Quick Rating: And things begin to happen…
The Fantastic: Part 3
Writers: Brian Michael Bendis/Mark Millar
Pencils: Adam Kubert
Inks: Danny Miki
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Chris Eloipoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Issue 3 and we see some superpowers- isn’t that what we’ve all been waiting for? We see the outcome of the explosion at the end of issue 2. The four youths have been transformed into the super-powered beings that we have been expecting. They are scattered across the globe, with Sue Storm being the only one in imminent danger, although all four are reasonably freaked out. Victor Van Damme is the only victim unaccounted for.
The images in this chapter were much more disturbing than those that had appeared previously. I found them oddly appealing. In fact, I seemed to like the art the best so far- maybe that was because this was the first issue where the pictures often carried the story.
In my review of Issue 2, I wrote:
Only two comic pamphlets outsold it last year (Batman 619 and JLA/Avengers 1). And yet:
-more people can name all six Friends then all four of the FF
-more people watched the cable golf channel last week than read this comic book
-more than a hundred times as many people bought Shazam comic books at their peak as bought Ultimate FF
-Stan Lee, as a character, has appeared in more released movies than Reed Richards
-the person standing on the left in a comic panel still speaks first
Everyone focused on the point about Friends, which seems to me to be the most like comparing apples and oranges. The second point draws on the same television/comics-battle-for-your-diversion-dollar deliberation. Comics will always come up short. Everyone views television as free. Flip it on (and it’s always there in the American household) and you’re magically entertained. Also leaving aside the last point (which fascinates me in the same way that mirror reflections do), the third and fourth points are what should concern anyone interested in the comic book industry as a viable concern. Shazam was a milestone in the comic book industry, along with a few others, because of its popularity (setting aside a discussion of how good it was, though it was often quite good). Yet, it was truly nothing special in the eyes of the general public. It was a comic book and you bought them and you read them and you threw them away. I do not think that people are any less aware of the existence of comic books than they were fifty years ago. Yet, it is very difficult to buy them. I don’t think a single child in my son’s elementary school could be given three bucks to buy a comic book and accomplish the task on their own. At that age, everyone in my neighborhood was bike-riding to the drug store and gleaning the best off the comic racks. Moreover, making a Fantastic Four movie will not change that. It will only change when comic books are printed on cheap paper, cost a dollar, and most people throw them away when they get old enough to fill that same shelf space with equally worthless novels. Maybe it’s nice to be the only one in your neighborhood that can pronounce Sub-Mariner correctly, but this art form is being hoisted on its own petard.
I cannot let the Ultimate Fantastic Four letter column debut pass without comment. For reasons that elude me, Marvel has allowed Brian Michael Bendis to handle the letter column. Anyone who has read Powers has to wonder at the wisdom of the choice, at least with any sense of corporate behavior in the wake of the horrific Super Bowl revelation that Janet Jackson has breasts. I only hope that no photos of Bendis’ booby make an appearance anytime soon (accidentally included with the page layout by Millar).
February, 2004