Advance Review: Fantastic Four #31 (LGY #677)

With all the Marvel events getting all the attention, coupled with the excitement that is building in the X-books with the Hellfire Gala, you may have missed that something pretty big is happening in the Fantastic Four. This issue sees the first part of the Bride of Doom storyline, which thanks to the big reveal of the identity of the bride kind of negates the great “hidden by the veil” cover.

A museum celebrating Latverian artefacts and royal treasures brings Ben, Alicia, their kids, Johnny and Sky out for a night of culture, especially as Alicia’s Doom statues are included. Of course her work pales in comparison to true Latverian works, but this is just the backdrop for the shenanigans that revolve around Johnny and his litany of ex and current flames, pardon the pun. These elements are the distraction for the main event.

Dan Slott has kind of fallen into a nice little routine with this book. The extended family of both Reed and Sue, along with Ben and Alicia ground the book. By doing so, the focus is aimed at family rather than action. It is a nice change of pace from books like Avengers which has lacked nuance for quite some time. It helps to have a working knowledge of the characters in this book as a lot of history is brought up; for newbies Slott manages to work some exposition into the dialogue with the typical Marvel humour style. Is everyone in the Marvel universe a smart-ass? The cliff hanger is well worked, though there are plenty of other story threads left hanging, the biggest for me only gets one panel.

The art is provided by R.B. Silva who drops a good looking night out. Everyone looks like who they are and are, for those keeping score. Silva’s art could be described as smoke and mirrors to some degree. What I mean is that everything looks kind of right, the postures, the body frame. But there can be a lack of details to faces, take a look and you will be amazed at how many people have their eyes closed! With all that in mind, the art does work in most phases of the story, though I would the Alicia moment could be clearer. Colors are provided by Jesus Aburtov whose scheme is bold and carries a touch of darkness to it. Letters are supplied by VC’s Joe Caramagna who delivers in his usual excellent font use.

There is a second story in this issue, again written by Slott though featuring the art of Javier Rodríguez. It’s Reed versus Doom once more; this time the prize is a vow from which the loser cannot decline. The world as we know it is in the hands of the feud between one of comic-doms best hero and villain relationship.

I have to admit, when the ads for this series came along, I was intrigued. Now as it starts, I am curious to how it will all play out. Who says you need big events to make comics fun?

Writing – 4 Stars

Art – 4 Stars

Colors – 4 Stars

Overall – 4 Stars

Written by; Dan Slott
Art by; R.B. Silva & Javier Rodríguez
Colors by; Jesus Aburtov
Letters by; VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by; Marvel Worldwide Inc.

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network