Ultimate FF #1 Review: Neither Ultimate Nor All That Good

Having no expectations going into this issue, I suppose that makes it all the more damning when I say that I was disappointed. Without exaggeration or hyperbole, I would be hard-pressed to point to anything that this comic does particularly well. Some elements are competent, but I'm hesitant to go any further than that. From writer Josh Fialkov (Echoes; Elk's Run; I, Vampire), pencilers Mario Guevara (Solomon Kane, Blackbeard: Legend of the Pyrate King) and Tom Grummett (The New Teen Titans), inker Juan Vlasco (Ultimate Comics: X-Men), and colorist Rachel Rosenberg, Ultimate FF has the difficult task of launching a Fantastic Four-related title removed from the core book and without the core, recognizable team in place, which history has proven to be a difficult, nigh-impossible task. If this first issue is any indication, this title will quickly go the way of the mid-90s' Fantastic Force. Anyway, here's the breakdown… SPOILERS!!! The Good: Like I said, this comic doesn't do much well. The most interesting bit is honestly a throwaway reference to the big reveal character of Doctor Doom. Agent Coulson (yes, even his presence in this comic does not elevate it) mysteriously refers to him as prisoner "5-7-62" in advance of his unveiling. Fialkov himself has stated that this is a reference to Doom's first appearance in The Fantastic Four #5 released in July (7) of 1962. I always appreciate callouts to past Fantastic Four continuity.

The Bad:Where to start? Let's tackle the art. I'm not sure who's the most to blame from the team of Guevara, Grummett, and Vlasco, but this is not a pretty comic. There's a messiness and uncertainty to all of the linework that suggests lack of ability rather than a stylistic intent. Perhaps the place where this is the most evident is on the page where Agent Coulson is speaking with the Machine Man (Danny Ketch in this universe, as opposed to Aaron Stack). In this one page, his head morphs shape from panel to panel in a very disconcerting manner. Beyond that, the artist appears incapable of a simple artistic feat, drawing the human face in a three-quarter view. At one point, Coulson is viewed with his face about halfway between profile and head-on, and his head takes on a grotesquely malformed appearance. Perhaps most tellingly, his sunglasses appear to be drawn as if they were being viewed from directly in front of Coulson. There is no use of perspective here or basic artistic knowledge that would make the further lens of the shades appear smaller and partially hidden by the bridge of Coulson's nose. Further evidence of the art team's lack of ability (or perhaps in this instance lack of imagination) comes in the design of the monsters that the Future Foundation is faced with. These are construction workers who've "just had a parallel dimension burst through their bodies, corrupting their DNA." They are depicted as undifferentiated brown lumps with four limbs but otherwise indistinct features. This is perhaps the most unmemorable monster I've come across in years. It doesn't help that the colorist, Rosenberg, decided to go with mud-brown for their palette. Going through all of the questionable artistic moments would take too long, so here are just a couple more standouts. On the third-to-last page, Susan Storm is depicted in the upper-left panel in a manner that is just laughable. The artist seems unable to render a simple figure in a fairly static pose. Aside from generally questionable anatomy, half of her face is inexplicably in shadow and her left hand appears grossly malformed. Turning to the colorist specifically, I'm guessing that she made an error early in the comic when she colored a device of Susan Storm as if it was an invisible force construct. While Susan can create shapes, she cannot create working mechanical or digital devices, and it appears that she identifies this as a bio-scanner. Looking at the series' design, I can't understand why the costumes were created with this color scheme. Showing the book to a graphic designer friend, he agrees with me that it is not an attractive collection of hues. Blues and purple might have worked on their own but paired with the green chest emblem, these ensembles put me in mind of 1990s scuba gear. Also, while this may be a carry-over from a previous series or miniseries, Tony Stark's armor folding back in on itself to reveal what are essentially bike shorts looks a bit silly. Now for the writing, let me just get one quick point off of my chest, Tony Stark is insufferable in this issue. It's as if he is unable to speak in anything other than snark and sarcasm. It's fine and welcome to throw in a quip now and again, but there comes a point when heaping them on one character makes them into an annoying jerk rather than endearing. Here, Stark sees that point, passes it, and apparently treated his armor with an anti-icing agent so that he keep zooming straight into the atmosphere of bad dialogue. On top of this, one of his jokes just plain doesn't make sense. When faced with the monster-fied construction workers, he quips that he can reason with New Yorkers to which the Falcon points out that they are in Jersey. Tony's response of, "Ah, I was not aware," makes zero sense. First of all, wouldn't his heads-up display have told him precisely where he was when he was flying here? Heck, how did he get here if he didn't know where he was going? If this is just him making a joke and Falcon willingly stepping in as straight-man, since when were residents of New Jersey supposed to be more disagreeable than New Yorkers? I thought residents of New York were the stereotypically standoffish urbanites?

Beyond that bit of annoyance, I don't think this is the way to write a first issue. We enter onto the business of the comic in medias res and are given no hints of the status quo, of how this team was put together, or why these members were chosen. There are some context clues and bits of dailogue that suggest that this is related to Galactus' attack on the Ultimate Universe, that Sue is team leader, and Stark is funding the operation, but beyond that the reader is in the dark. As someone who didn't read the Galactus-related miniseries recently set in this universe, I'm left scratching my head. I reached out to Fialkov on tumblr and asked what's up and he assures me that more explanation is coming in the next issue. Still, with none of this provided in issue one and nothing in this issue that really grabbed me, I don't know why I would pick up issue two. I mentioned this issue in my recent Flash Gordon review as well and I don't see why comic publishers and/or creative teams aren't taking full advantage of their first issue. First issues traditionally sell well and if you can have an exciting hook and set up the status quo in a normal-length book, why not have a giant or double-sized first issue? Even if your profit margin is smaller as a result, if you hook a more substantial reader base, isn't that worth it? Finally, I don't know how Doc Doom is supposed to have collapsed the localized interdimensional portal and saved the construction workers at this comic's conclusion. It seems as though he is rushed to the scene in a matter of minutes from a prison facility of some sort and delivered via rocket-powered prisoner-casket. Considering that the Future Foundation's tech apparently exploded, I don't know what equipment Doom is supposed to have used to achieve this scientific miracle aside from unicorn dreams and dragon wishes. Doom in this universe isn't even a guy in a suit of armor, he was transformed in the same accident that the Fantastic Four were so he shouldn't even have armor tech and even if he did, what prison in its right mind would have allowed him to keep his armor while incarcerated? Did he somehow rejigger the prisoner-casket because that stretches credulity to the breaking point. Suspension of disbelief allows me to accept that Doom is metal-bodied, goat-hoofed monarch with an IQ of 198. What it doesn't do is allow me to accept that he can out-MacGyver MacGyver himself by collapsing an interdimensional portal with zero equipment.

The Questionable:Where we talk about things that are neither good nor necessarily bad, but at least are a little head-scratching. I thought that death in the Ultimate Universe was supposed to mean something. As Tony Stark observes, Doom is supposed to have died twice in this continuity. The first was a weak death where he was sealed into a zombie universe and his survival there is implausible but not impossible. The second was pretty darned definitive though. His head was crushed like an egg by Ben Grimm. While the fact that Ben could just walk up to him and do that is out of character for Doom and the fact that he actually did it is (I would argue) out of character for Ben, it definitely happened in Ultimatum. So, what's the deal? Is Doom just that awesome that the supposed rules of this universe just don't apply to him? In Conclusion: Let me just get one thing clear, I am the target audience for this book. I love the Fantastic Four and have read all of their main Marvel Universe comics and I continue to do so. I also read, own, and for the most part enjoyed all of their Ultimate Universe series. After that series ended, I largely ceased to care about the Ultimate Universe. I still cared just enough to pick up the miniseries that showed Reed turning evil and the first arc of Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates where he created what I would call the true Ultimate Future Foundation, a group of black and white clad individuals creating Reed's idea of a perfect society forced to evolve sociologically and biologically to an advanced state. Still, as a lapsed Ultimate Universe reader who actually cares about the Fantastic Four in the original and Ultimate incarnations, I am probably one of the easier "gets" for this series. Still, through subpar writing and abysmal art, this series failed to come anywhere close to winning me over. I do not and cannot in good conscience recommend it. I will be reading at least one more issue and will be sure to provide a review in the event that the series improves, but for the time being I would label this series as a "must avoid."