Book: Fantastic Four volume #1: The Fall of the Fantastic Four (issues #1-5) by James Robinson with Illustrations by Leonard Kirk and color by Jesus Aburtov (issues #1-5) and Rachelle Rosenberg (issue #2)
Edition: Single Print Issue
Description:
The world's greatest comics magazine begins anew! But as the Fantastic Four embark on a strange mission, they aren't met with new beginnings, but an untimely end! Marvel's first family heads towards their darkest hour, but who is behind their downfall? Manhattan is under attack by a killer swarm from a corrupted pocket universe, and in order to defeat it, the Human Torch must make a terrible sacrifice! And with one member down, a new menace emerges: the Wrecking Crew, their powers mysteriously elevated! As Ben and Alicia's romance rekindles, the threats of Fin Fang Foom, the Wizard and the Puppet Master loom, the Baxter Building is quarantined, and the Fantastic Four are held accountable for the destruction in Manhattan! It's the trial of the century, and a major turning point for the family!
Rating: 4 1/2 stars
Review:
It's been a while since I've read a Fantastic Four comic and this group of issues didn't disappoint.
In this volume, the Fantastic Four (Reed Richards a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, Sue Richards a.k.a. The Invisible Woman, Ben Grimm a.k.a The Thing and Johnny Storm a.k.a. The Human Torch) are back in New York City trying to get their lives back to normal or normal for them that is. The normal part of their lives also included watching over the children from the Future Foundation. Meanwhile, Ben and Alicia Masters were also rekindling their relationship.
This opens with a random attack in Manhattan from Fin Fang Foom. After they stopped him, Reed couldn't help noticing that something didn't seem right about FFF's attack. But just when everything seems to be slowing down, Manhattan was attacked by aliens who mysteriously escaped from a pocket dimension which was unfortunately located in the Baxter Building a.k.a. Fantastic Four headquarters.
Even with all the heroes in the city fighting them, the aliens were nearly unstoppable as they caused mass death and destruction throughout the city. A quick examination of one of the aliens gave Reed a plan to stop them but it had a devastating result, Johnny Storm lost his powers.
While things were returning back to normal again, Johnny was trying to get use to no longer having his powers. Meanwhile, Reed and Sue's daughter Valeria left to go to Latveria to stay with Dr. Doom because she needed to get away for a while.
As Ben and Grimm were having a moment talking as they walked down the street, they were interrupted by the new Frightful Four. Their attack brought out the rest of the Fantastic Four as well as the replacement FF team which consist of She-Hulk, Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and Ms. Thing. According to the Wizard, he alluded that the Frightful Four's attack was being orchestrated by some unknown person. It seems as though everything that has been happening to the Fantastic Four is caused by someone trying to ruin the heroes.
Case in point after stopping the Frightful Four, the Fantastic Four return to the Baxter Building but are barred from entering. They were also being sued and will have to appear in court. Despite having She-Hulk as their attorney, the FF were railroaded by Chief prosecutor Aiden Toliver.
There was a verdict given but it wasn't shown, mostly likely it will be shown in the next volume but you can tell it didn't turn out well for the FF. This ends with the children from the Future Foundation (which includes Sue and Reed's son Franklyn) being sent to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. There was also this weird subplot that showed Dr. Doom trying to do good by stopping another villain in Italy, all for Valeria.
Even though Toliver pretty much railroaded the FF, he made a good point about why Reed and Sue would let their daughter stay with Dr. Doom, a notorious villain. That made no sense to me either. Could Dr. Doom really have changed?
The writing for this was good and there was a lot of suspense. I do feel like the trial part of the story may have slowed the pace but you can see how everything is starting to build up. I really like the artwork it was very clean while the color was perfectly shaded. The only thing I wasn't too keen on were the new red suits the FF wore. Their blue suits are so iconic but I guess the creative team decided the FF needed a change.
This turned out to be a good read and I would like to continue reading this series because I'm really interested in finding out who is behind everything that is happening to the FF.
