Fantastic Four #10

Overview

Since James Robinson has jumped on board, Fantastic Four has been in one emotional roller coaster. With Johnny losing his powers, Thing in jail for “murdering” puppet master and Reed and Sue separated from their children because of once too many lies and an endearing consequence that destructed the entire the city, the separation between the groups is keeping them at bay and making them go through emotional rifts. Robinson has given them a struggle to dealing with their problems and it keeps us intrigued by feeling compassion and sadness for what they are going through and the story is keeping us at the edge of our toes to hope these heroes can strive for the better someday. So, it’s an emotional story telling that very compelling. I honestly feel the writing of the Fantastic Four has been its best since Jonathan Hickman. It’s been a really great series and I hope it keeps it pulling me because I love deep emotional stories especially with the Fantastic Four which are heroes that has brought its greatness through family. So, it looks like Robinson it keeping the family separated in darkness and hoping something will keep them together which I feel is great because that what the Fantastic Four has always been about. But it’s not just the writing that gives the emotional feel, it’s also Leonardo Kirk beautiful art that gives great emotional face expressions that shows us how these characters feel and it allows to feel great sympathy for the characters deep emotion. He also does great action and everything else is just in great detail to give beautiful artwork. So, overall it’s very compelling series that has good writing and art. So, it’s one series people should look out for and buy for a good read. But, sadly this week’s issue must have went through a rough patch of bad storytelling and a bad replacement artist that doesn’t capture the same emotional feel as Kirk. So, be prepared for a bad issue which you may avoid of not getting or enjoy as usual.

Story

As Thing is in jail, he talks to Sharon (She-Thing) of the whereabouts to where she’s been, Johnny is out partying to keep himself together. Reed struggles to fights off the Frightful Four all by himself as Sue looks for her children.

The Good

There’s not much of anything good in this issue. It’s filled with bad storytelling that looks rushed and unorganized. So, I guess all I can say is that it’s nice to find out about where Sharon’s been and at least the story plot moves forward with a surprise guest.

The Bad

I did not like this issue at all mainly because it has really bad storytelling and they weren’t giving good logical reasons for these characters to feel a certain way. For example, Sharon was mad at Thing for being there when she never contacted him when she had problems with her life. She just expected Thing to magically know and go over to her to solve her problems. I guess the problem was that this character hasn’t been around for a long time and Robinson was itchy for a reason for her to be there and he couldn’t find a good one. Another thing that bothered me is dragging of telling where she’s been because she kept hitting him as she’s telling him. I feel Robinson should have just avoided the action and focus on telling the backstory. It really feels unnecessary to them to be fighting as she is telling the story. They don’t even explain how Sharon gets to jail, she just is. Another example of the non-logical reasoning is Reed fighting off Frightful Four which a bunch D-liters that Reed usually defeats just using his tech or intelligence. But the reason he can’t win is because of unexplained magic or he can think straight because Sue isn’t there. It kind of makes Reed undependable or defenseless for every situation when he usually isn’t. I guess Robinson should have given time to explain how the Wizard got the magic for us to understand why Reed is defenseless. Another thing that bothered me is Johnny thinking of his college friend is being concerned because Reed and Sue “told him to”. “But gee you couldn’t think that maybe he’s feeling concerned because he’s your best friend and he worries about you?” It’s just a lot un-logical reasoning’s going on that makes the Fantastic Four look like they stuck on stupid.

Another bad thing in this issue is the art. Marc Laming had really bad trouble with the face expressions because they were static and looked the same when the characters are feeling mad, sad, etc. It seems like I can’t even tell if they were yelling when they were. Also the action layouts were just unorganized and sloppy. It just had one hit across the page and the next thing you know the characters are on the floor with just that one hit. So, it seems that this replacement artist is trying to rush in the issue to just get it done. Plus, the art is nowhere near as good as the previous artist which makes me feel disappointed and out of place.

Theme

The theme in this issue is “someone to lean on”. When people are going through their problems and things get too rough that they depend on someone to support them or be there to get their spirits up or remind themselves that they can do better. But sometimes people feel their friends are too sucked up on their own problems that they can’t help their problems. So, it makes them go through deeper rift of losing themselves and making the problems bigger. This is what I saw with the Fantastic Four, all of them are trying to things by themselves. But when things get rough they looked to the other side to see that something’s there but it isn’t. So, they get into the deeper hole to lose themselves like for example Johnny without his powers is useless, thus he feels like he’s wasting him being around Reed, Sue and Ben.

Verdict

I give this issue a 2/5 or 4/10 stars. It’s not a really good issue. The unexplained logical reasoning’s is giving room for bad storytelling. It just rushing to get the plot forward to the end and everything seems to be filled with nonsense in the middle. Marc Laming does a terrible job on telling the emotional compelling story that this series usually tells it. A lot the face expressions are face less with no movements and the action is so unorganized it looks like a quick and be done with it job. So, the art isn’t concise or detailed as other issues. I guess it was just a rough week to get this issue done. So, sadly this issue might not be worthy of a pickup if you’re stretching for enough comics to buy. But if you want to know what’s going on you can pick it up, you just might not enjoy it or think it’s your money’s worth. It’s just saddens me to see a series I love go through a rough patch. I just hope it will get good again in the next issue. So, it’s really up to you if you want to pick this up.

Video Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5J1urt6WwA