written by Chip Zdarsky
drawn by Jim Cheung (p) John Dell and Walden Wong (i)
colored by Frank Martin
It's an open secret that Marvel Comics's First Family, the "Fantastic Four" were the casualties of a cold war between Marvel Studios and Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that, up until very recently, held the exclusive rights to produce movies of the said characters, among others. The story goes that the book was canceled because the Marvel parent company didn't want to give any publicity to Fox's 2015 FF reboot, which as it turned out, was a train wreck. I never quite bought into that narrative, considering how much Marvel's publishing arm (which is, all things considered, still supposed to be its heart and soul), promotes Deadpool, another Marvel property ensconced with Fox. Of course, this is all moot and academic now that Disney has bought out Fox and has therefore wrested back the rights to its characters.
This story, however, was clearly conceived in the pre-Fox buyout days.
Johnny Storm, or the hero formerly known as the Human Torch is basically at the end of his rope, still reeling from the depression of losing his sister and brother-in-law. The issue begins with him figuring in a massive, fiery car crash, from which he walks away unharmed but despondent. Johnny's pal Ben Grimm, on the other hand, is going through the motions of being one of the two surviving members of the Fantastic Four, trying his best to keep the spirit of his teammates Reed and Sue Richards alive by honoring them through a foundation he's set up. When Spider-Man, who visits the event, hands Ben the keys to the warehouse where all the FF's stuff from the Baxter Building is kept, Ben gets a lot more than he bargained for when no less than Doctor Doom shows up at the warehouse. Even though things get dicey at first, it is, surprisingly enough, Doom who backs off, giving Ben a token that, according to him, only Ben can activate, and one which might hold the key to the future of what remains of the Fantastic Four.
Let's be honest about something; even before Marvel pulled the plug on the comics series to spite Fox, the creative teams behind the Fantastic Four had somewhat lost their way. With the exception of the seminal run of Mark Waid and the late Mike Wieringo, the year-long run of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, and perhaps the run of Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting, over a nearly ten-year period the book itself really wasn't that good. Zdarsky has done more with two characters than many writers before him have done with a complete team.
The real draw for me, though (pardon the pun) was Jim Cheung, whose name alone is often enough to get me onto a book. This is the third book in the span of a little over a year that I have added to my list solely on his account, the first two being the enjoyable Spider-Man event "The Clone Conspiracy" with writer Dan Slott and the second being the utterly forgettable "Astonishing X-Men" reboot, of which he only illustrated one issue. I know he'll be sticking around for at least one, possibly two more issues this time around, so I'll definitely finish the arc he draws, even if he doesn't. I also hold out hope that, if the Fantastic Four ever get their own book again in view of the Fox acquisition, Cheung is lined up to draw at least a year's worth of issues.
Whatever politics influenced the telling of this story are irrelevant. The fact remains that Chip Zdarsky took whatever management allowed him to work with, and crafted a truly engaging yarn that, in a single issue, does justice to the legacy of the book and the characters in a way that a lot of full-blown FF runs failed to do. They may be down two members, but in Zdarsky's and Cheung's hands, the Fantastic Four are clearly alive and well, at least in spirit.
9/10
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