and take in the limelight. Ms. Marvel has a publicist, the Order have a spin doctor, the Avengers give press conferences, nothing new really until you note that the modern media of today concentrates a little too much on Brittney Spears and a little less on … well, news. When haircuts are just as important as government directives, it shows where the mind of the average American at least is at. So, I’m not really all that surprised by the change from mysterious masked man to cover girl costume and it’s prevalence in the Marvel Universe. What I am surprised at is finding it in the Fantastic Four.
Maybe I’m too indentured into the way things were before; I’ll admit that I might not even be the target audience for this new fresh take on the book, but if you look carefully enough, the freshness goes only so far. Johnny Storm’s given a few pages to make himself seem shallow and pretentious (compared to Paris Hilton in Millar’s trademark name-dropping fashion), Ben goes to visit the ol’ neighborhood, Reed is clumsy in his social interactions and handles the meat of the story, the kids are shuffled off to wherever they go when the story doesn’t need them… don’t get me wrong, this is only the first issue, but while the Millar Glam Machine is turned up to full-tilt, I wonder what’s really in store to make this fresh new makeover worthwhile. This is, after all, the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
The one item that got left off that list?
Cyclops appointing Kitty Pryde as the X-Men’s “public face” at the start of Whedon’s run of Astonishing. I’ve often wondered since, given Claremont’s ambitions for Kitty’s political future, when we’d get a chance to see Kitty learning how to work a room like The West Wing’s C.J. Cregg.
I’m guessing that, thanks to “Divided We Stand”, we’re not going to see any such things for a while to come.
Pity.
I bet that when we do, it’ll be fun.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
The FF’s celebrity status was a big part of the Lee/Kirby run, so to my mind that aspect of the new issue is a return to form more than anything else. I liked this first issue, too. It’s fresh, well-crafted, and contemporary. I look forward to the rest.