FANTASTIC FOUR #50

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Saturday, January 05, 2002

They deserved so much better.

The Fantastic Four's fortieth anniversary has been celebrated in a variety of ways this year, ranging from the overblown and confusing (FANTASTIC FOUR 1234) to the overblown and amazingly entertaining (FANTASTIC FOUR: THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMICS MAGAZINE!). Given the amount of attention the anniversary has garnered in other quarters, the team's regular title might have been excused from trying to compete with these celebratory efforts. Or rather, given the results in FANTASTIC FOUR #50, it should have.

To begin with, the "'Nuff Said" story this issue is easily one of the most confusing written this month. A quick look at the complete script on Marvel's website-this issue is so packed with uselessness that there's no room even for the partial script that the other "'Nuff Said" books contain-reveals that Carlos Pacheco and Rafael Marin obviously expected a bit too much out of this experiment. There are entire sections of the script that artists Tom Grummett and Scott Koblish either cannot render in the space given or refuse to render properly. With a script that tries to pack in as much as this one does, though, the fault lies with the writers, not with the artists. The flashback sequences alone are confusing enough-was I the only one who didn't know that Susan Storm was a model back in the day?-but when combined with all the plot elements currently going on in this title, such as Johnny's lack of control over his powers or the presence of the Super Skrull, this story slides right over into incomprehensibility.

The rest of the book has dialogue, though-unfortunately. Jeph Loeb, Pacheco, and Marin strike again with a NOT BRAND ECCH-style story "So Shall It Be?!" about how the book is written, but it's far more annoying than amusing. The constant references to Pacheco and Marin's ethnicity, for example-neither of their "characters" in the story speak anything except Spanish (har, har)-are not at all funny, and perhaps even a bit racist. This is a terrible, terrible story. Somebody up at Marvel obviously had a bit too much eggnog.

The last two stories are the book's only saving grace. In "The Eye of the Beholder," Fabian Nicieza, Steve Rude, and Mike Royer show us Johnny and Ben's problems after participating in a celebrity date auction. What this story has to do with anniversaries I'm afraid I'll never know, but Rude and Royer's retro artwork make up for that, and it's a cute story besides. "So Shall It Be?!" only wishes it were this cute.

The final story is "Anniversary Gift," a piece beautifully drawn by Alvin Lee and Omar Dogan and written by Erik Ko and Ken Siu-chong, in which Johnny and Ben are (you guessed it) shopping for an anniversary gift for Reed and Sue. Of all the stories this issue, only these last two come close to capturing what we've loved about these four heroes for the past four decades. When Sue stops Reed's non-romantic explanation of the Aurora Borealis with a kiss, for example, it's a moment celebrating the characters rather than the creators, whose ham-fisted efforts to make this issue "special" fall spectacularly flat. My advice is that you buy this one and read only the last two stories. Then you'll truly have something to celebrate.

FANTASTIC FOUR

Grade: D+

Issue: No. 50

Author(s): Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeph Loeb, Tom Grummett, Scott Korlish, Fabian Nicieza, Steve Rude, Mike Royer, Erik Ko, Ken Siu-chong, Alvin Lee, Omar Dogan

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $3.99