Fantastic Four #3

Last FF reviews: #1 & #2 (which was also yesterday's daily review). James Robinson, Leonard Kirk, Karl Kesel, and Jesus Aburtov join the F4 in their story arc that will surely split up the group!

The Good

In this issue, the F4 are recovering after a brief battle with aliens from a universe that Franklin created a while ago. This battle raged over Manhattan and it took all of the Fantastic Four to defeat the aliens. However, in the end it was Johnny Storm (Human Torch) that made the ultimate sacrifice; and lost his superpowers. Now, Johnny and the team have to deal with this problem and find out who brought this chaos to Manhattan.

So the story is moving forward, slowly, but it's starting to pan out. Already we have Johnny losing his abilities and the Fantastic Four on the case to find out who's the cause of their current dilemma. This 3rd issue does redeem, or justify, some of the events that happened last issue. Some things didn't make total sense in issue 2, but thankfully James Robinson slows down in this issue and starts to work with a few story elements (i.e. Johnny losing his powers and the origins of the other dimension aliens).

One of the things that really made this issue good was how James Robinson made Johnny handle losing his powers. It was really cool to see how Johnny wasn't blaming Reed for the loss of his powers; as Johnny was doing the right thing for the city and it's inhabitants. It was brief, but it really stood out to me and showed how much the character has grown in the last couple of years. Also, Robinson had connected the loss of Johnny's powers to his death and resurrection. It was interesting to see how that all worked out with the story at hand and also how it didn't feel forced.

Obviously there was other events in this issue that didn't directly involve Johnny, but that was a major highlight of this issue. One other thing that I found helped this issue was getting straight to the aliens origins. Yes there will be a lot going on real quickly, especially with this issue's story, but it was good to see that one thing was confirmed about the aliens. James Robinson can focus on other aspects of the story that he has now created, because not all of them were good.

The artwork was exceptional. It's got that F4 vibe, or feel, to it and it looks like what you would expect from a Fantastic Four book. I was pleased that the artwork had me really hooked into the story that was being told. Props to the art team

The Bad

A lot of things were happening in this issue. Like I said recently; Johnny lost his powers and the aliens origins were revealed. However, that's not all that happened. If you read the last issue, you know that the F4 screwed up a chunk of Manhattan with the aliens swarming in and mindlessly destroying things. While their motives are still unknown, James Robinson did decide to create separate parts of the story that didn't seem all that necessary. For example, one unnecessary part was Sue and the Future Foundation on a field trip. Yes the F4 is all about family, but is this really necessary? They just got attacked, I guess since they are the F4 it's a usual thing, however I didn't expect them to tease Namor and not have him talk at all. What kind of cameo is that? This could've been removed and the story would've seemed less crowded.

Also we get another tease to a fight with the Thing and un-powered Johnny Storm against the Frightful Four at the end of this issue. WE JUST GOT OVER THE ALIEN FIGHT LAST ISSUE; AT LEAST LET US CATCH A BREATHER! I don't know if this was necessary so soon in the series, but it could've been left off until the next issue. And on top of all that, Valeria's message to her parents about leaving and living with "Uncle Doom in Latveria" made me scratch my head. This could've fit perfectly with the first issue, I mean it was the perfect opportunity to show us Valeria and Doom and that entire message in the first issue. However, that, and everything else I've mentioned just now, are used to fill up this issue and in conclusion it's just over crowded.

If James Robinson focused more on just two parts of the story (instead of 5), I think this would've been a perfect issue. But that's not how it went down.

The Verdict

3 out of 5.

Next review from this series and tomorrow's review:

FF #4 and Original Sin #0.