The Adventures of the Fantastic Four Continues!
Brief Introduction:
After reading the first volume of Jonathan Hickman’s run of “Fantastic Four,” I wanted to check out the rest of this series and see more adventures from the “Fantastic Four!” Unfortunately, “Fantastic Four: Volume Two” was just an average read for me because while it had some interesting scenes with the Fantastic Four, it lacked the action that was shown in the first volume and the plotlines in this volume had many slow scenes that made it difficult for me to read through.
What is the story?
After the events of the first volume, the Fantastic Four start having adventures in visiting four different lands which includes meeting up with one of their enemies, the Mole Man and discovering a terrible secret that involves his people, going down to the kingdom of Atlantis and finding a new emissary for the voice of man, going to the moon and meeting with the Inhumans and going through the Negative Zone!
What I loved about this comic:
Jonathan Hickman’s writing: I actually enjoyed the set up that Jonathan Hickman was providing for the Fantastic Four’s next adventure which might include the War of the Four Cities and I was extremely interested in seeing how all the events that happened in this book will play out in the future stories. I also loved the way that Jonathan Hickman portrayed each character in this volume with Johnny Storm being the hilarious and feisty little brother to Sue Storm, Sue Storm being the intelligent and supportive role model for the team, Reed Richards being the team’s scientific mind and Ben Grimm being the wisecracking powerhouse of the team. Probably the story that I liked the best in this volume was Johnny Storm’s encounter with the Negative Zone as it really showed the positive aspects of his character and some character development on his part and also, Johnny Storm is always a favorite character of mine!
Dale Eaglesham’s artwork: Dale Eaglesham’s artwork in this series was always a pleasure for me since the characters look so realistic and I also loved the way that the characters sort of glowed on the pages which made the artwork so gorgeous to look at. I loved the way that the characters have well-defined bodies, especially Johnny Storm and Reed Richards’ bodies being muscular around the arms. I also loved the way that Dale Eaglesham did the artwork for the action scenes as you can see flames being shown whenever a city is destroyed.
What made me feel uncomfortable about this book:
The reason why I gave this volume a three star rating is because while this volume was trying to set up the events for the War of Four Cities, the pacing for the stories in this volume were a bit too slow and the constant scientific dialogues spoken between the characters sort of bored me to death. Also, since I am still new to the “Fantastic Four” comics, I still find most of these plots to be a bit confusing and I was still lost whenever the characters were mentioning about an upcoming threat that deals with several different cities since I am not well-versed in the world of the Fantastic Four. Also, the stories in this volume seem to be all over the place and it was hard to keep up with the main story of this volume or what it would eventually lead to.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, “Fantastic Four: Volume Two” was just an average read for me since the plot was moving a bit too slow, despite some good moments with the characters like Johnny Storm and the Thing. Even though this was not my favorite volume, I am hoping that the “Fantastic Four” series will pick up the pace in the later volumes.
