Feels Like It Was Over Before It Started
I have an interest in the FF and The Thing's survivor's guilt, so I picked up the issue expecting to see a little about why The Thing has become one of The Worthy. Instead the issue was more about the FF battling The Thing.
It was good to see the members of the FF and Alicia try and talk The Thing down, but the mind-control of the hammer seems to be too much for their words to sway him. The futility of everything the FF and Alicia throw at The Thing is really the discouraging thing about this book. It makes the whole thing feel kind of pointless.
On the flipside, and I know I'm contradicting myself here, but Ben's resistance to the mind control is most evident when faced with seriously harming Alicia, Reed, or Sue (strangely not Dragon Man). He doesn't follow through. I haven't been following Fear Itself, but I'd like to see the force that actually knocks him free from being one of The Worthy.
Still, there are good things about this book. Grummett's art does a great job of portraying the limited emotions that Ben feels in this issue. There's a lot of grim, angry looks, but on occasion we see cracks in The Thing's facade. The writing is decent, but nothing too special. It does the job without being clunky or corny, which is harder than it seems in this kind of story.
One last thing: