The good news is, nowhere in this issue is it revealed that Gwen Stacy and Dr. Doom have a pair of love children from a previous relationship. The bad news is, this issue does tell us way more than we'd ever want to know about the appearance and performance of Ben Grimm's ass. Oddly, the book isn't that different from the version that Mark Waid was writing, with a tweak of one team member's personal fortune amidst a continuation of the editorially-mandated "the four are poor" story and an admittedly-interesting notion about the government taking an interest in the accident that created the Four, but the sense of humor has dropped down a notch from Waid's sometimes goofy to Straczynski's bizarrely adolescent. The book looks gorgeous from cover to final page, thanks to McKone, Lanning and Mounts, but the writing isn't as consistently strong.
Credit Straczynski with this much, he isn't coming in to shake things up and reveal that "everything you know is wrong!" In fact, given that this is the first issue by a new creative team, it's surprisingly low-key and friendly to what has gone before, more the sort of transition between creative teams we used to get in the old days before everyone was so keen to put their personal stamp on the characters, whether or not that personal stamp makes any sense for those characters or not. The Four are still broke (with one notable exception), Reed is still a genius who spends too much time in his lab, Johnny is still a hothead who teases Ben, this is undeniably the classic Fantastic Four, viewed through the lens of a new creator, rather than J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI PRESENTS... THE FANTASTIC FOUR!
Where he does shake things up are in the more interesting ways that Waid did when he came along. The storyline involving Ben Grimm is very funny, doesn't stretch credibility all that much given the personalities of all the characters and promises plenty of potential for humor. The government story that drags Reed in seems at first blush a little bit naively trusting of the government (or foolish of the government for expecting Reed to go along with it), but seeing an interest in duplicating the Four's powers certainly is realistic. Hopefully the next issue will see Reed exploring the obvious answers to some of the pie-in-the-sky points raised by the government tech, namely that every attempt to create superheroes by the government tends to create supervillains instead.
What puzzles me, and also disappoints me, about this issue is that Straczynski seems to be aiming the level of humor at a level that I find crass and unfunny to boot. Ben Grimm sprinting through the headquarters, desperately needing to use the can? Faxing his butt to Bill Gates? The accountant is named Mr Onoffon, and Reed finds this hilarious? Stracyznski has on occasion shown a clumsy sense of humor going back to Babylon 5, but this is the kind of humor I'd expect from a weed-smoking teenager, and it's weirdly out of place. The sense of wonder is intact, whether it's the opening story of Reed watching a civilization live and die or the closing sequence showing an impressively huge government research facility, but the sense of humor is hit and flailing badly.
While the writing has its hits and misses with me, the artwork never falters. McKone, Lanning and Mounts can really create a scene, whether it's the maudlin rise and fall of civilization, the beauty of a sunset in New York or an amazingly huge science lab. These guys are using the sky's the limit budget of comics to its most effective level, making sure that when the Fantastic Four movie hits in a couple months, the comic won't look like a poor second cousin to the flashy CGI. McKone has also always had a way with expressive human characters, and that's on display here as well, whether it's the Thing's giddiness or Reed's serious demeanor. 7/10
