Fantastic Four #583
I’ve heard a lot of positive buzz about Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four and Marvel has been promoting this new storyline heavily; so I thought this would be a great issue to review. I have to say, that overall, this issue was fine but not spectacular in any way.
SPOILER WARNING I really enjoyed the part where Dr. Doom is preparing to abdicate the throne for the good of his country and its people. It shows him to be something other then a self-absorbed crazed megalomaniac who views Latveria and its people as mere tools to be used for his own personal gain. Valeria Richards’ conversation and subsequent deal with Dr. Doom, along with her breaking into her father’s lab, are the two other parts of the issue that I enjoyed. Both events display Valeria’s genius level intellect while at the same time displaying her childish judgment and naïveté. The real short coming of this issue for me and what made it only an OK read, rather then something more, was what happens to Valeria when she goes through her fathers Bridge machine. Valeria travels to another dimension where she meets the Council which is comprised of different versions of her father from parallel realities. At the time she travels to the Council’s citadel it is under attack from four Celestials. This attack forces the Council to flee with Valeria back through the Bridge to her home. These are some pretty important events but for some reason Hickman decides to tell this part of the story without any dialog or exposition. I’m not going to try and guess the reason why he choose to do this but I will say it results in a lot of information being left out and weakens the overall story. As for the Fantastic Four they spend the issue battling in the Neutral Zone between the United States and the High Evolutionary’s Forever City. These parts of the issue just seemed to be filler but they could turn out to be very important as this storyline progresses. END SPOILER WARNING
As I stated at the beginning of this review this issue was a solid but not spectacular read. I do look forward to reading the rest of this storyline, if only, to see if this latest Marvel event storyline lives up to any of the hype. I’m reasonably sure that someday one of these “this will change everything”,” someone will die” or “nothing will ever be the same again” type of storylines has got to live up to all the advanced hype they get.
Keith Forney