Now this is more like it. Overall, the first story arc on this title boasted a surprisingly conventional tone, not at all what I expect from a book set in Marvel's Ultimate continuity. Here, Warren Ellis brings a maturity and intelligence to the Fantastic Four with his wild but thoroughly convincing sci-fi theories on how super-powers work. He also provides some strong characterization here and transforms a classic Marvel character into a much stronger female lead. Reinforcing the more refined feel of this super-hero book is the realistic linework of the reunited art team from ShockRockets and Superstar: Stuart Immonen and Wade Von Grawbadger. The interior art is great; it's a shame, though, that we're presented with yet another compltely generic Ultimate comic-book cover.
In the weeks following the accident that transformed Reed Richards and his friends into superhumans, the young physicist works tirelessly to figure out what went wrong. he's come to one unavoidable conclusion: his colleague, Victor Van Damme, tinkered with a piece of technology that threw off the Negative Zone teleportation project. That leads to an unavoidable question, though: what happened to Victor? Meanwhile, Susan Storm has been doing research of her own, as she tries to determine how she and the other three have been changed and how their powers and bodies now work.
Immonen grabs the reader's attention right away with a grand scope, not just of the New York skyline but of the cataclysmic nature of the accident that altered the characters' lives. But gradually, Immonen moves away from the immense and fantastic elements to quieter, more grounded ones. We start off looking at Reed, rendered small by the weirdness that has become an integral part of his life, and we finish off looking at a little boy who just wanted his father to love him rather than groom him for bigger things. Immonen isolates the young Victor in the flashbacks, and then enlarges him into a monster. The new Doom design is a striking one. It reminds me of the sort of thing one might have seen in early Captain Britain stories written by Alan Moore or Jamie Delano and illustrated by Alan Davis.
Ellis makes his mark right away by transforming Susan Storm into Reed's equal as opposed to solely being his anchor to his family. If anything, Susan comes off as more brilliant than Reed, not just because she's an expert in another field but because she doesn't lose herself in her work. She's a multi-tasked to Reed's one-track mind.
Ellis also impresses with his descriptions of the mechanics of the fantastic. His theory about the thoroughly alien physiology required for a stretching hero is fascinating, and I love the brief reference to the mystery of how a half-ton man can breathe. The alternate history of a noted literary figure is well-realized as well. Ellis brings a brainier quality to these characters, and I look forward to what he has in store. His quiet return to the super-hero genre is a strong and entertaining one.
