The Pull List: Fantastic Four

Sometimes, all you need is an interesting take on a superhero to make them worth reading. Nowhere is this more true than with the Fantastic Four.

Done correctly, it's a series that's not as much about superheroic action as it is the ultimate adventuring family. Your family goes mountain-climbing on vacation? Neat. The Fantastic Four go mountain-climbing too. In an alternate universe. On a different planet. Up a volcano. To stop an alien race. Before breakfast.

It's a tightrope act--you balance the family stuff with the big adventures and bigger ideas. Reed Richards is the smartest man on the planet, after all--he needs to constantly be thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else, and that means his solutions to problems can't be the same level of other heroes.

So when they hired this new guy, Jonathan Hickman, a writer who had been known for gigantic ideas and concepts, I gave it a try, and it was excellent. (It helped to have one of my favorite artists of all time, Dale Eaglesham, on the book back then.) The opening story, "Solve Everything", begins with Reed Richards finally using his mind to attempt to, literally, solve everything. The result is exactly the kind of story I mentioned above that makes a great FF tale.

This is another comic that I dislike being behind on, especially as it moves towards it's big story, "Three". Rest assured I'll be catching up soon.