|
FANTASTIC FOUR: 1234 #2
"2: Staring at the Fish Tank"
Highly Recommended (8/10)
|
Marvel Comics/Marvel Knights imprint
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Jae Lee
Colors: Jose Villarrubia
Letters: Comicraft
Editors: Nanci Dakesian & Stuart Moore
Price: $2.99 US/$4.50 CAN |
Morrison and Lee are
creating the equivalent of a super-hero story as horror movie with this series,
and I find myself both fascinated and a little creeped out. They are taking the
characters to extremes, both of personality and powers, but while I don't think
this take would work in an extended format, it's ideal for a short story. Every
so often Morrison falls a little too much in love with his own words or wild
ideas, but usually I'm right there with him, in this case watching an invisible
woman and her blind friend talk about marriage, forbidden romance with undersea
princes and the nature of love and relationships. This is actually a stronger
issue than the first one was, and this quiet but strange take on the team is one
that really intrigues me.
As with last issue, Morrison includes the
various members of the Fantastic Four, but applies a focus to a particular
member. I'm interested to see what's going on with Ben Grimm, because he's tying
in to the main plot of the story, and I loved the setup for Johnny Storm's
reckless and nihilistic personality for next issue, but the meat of the book is
in seeing the psyche of one member of the team examined.
Sue Storm has usually been in one of two
stock modes for writers: the passive and adoring girlfriend/wife or the
stereotypical strong woman who can handle anything. Though both are somewhat
cookie cutter, the latter has usually been more interesting, but Morrison paints
an interesting picture of Sue as someone who merely longs for love in her life,
and maybe a bit of normalcy, and plays her as a soft and emotional person
without making her weak. There's also something very telling in the fact that
she doesn't appear until the very end of this issue, serving mostly as an
invisible presence in Alicia Masters's home, as if she doesn't want to disturb
anything.
Lee brings an element of atmosphere and
style to the book, amping up the tension quite a bit with his focus in on the
rain drops and the storm, and isolating the two women from everything else
around them. There's a feeling of impending danger throughout, and when Namor
finally shows up, the moment is fraught with dangerous sexual tension and the
notion that things have just gone horribly wrong, thanks to the build-up in the
art and the dialogue between the two women. Lee also does some nice work with an
attacker sliding from the background to come for Alicia and a phenomenal setup
toward the end for next issue's confrontation between the Torch and an old
enemy.
Right now, Marvel is also running Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comics Magazine,
which is aping the style that Lee and Kirby brought to the book. Morrison and
Lee, however, are capturing a modernized version of that style instead, with
tightly-focused characterization (largely based on human foibles) and wild ideas
set against the backdrop of normal routines such as dinner and conversation, and
I find their version of the Fantastic Four much more interesting, and a better
tribute to the characters that Lee and Kirby created.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
