Reviewer: Paul Sebert
Story Title: The Resurrection of Nicholas Scratch Part One: Omens and Portents
Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Penciler: Valentine Delandro
Colorist: Avalon’s Dan Kemp
Inker: Batt
Letters: VC’s Dave Sharpe
Editors: Michael O’Connor, Warren Simons, & Joe Quessada
Publisher: The Mighty Marvel Publishing Group
There’s something a little out of place about this month’s edition of “4.” Not just the rather violent attack on Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum in the opening pages of this issue, so much as the fact that this is obviously a horror themed Halloween book which through some misfortune of scheduling has been solicited and released during the Winter Holiday season. Considering that MK 4 has never been late to my knowledge, I’m guessing someone simply miscounted ahead of time so that we’ll probably be getting the Christmas issue in February and the Valentine’s Day issue in May.
Anyway the opening of this story resolves a series of eerie and seemingly unrelated events going on New York ranging from a strike at Doctor Strange, to a suicide, to the desecration of a graveyard. All of this spooky phenomena revolves around the return of Salem’s Seven: a group of obscure 70s villains who last appeared in 1985’s Vision & The Scarlet Witch mini-series. They’re half-witch, half-mutant and all freaky in that oddball way most villains designed in the 70s are, though alas in this incarnation Vertigo sadly doesn’t have a huge ‘fro.
The story takes the format of seven short little episodes leading to the final unveiling of the big-bad villain who I will not dare spoil. This is perhaps because not being exactly the biggest expert on the Fantastic Four I didn’t actually recognize the villain in question, so the big reveal didn’t really have much of an impact on me.
I’ll give credit to Sacasa for trying to breath new life into some semi-cool obscure villains, and even throwing out a shout out to the recent House of M/DeciMation events for all those continuity heads out there. The problem is that, well, the penciled art by Valentine Delandro just doesn’t strike me as particularly scary (despite a well handled sequence in a graveyard), and Dan Kemp’s colors are a little too bright and clean. Perhaps this is one of the few genres where good old-fashion hand coloring is better suited than the computerized coloring you see on most books now a days.
Worst of all is the fact that the Fantastic Four appear in about half of the vignettes that move the plot, making them feel like guest stars in their own book. There are some good ideas in this issue, but alas the overall execution just feels flat.
