Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, ff, jonathan hickman, marvel

Review: FF #22

Published Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:00:28 -0500

Louis Falcetti writes for Bleeding Cool;

Marvel needs to start paying better attention to themselves, especially when they're doing everything right. The big Marvel media blitz of the moment (amid the din of screaming Avengers bluray ads) is the MARVEL NOW "Don't Call It A Reboot" Re-Launch. It's definitely something to get excited about, Marvel has a really smart collection of creators and titles about to arrive. John Cassaday on an ongoing? Allred on an ongoing by Fraction? Gillen & McKelvie together again? Oh god I've died, haven't I? I thought it would be a lot warmer…

What's not being talked about nearly enough is Jonathan Hickman's come down from one of the greatest runs in Marvel history. Not just talking Fantastic Four books but across the line, Hickman's time on the title(s) will be considered a new high water mark in modern superhero storytelling. They'll talk about Busiek's Avengers, Greg Pak's Hulk, Bendis' Daredevil, Grant Morrison's New X-Men, Dan Slott's Amazing Spiderman, Mike Carey's X-Men Legacy and they'll talk about Hickman's Fantastic Four books. It's something Marvel has always been brilliant at, leaving a talented writer (or writer and artist) alone, long enough to unfurl a big, crazy vision. Peter David on X-Factor or Ed Brubaker on Cap. DC hasn't done so well in that department, I mean, it's hard to let a vision take place when every 12 issues you throw out the baby, the bathwater, the towels, the floorboards, etc…

It's amazing when times like these line up. Ennis is finishing up on The Boys and it's like that moment that so many of us had when we realized that we were about to go through a Christmas without a new Lord of the Rings movie. When pieces of pop culture come to define eras in our lives. Maybe not define, but definitely highlight and enhance and help us make it through each era and on to the next one. More people should be talking about The Boys and more people should be talking about Hickman's FF family of books.

When Marvel does it right, they do it right so well. Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-force/X-Statix run was during a time when editorial was taking chances on new, different stories. That run remains one of the most interesting and intelligent superhero deconstructions of all time, up there with Veitch's Maximortal and Morrison's Doom Patrol. It wasn't a CIVIL WAR tie-in and didn't have anything to do with Avengers Versus X-men. (Oh…wait) It was a creative team getting to explore a concept or follow an idea. Marvel seems on the verge of inspired comic greatness, made almost more impressive in light of the new corporate influence behind the scenes. With all those suits you expect the comics to look more like, well, I don't have to point, do I?

Which brings us to this month's issue of FF by Jonathan Hickman and Andre Araujo. If you're like me, which of course you are, after finishing the issue you probably thought, "Who the hell is Andre Araujo?" My next thought was "Well judging from his accomplished comic style, he's probably some huge underground comic artist that I've never heard of." Was it yours as well? Write that down in your copybook now. Then I began to hunt around the internet trying to find the guy and it takes me like twenty minutes (which is crazy, I'm really good at internet) and when I finally do, he's only got like 100 twitter followers. This is madness. This comic is that good. Art wise, story wise, every wise.

Maybe we're in the golden age of team comics, maybe it just happened and no one noticed, but thinking about the books that consistently remain the most fun or the most rewarding for the audience are the titles with large casts, sharing the spotlight and allowing the creative team a thousand different avenues to tell a million stories. So we find ourselves in #22, the penultimate Hickman FF, drawn by out of nowhere, crazy talented Andre Araujo, spending our final moments with Val and Bentley, as the series that would stop at nothing to make you think about your dad, makes you totally think about your dad.

The name of the story is "You Are Whatever You Want To Be" and if there's a better way of summing up one of the major themes of Hickman's fantastic tenure, I haven't thought of it yet. The story unfolds with this perfect balance of humor and action and real emotional resonance as Araujo's pencils perfectly capture the joy of adventure and the horror of the emotional reality of our families. But we don't stay there, we remember what the name of the story is and we keep going.

In the time since Bentley joined the Foundation, he's been a bad ass force for good, though he tries to hide it. (Also what is it with bad ass young heroes these days? Future Foundation, Avengers Academy, Generation Hope, the kids are alright indeed) At the same time Bentley (like you know, most people, everywhere) has felt the weight of where he comes from more intensely than others. It's not like it's just his dad who's a crazy, evil super-villain. Being a clone has to carry with it a unique set of existential terrors, but we finally get to see Bentley really moving out from under that terrifying, twisted shadow of his own possible future.

For people who've felt that Hickman could only work in long, drawn out, insanely complex story arcs, he's been doing these quiet one-shots now that the rising action has ceased. Quiet, beautiful little one-shots that highlight just another area of Hickman's FF world that we're going to miss. The strength of a writer, to be able to work with huge, enormous ideas or simple, little moments with the same expert attention to detail and deep understanding of the human experience.

Hickman has been winding down his books so elegantly, like a slow dance through an empty house, it's moving day and the lights are getting shut off, room by room. Hickman has been letting go of the characters that he's worked so hard on and wrapping things up. Every time a series gets axed prematurely and the small group of fans who followed it begin to wail, this is what they're wailing about. The missed chances at endings like this. The reward you feel as a comic fan as you follow the storytellers to the last panel. Letting creators tell their stories, get the point?

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