Fantastic Four: Full Circle

 

Fantastic Four: Full Circle

My first review was of the founding hero of DC comics, I might as well return the favour for Marvel. The Fantastic Four originally appeared in, amazingly, Fantastic Four #1 back in November 1961. Marvel’s first family solidified the themes, rules, and tone for Marvel ever since: the Marvel universe is a miraculous mish-mash of Monsters, Mystery, Romance, Rivalry, Comedy, Tragedy, Mirrors, Family, Satire, Outrageous Self Assurance and Crippling Doubt. If I sounded like I just listed everything… that’s kind of the point. Fantastic Four shouted out to the world “this can be whatever we want it to be!” and that stuck for Marvel. As Reed Richard says himself: The Crossroads to Infinity.

I’ve read a few classic FF issues. I’ve read the very one that Full Circle relies on most: Fantastic Four #51, “This Man… This Monster”. I only sought out a digital copy of #51 after reading about it in Douglas Wolk’s All The Marvels. Lucky that I did…

What am I reading? Fantastic Four: Full Circle, September 2022, a Novel written and illustrated by Alex Ross.

What’s it about? There is an intruder the Baxter Building! The corpse of a historic foe of the Fantastic Four, covered in nightmare foliage unique to the negative zone. The body crumbles and releases a violent attack. After winning the battle, the intrepid quartet must dwell through dimensions to find and stop who threatened them.

What’s good about it? God its pretty… this is a pretty book… Alex Ross is most known for his hyper realistic watercolours of the big two’s signature heroes. Most famously in DC’s Kingdom Come and Marvel Knights, but even if the book’s names mean little to you, I bet you have seen his work before. Ross hasn’t fully abandoned his renaissance flare but takes a sharp left turn into sixties psychedelia.

The flat colour pallet, Dutch angles and multi-layered panelling gives Full Circle a trippy edge which is a dynamic delight to view. He has mastered the Kirby madness of immense detail and full body structure: machines and cities are intricate yet geometrically sound. Cosmic horrors look like they could wriggle off the page. The heroes are perfectly captured. This is a stunning work of art.

What did I struggle with? There are a few things that really niggle with me about the story and even some of the action. Marvel has always been self-referential, but without reading #51 I would have been totally lost. Although the journey itself spans across dimensions and plains, it’s too low stakes for me. One thing really stuck in my mind: Do you remember that bit in The Incredibles, where the jet explodes, and Helen stretches out into a parachute? Reed does that three times… it got boring real quick. I also found this light on Ben Grimm, my personal favourite of the four.

Would I recommend? I would say this is better suited to the more Marvel savvy reader. It relies a little too much on knowing the history and the mechanics of Negative Zone / Positive Zone / Matter / Anti-Matter / Null Forces for anyone new to comics. On the other hand, I would show this book to anyone who declares that comics aren’t art.