FF #7
“The Supremor Seed”
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Greg Tocchini & Paul Mounts
The cover is amazing. Black Bolt is charging into Ronan the Accuser, cosmic energies crackling. Take a picture so it lasts, because we don’t judge books by their covers, especially not when it comes to all the misdirection and hype in comic books.
Future Foundation continues it’s Kree and Inhuman saga, but for all intents and purposes, I’m ready for it to just end. The past two issues have been nothing but exposition and set up with very little pay off in the name of the Future Foundation.
What went wrong?
Black Bolt returns, and his first act is too abandon the Kree throne, because there is an Inhuman summoning on Earth. When questioned on this, Black Bolt opens his mouth and shows them why he’s the king. Speechless, the Kree can only watch as their just returned king takes leave of Hala, while Crystal chooses to stay behind. We jump back three hundred thousand years ago. Supremor is still troubled by the death he has foreseen for himself, and seals the Supremor seed within the Accuser’s war hammer.
Jump back to the present, one month ago. Black Bolt is introduced to the universal Inhumans, and granted his five brides, just as the Supremor prophecied.
It’s a pretty fast read, with very little content outside of the stellar art, and there’s very little reason to read it if you want story. It simply isn’t fun or informative. I give Hickman the benefit of a doubt, but the story itself argues to be a one shot or separate miniseries, with a lot of dead space and uneven pacing (taken as a whole) dragging down it’s presentation in Future Foundation. And where are the Future Foundation? I mentioned this last time we looked at this book, but if the cost of this book was the Fantastic Four, I’d gladly take the Fantastic Four back. Sometimes it feels like we see more of the Future Foundation in Amazing Spider-Man or The New Avengers than we ever see in their own title. It’s so mired in events of Marvel past (real and retconned) that it just isn’t enjoyable.
Greg Tocchini continues carrying the title, with fantastic linework. The panels are clean, and the linework is sometimes crisp, sometimes sketchy, but it gives the whole book a hazy vibe, as if you’re really bearing witness to mysterious higher powers. Paul Mounts gives the story an otherworldly cold tone that really sells this feeling. The art was never a problem with Future Foundation, and in this issue, it’s the saving grace.
There’s hope, though. Future Foundation stormed out of the gate in it’s first few issues, and next issue teases that VILLAINS UNITE!, offering up a Wingless Wizard, Dr. Doom (in fetching white), Thinker, AIM, and other foes worthy of the Future Foundation.
Was Black Bolt’s return an editorial decision? Was Hickman just indulging himself? I’m open to the possibility that this will lead to a stunning climax somewhere down the run, but the last two issues have made me a little gun shy after my initial excitement. They weren’t accessible. They weren’t well written. And as a reader who wants to read Future Foundation to see the Fantastic family and friends (I can’t be alone in this), the issues utterly fail.
This whole creative team has proven themselves before, and I’m on board with the Future Foundation concept. I’d like to actually see it in their own title.
