REVIEW
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR 46
Writer: Mike Carey
Art: Pasqual Ferry
Color: Justin Ponsor
Company: Marvel
Our story so far: Norrin Radd, the Silver Surfer, is drawn to Earth by Reed Richard’s search for the cosmic cube. Radd turns out to be the herald for a powerful alien named Revka Temerlune Edifex Scyros III, “The king with no enemies”. Revka shows up, is dubbed “Psycho-Man” (very possibly the Worst. Villian Name. Ever. — and yes, I know how long it’s actually been around) by Johnny Storm, brainwashes all 6 billion people on the planet, and abducts them all back to Zenn-La, to live in Paradise forever (with no free will of their own, of course). Hey, like they say – if you’re going to be a super villian, aim big.
Reed begins to suspect that something is wrong with their new world and their new lives, and is helped out of his telekenetic stupor by the Surfer. Once the other members of the FF are also woken up (except for Ben, whose mind seems to have retreated into itself), they set about finding and rescuing Reed’s sister Enid, and return the 6 billion people back to Earth (not necessarily in that order).
I was somewhat disappointed with this issue: we don’t learn anything especially new about any of the characters, the “paradise vs. free will” argument has been done a thousand times before (usually in an either more subtle or complex manner), and the climax is… well, really anti-climatic.
The artwork was, to me, very disorienting in the action scenes. Of course, it was not helped by the fact that most of the battle involves other heralds of Revka, who are basically copies of the Surfer with somewhat different builds and a very slightly different shade of metallic paint. And I have to say, not even trying to draw in details (especially facial) in a wide pan shot like the one below has always struck me as somewhat artistically lazy:
This is the final chapter of a five-part storyline, so of course you’ll pick it up if you’ve been following it so far. But otherwise, you won’t miss much by waiting another month until the next issue comes out.
Rating: 4 out of 10
