Shooflypie

Fantastic Four #235 opens on splash page of The Thing trudging through an alien landscape with a heavy piece of Kirbyesque machinery on his back. It's a great image that captures the power of the Ben Grimm and wild ideas one finds in the title. The alien landscape is, of course, Ego the Living Planet, whom we met during last issue's cliffhanger. Ben's internal monologue (rendered in thought bubbles, of course) lets us know he's been at his task a while and that he's the only person left who can do the job; if he doesn't deliver the machine to the core then he'll "let down the whole friggin' earth." The story shifts into an extended flashback as we get caught up to the point where the issue opens. The first two pages of the flashback are a recap of the previous issue. I get that every comic is potentially someone's first issue and that back in the 80s these sorts of recaps were necessary but I think devoting two story pages is excessive. ...

The cover to Fantastic Four #234 shows the FF cowering before a white silhouette of a man and asks the following questions: "Who is he?" and "What is he?" The first page brings us the answer to the first question (though not before a Shakespeare quote); he is L.R. "Skip" Collins, "who may be the most powerful man who ever lived." The second page fills us in on "Skip" a bit more - he's an average guy; he's a bit sexist, wishing his spouse would keep up on her "wifely chores"; and he has some sort of power to make his wishes come true. The first almost 7 pages are devoted to Skip and his family relationships, his work life, and how his powers came to be (not that Skip really knows about those). He flies to New York City and finally, in the last panel on pg. 7, we, or he, finally runs into Reed and Sue. The focus shifts pretty dramatically to the FF at this point. Reed and Sue combine to save first a girl and then a cr...

John Byrne's second issue of his run on Fantastic Four (#233) begins with a man on death row in what's made out to be the harshest prison around (nobody's heard about Deeden because no one has ever escaped and lived to talk about it, because they were all killed. Cheery!). George David Munson is about to die but he laments to Father Vito that even though he's been a bad man, he's to be killed for a crime he didn't commit. He then last requests the priest to deliver a letter for him, a letter to...the Human Torch! Cut to Father Vito pulling up in front of the Baxter Building two weeks later (2 weeks? Really? Why so long, Father?). These leads to a two page sequence that demonstrates the kind of security the FF has, as Father Vito happens to run into Sue in the lobby. When they reach the "visitor reception level," the two walk into an ongoing fight between the Human Torch and the Thing. Cue a two page fight/insult scene between the heroes until it...

The new Fantastic Four movie opened this weekend and I imagine there are a lot of reviews of it that mention how unfantastic it is. I haven't read many reviews but the overwhelming consensus is that the movie is terrible. I hadn't planned on seeing it even before the reviews started appearing; the trailers did nothing but make me bored and annoyed that we had to reboot the origin yet again. I've had enough of super-hero movies that feel the need to do so. Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm? Absolutely, but give me something that excites me more than what I've seen. I may see this movie eventually, although I've still never seen Daredevil  (the movie, that is) or Green Lantern or any number of reviled super-hero movies. I love comics but it's not a blind love. I do like the Fantastic Four and I started to think how I could bring some positive experience with them into my life. It wasn't a comic I read growing up, which is a shame because I would have basic...