Fantastic Four By Jonathan Hickman #3

Reed Richards establishes the Future Foundation while Johnny takes Franklin to the toy store where they have a run in with Arcade. 

Jonathan Hickman has been building towards something for some time now during his run on Fantastic Four. What exactly that is remains unclear. I can only guess at this point. He's clearly a writer with an imagination that knows no bounds. Every time I read something of his I become more fascinated with his work and just his general approach to creating comics. 

There's so many things that happened within these four issues. The Future Foundation is established here by Reed Richards. He gives the members of the FF the option of choosing their first group project which they decide will be finding a "cure' for Ben. This was one of the standout moments for me. The final page of the issue where Valeria hands Ben the cure was just a powerful and pivotal moment in these characters lives. 

The thing about Jonathan Hickman is that he concocts these crazy insane ideas that you're doing everything you can to try and keep up with and decipher. It's been like that since he first started writing this series. We know Franklin and Valeria are involved in his end game as we've seen their future selves appear but now we see Hickman bring in Nathaniel Richards, Reed's father. He's seen working with the future Franklin and Valeria. Things only get more interesting when Doom is brought into the picture. All of this takes place in the past though. What they're hoping to achieve still eludes me but I know I'm intrigued. 

Neil Edwards steps in to replace Dale Eaglesham as the artist for this installment of the series. It's almost as if Eaglesham never left though as Edwards style isn't too far off from Eaglesham's. While I do rate Edwards second between the two, his style is still a great fit for this series. Colorist Paul Mounts really makes the art special with his superb coloring. With this larger than life story, this art team does a great job bringing this script to life visually.

I've already said this before but Jonathan Hickman's run on this series is something you should be reading. If you're wondering how the Future Foundation came to be, you need to read his run and find out. I'd recommend not only reading this, but buying it. It's worth the money and deserves a spot in your comic collection.