Review: Fantastic Four: Season One

Writers: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Jonathan Hickman
Artists: David Marquez, Dale Eaglesham
Collects: OGN (2012); Fantastic Four #570 (2009)
Published: Marvel, 2012; $24.99

As much as Marvel’s “Season One” graphic novel initiative may seem a shameless attempt to emulate the success of DC’s “Earth One” graphic novels, the first book in the series, Fantastic Four: Season One, also happens to be a surprisingly well put together comic. Designed with both new and older readers in mind, the book tells an updated version of the Fantastic Four’s origin story – probably the most thematically coherent one, in fact, since the Lee/Kirby original.

One of the main differences between “Earth One” and “Season One” is that the marketing for the latter has focused much more on the characters than on the creators involved. Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is no stranger to Marvel’s original team of superheroes, though, having written a handful of issues of the main series and its short-lived Marvel Knights spin-off back in the mid-2000s. Here he does probably the best work he’s done with the characters since Marvel Knights’ earliest issues, wrapping some of the most established plot devices from Fantastic Four history – cosmic rays in outer space, giant monsters attacking New York City, the Thing temporarily reverting to human form (only to choose to become the Thing again, to save his teammates) – into a fairly cohesive narrative.

It helps that Aguirre-Sacasa hits just the right notes with several of the characters – the Human Torch and the Thing, in particular – to give the story a fittingly light-hearted tone. This sense is greatly enhanced by the art of David Marquez, who takes clear inspiration from the work of Kevin Maguire, especially in the realm of amusing facial expressions. The book is saturated with light blues and greens, provided by colorist Guru eFX, with most of the action taking place in broad daylight. It’s a nice diversion from the darker color palettes used in so many superhero comics these days.

But the book isn’t without problems. The reason given for the team’s doomed space flight is that Reed Richards wants to fly “the first privately-owned, privately-financed, privately-designed, privately-launched, utterly rogue rocket ship.” Although Reed insists that “proving himself” in this way is a means to an end – space tourism, he argues, will eventually subsidize the rest of his scientific work – such a hubristic display of power doesn’t really square with Aguirre-Sacasa’s otherwise unfailingly humanitarian portrayal of the character. Reed plays the role of absent-minded professor here; his ego doesn’t even approach the level at which it’s been portrayed over the last several years in other Marvel comics. Reed the businessman has been done, and done more convincingly, by Aguirre-Sacasa himself – especially at the beginning of the Marvel Knights series (in which the Fantastic Four go bankrupt).

The book shifts focus in a major way about halfway through. Having gained their powers and defeated the Mole Man in the first half, the team goes on to face Namor the Sub-Mariner in an updated version of the events of Fantastic Four #4. The book ends without completely resolving this subplot (Namor is captured and held prisoner in the team’s headquarters), leading me to wonder whether this was originally meant to be an ongoing series or miniseries, rather than a standalone graphic novel. Aguirre-Sacasa also introduces a new female character, Reed’s lab assistant Alyssa, who serves both as the manager of the team and as a secondary potential love interest for Reed. Her inclusion is to the author’s credit – his Susan Storm lacks much of a presence, and Alyssa provides a surprisingly multidimensional feminine voice. It’s a shame that her only appearance is in this book.

It’s unclear whether Fantastic Four: Season One is intended to be the characters’ “official” origin story from here on out, or if it’s just meant to be another version among the many others already out there. The fact that Marvel pads out the book’s length by reprinting the first issue of Jonathan Hickman’s run on the main (i.e., canonical) Fantastic Four series makes me lean toward the former, although it doesn’t really matter either way – Season One is a book that, in spite of its flaws, works as a standalone retelling of a familiar story.

Review: Marvel Holiday Special

Writers: Tom DeFalco, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Shaenon Garrity, Jeff Parker, Mike Carey, Roy Thomas, and Chris Claremont
Artists: Takeshi Miyazawa, Roger Cruz, Duncan Roleau, Roger Langridge, Reilly Brown, Mike Perkins, Ross Andru, and John Byrne
Collects: Marvel Holiday Special 2004 & 2005, Marvel Team-Up #1, and Uncanny X-Men #143 (1971, 1980, 2004-05)
Published: Marvel, 2006; $7.99

Every year, both DC and Marvel typically release some sort of special holiday-themed one-shot, usually at some ridiculously high price point. The stories in these issues, at least in my experience, are usually of middling to slightly-above-average quality, mainly featuring younger or lesser-known writers and artists. Perhaps needless to say, events in the holiday specials are for the most part light-hearted and largely inconsequential as far as “main” continuity goes. That said, I almost always bought Marvel’s holiday one-shots back when I still actually purchased single issues, simply because they provided a nice opportunity to get away from the doom and gloom of whatever other stories were being told in the characters’ main series.

A few years ago, Marvel did something sort of interesting by packaging a few of their holiday one-shots into an inexpensive, digest-sized trade paperback, titled simply Marvel Holiday Special. The trade collects the 2004 and 2005 one-shots, along with a few classic tales from years past, for only $7.99 – a few cents short of the combined cover price of the two one-shots, making the book a pretty good deal. (If you shop around, you can find it even cheaper…I actually paid just $2.50 for my copy!)

Of the modern stories, the best is probably “Jonah’s Holiday Carol,” a re-telling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with the curmudgeonly J. Jonah Jameson stepping in for Ebenezer Scrooge. As you might imagine, the “ghosts” that help him see the true meaning of the holidays are all prominent figures in the Marvel Universe, although I won’t spoil the fun by going through who all of them. Another solid story involves a New Avengers Christmas party that gets broken up by Santron, an Ultron robot reprogrammed to eat cookies and deliver toys to good little boys and girls – and to kill the Avengers, of course! This story also features Gravity, my absolute favorite lesser-known Marvel character, which automatically boosts its appeal for me.

Also decent, if not exceptional, are a pair of Fantastic Four stories – one starring Reed and Sue’s son Franklin as he tries to figure out the meaning of Christmas, and the other about the team’s efforts to determine why the Mole Man’s henchmen have been kidnapping shopping-mall Santas. The latter has art by Roger Langridge (writer/artist of The Muppet Show), whose cartoonish style, for lack of a better word, lends the story a lot of humor.

There’s also a Fantastic Four story written by Mike Carey and drawn by Mike Perkins (probably the two most well-known creators to contribute to these one-shots), which is told in the form of a poem. The art is a departure from Perkins’ usual style – in fact, it looks like he read a little too much Perry Bible Fellowship before setting to work on it – and the rhyming aspect of the narration and dialogue can get a little hokey, although it does have the advantage of making the story stand out a bit from the others.

Less interesting is a story about Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Wither (a young mutant whose “power” is that everything he touches dies – good thing he’s not on the bad guys’ side, right?). It’s basically just about the two X-Men trying to cheer Wither up, since he doesn’t have a family to go home to over the school’s winter break. There’s nothing wrong with the story, but it’s not all that interesting either, especially for people (like me) who have never even heard of Wither before.

The two one-shots are followed first by the 1971 debut issue of Marvel Team-Up, in which Spider-Man and the Human Torch track the Sandman throughout New Jersey and New York City on Christmas Eve. This issue has been collected in a few different trades over the years (and will be collected once again in the much-anticipated first Marvel Team-Up Masterworks edition in just a few months), but this is undoubtedly the most affordable way to read the story in color. Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Ross Andru, this issue is a fun classic with a nice mix of action and introspection from Spider-Man, the Torch, and even Sandman.

The final issue collected in this trade is a 1980 issue of Uncanny X-Men, written by Chris Claremont and penciled by John Byrne. It follows the team’s newest recruit, Kitty Pryde, as she’s chased around the X-Mansion by a horrifying demon (clearly inspired by the creature from Alien), again on Christmas Eve. I’ve commented before on Claremont’s unfortunate inclination towards stories featuring “strong” female leads, but this one is actually pretty good – probably due in large part to the fact that Kitty is simply a more interesting character than Claremont’s usual subjects.

Overall, Marvel Holiday Special is a pretty solid mix of new and old holiday-themed superhero stories – even if none of them can really be considered truly outstanding. Sometimes “not outstanding” is perfectly acceptable, though, especially when those stories are so far removed from the norm (and as cheaply collected!) as these ones.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5