Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #5 (of 5)

This mini-series is, for all intents and purposes, something of an introduction to the Fantastic Four as written by Jonathan Hickman, and as such it's reasonably promising.

He seems to have a good grip on the characters, and a proper sense of what the team is all about. The mini-series features some big ideas, with just enough Norman Osborn content added to justify the Dark Reign title.

This issue wraps up Reed's investigation into events in parallel worlds, to see what he could have done differently to avert the Civil War / Secret Invasion.

While he's playing with his trans-dimensional tinker toys, the rest of the FF are dealing with journeys through other dimensions, and the children - Franklin and Valeria - are left to face down Osborn, Venom and a HAMMER army.

(By the way, it's hilarious that they still haven't said what HAMMER stands for - so it's time for another guess: Heavily Armored Military Metahuman Emergency Resource.)

The art is by Sean Chen and Lorenzo Ruggiero, and it's solid, professional work - nothing too flashy, but some good clean storytelling here.

As a stand-alone mini-series this was an OK effort, but it works much better as a set-up for what Reed and family are going to do next. Now that's a story I'm looking forward to.

Grade: B-

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