Customer Reviews

Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 1: The Fantastic

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Fantastic" storyline follows the events leading up to the classic family's transformation and their first adventure in this fun new addition to the Ultimate universe.

Bendis' and Millar's story here seems more forced and problematic than their corresponding Ultimate titles. Although the book collects the first six issues of the series, (and probably due to Marvel's decompressed style of storytelling these days) the origin story seems rushed and several plot elements aren't completely believable. While the writers should receive credit for trying to remain true to the original stories, the first villian and his monsters seem completely unbelievable given that the Ultimate universe is supposed to take place in the real world; and Ben Grimm's sudden appearance prior to the accident which transforms the characters also seems fake.

Adam Kubert's work here is very good as he captures the characters perfectly. The colors by Stewart are also good as they perfectly convey the different settings with appropriate realism.

Although not as strong as other Ultimate titles (Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimates), "Ultimate FF" is still good and wide open to a great variety of new stories (here's to Warren Ellis, the new writer who is better suited for these type of stories).

Aside from the Ultimates, I'm not much of a fan of Marvel's Ultimate universe, but the recent, and for many eagerly awaited, Ultimate Fantastic Four greatly kicks off the Ultimate version of Marvel's first family courtesy of co-scribes and Ultimate vets Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man) and Mark Millar (Ultimates) and artist Adam Kubert. Collecting the first six issue arc called The Fantastic; young and misunderstood genius Reed Richards' discovery of another dimension leads him to the Baxter Building under the tutelage of Dr. Storm. Later, Reed, along with his childhood friend Ben Grimm, Dr. Storm's two children Sue and Johnny, and his newfound rival Victor Van Damme (yes, Bendis changed Doom's name), are seperated during an experiment with Victor missing, and the other four with extraordinary powers. Bendis' snappy dialogue suits the book well, and Kubert's art gives it a flashy, polished look. While this first collection is a solid work, the second storyarc, entitled Doom, is penned by Transmetropolitan scribe Warren Ellis, and is something really special.

As someone who embraced the idea but not necessarily the execution of Marvel's "New Universe" and have enjoyed many of DC's "Elsewhere" stories, I have applauded Marvel's Ultimate line of comic books. Once you have done over 500 issues of "The Amazing Spider-Man" or any other title I can certainly appreciate the impulse to start over and re-create Marvel's characters for the 21st century. One of the best things about these stories is that they work both ways. If you know nothing about a Marvel superhero beyond what you pick up from a movie, then you can get in on the ground floor (especially with Marvel committed to these tradepaperback collections). But if you were reading Marvel comics back in the 1960s, even as far back as the "Pop Art" period, then you can enjoy the way things are slightly different and how they play off of what "originally" happened. However, with the re-imagining of the Fantastic Four I think they went a bit too far.

"Ultimate Fantastic Four, Volume 1: The Fantastic" brings together the first six issues of the comic book as the "World's Greatest Comic Magazine" makes its long-awaited debut in the Ultimate Marvel universe, which is just a way of saying that while the "Ultimate Spider-Man," "Ultimate X-Men," and "The Ultimates" have been out there for a while, the FF are only just starting to get up to speed. Written by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar, and illustrated by Adam Kubert, we start 21 years before the birth of the Fantastic Four with the birth of Reed Richards. We then jump ahead ten years when Reed is doing a project on teleportation for the Midtown Middle School science fair that succeeds well enough for Reed to be asked to join a government think tank in the Baxter Building. This means he leaves behind his family and his one friend, Ben Grimm, the star linebacker who makes a point of protecting young Reed from the school bullies.

While I liked the idea that Peter Parker is still 15 when he gets bite by a radioactive spider in the Ultimate universe, turning Reed Richards into Tom Swift bothers me. Reed was always the adult in the FF, and it was not just the gray at the temples. Besides, I do not want the Fantastic Four to be teenage superheroes. The X-Men are supposed to be Marvel's teenage superheroes. I do not have a problem with the idea that the unofficial space flight into the cosmic rays where you take along your fiancé and her kid brother has been replaced by a more terrestrial explanation for their transformations. But the think tank being nothing but kids smacks too much of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game." Originally the future Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Doom meet in college, where the idea is that each is on the cusp of intellectual greatness. Making them smarter, earlier, just does not work for me and makes me thing this is all a marketing ploy to make the FF more kid-friendly. But I, despite persistent lapses, am not a kid and I like my Fantastic Four to be adults, except for Johnny Storm the (literally) hot-headed teenager.

That being said, one of the other great things about the Ultimate comic books is that they take, as in this case, six issues to tell a story. That means you do not have to come up with a new story and a new villain every single issue. What we have with "The Fantastic" is both the creation of the FF and their first encounter with the Mole Man (who, in a nice twist, is not unknown to them). I thought the best part of the story is how the four members come to terms with their new powers (best line is Johnny's, "Oh, man. I hope that's not Sue," because the Thing's first take on what time it is was too self-conscious). I also like the idea that unlike the Ultimates, the government's pet superheroes, there is initial fear and distrust of these four, especially Ben. Of course, Volume 2 of the "Ultimate Fantastic Four" will be devoted to their first encounter with Doctor Doom, so we at least have to go along for the ride that far to see if their creator can take this comic book to the next level. There is potential, of course, but they are not there yet.

I won't Repeat the basic info from the above Reviews.. but I, being one of the guys who once owned some of the origonal FF origin issues way back when, thinks the upgrade of the origonal stories are really well done... Certainly a fresh outlook on a story that origonaly was way too rushed... I like the amount of time that was spent detailing out many things... making the Origonal FF family even more expanded by adding extended family to the mix... (Reeds parents... and Dr. Storm...) It all seems very very fitting to the story lines... I am a bit disapointed that there is no mention of Ben's Parents.. (at least so far) I suppose that as many have speculated that Ben Grimm being Jewish and all was a bit too hot (Read as Polically incorrect) for Marvel to handle... (Oh well...) the Stories Really were well done... and I in my humble opinion the best story lines of the bunch out of all the Ulitmates Series...

I like this one. I got it today and I have already read it 3 times. The art is beutiful, the storyline is great and the dialouge is fresh, funny and comedic. My fav dialouge is this:

Reed: What's up, Johnny?
Johnny: You like my sister?
Reed: Sue? Yes, yes I do.
Johnny: Like that?
Reed: Like what?
Johnny: You know... like that? Do you like her like that?
Reed: ...
Johnny: You guys have been working together for like a billion years. I'm just saying you should tell her. If you told her, she would be respective. If you know what I mean.
Reed: ...
Johnny: *winks*

I had a laugh there. I mean: Do you like her LIKE THAT? Hee hee... Well the new designs for the FF were great and I have some opinions.

Reed Richards
Reed as a teen??? Umm... Reed has lost his dark brown hair and got all light brown instead whilist also losing his grey parts. He also got glasses. 7/10

Sue Storm
You know what I am gonna say, eh? She is hot. Not as hot as Jessica Alba from the FF movie (It rocks go see it) but still hot. 8/10

Johnny Storm
Now THAT is what I call quality work. He got great looking blond hair (Really, REALLY blond) and blue eyes. Also, look out for the "Ultimate Johnny Storm designs by bryan Hitch" at the end of the comic. They look great. 10/10

Johnny Storm "Flamed on"
Basic human torch. Nothing to report. 8/10

Ben Grimm
He looks great as a normal being. Good design, nice hair, good outfit. 9/10

Ben Grimm "The Thing"
Looks like always. 8/10

Good designs, good dialouge, good everything! Get this now! And while your at it, see the movie, it rules.

As another reviewer said, I'm not a kid (not by a long shot!), and I'm female which makes me a unique customer, I think. I was thrilling to The Fantastic Four at the age of ten, way back at the dawn of time -- at least FF's dawn...I was there at the beginning. I read their adventures until I was fifteen when it was too humiliating for me to be seen buying comic books! Didn't see the FF again until the movie came out and old appetites were revitalized. I was curious to see where Marvel had taken my guys (and my gal)nearly forty years later. I like the revamp, although Reed as a young upstart bugs me a bit. Reed is the father figure, the "daddy" of the group (yeah, I even thought that Sue thought of him that way most of the time). I can live with a younger Reed if I must, however, and I like what they've done with Johnny. Ben hasn't changed much! So, from an original fan, thumbs up.

One would expect the second coming from the pairing of Millar and Bendis, aptly aided by the amazing (wait, I mean fantastic!) Adam Kubert, here at his second milestone in the Ultimate Universe (after creating Ultimate X-Men with Millar).
What they achieve is a story just about their respective average, on par with Bendis's own retelling of Spider-Man's origin and Millar'sown remaking of th X-Men, but light years away from Bendis's creator owned masterpiece Powers and Millar's Ultimates or Authority.
The story goes like this: Infant genius Reed Richards has found a way to breach the wall to a parallel dimension. The first large scale experiment with this goes awfully wrong and it mutates Reed, his best friend Ben Grimm, fellow young genius Susan Storm and her brother Johnny into superhumans, while suspect fellow genius Victor Von Doom goes missing (he'll pop up again in Vol. 2, pissed as all hell).
The story has been intelligently reprinted without breaks and it does read like a single story: I honestly could not figure out where chapters started. The collected edition thus reads smoothly, alhough way too slow in the first half.
That's probably because both Millar and (I suspect) especially Bendis wanted to start the story giving us as much background and humanity as possible to our supposed identification figue, super (misunderstood) genius and ultimate nerd Reed Richards (sic).
Bendis's excesses in these directions are exaggerated by his own success with Ultimate Spider-Man (but alas, the magic doesn't work twice) and tempered by Millar's usually faster and more compressed storytelling.
The guy who really shines here though, is artist Adam Kubert, once again turning scripts ino rollercoasters of layout adventuring and simply beautiful art. As a true superhero artist, he fails a bit in facial expressions and the like (but some of them, when he nails them right, are still absolutely priceless). The best sequences are the 4-panels pages Warren Ellis praised him for (which are apparently his idea, meaning he should probably write his own stories and he would totally rock!) and those snake-like succession of panels in double-page spreads towards the end, as the underground cave the FF are fighting the Mole Man in goes down and we learn the final bit of the Invisble Woman's powers.
Thankfully, they also reproduced all of Bryan Hitch's covers to the series too (a pity the Adam Kubert ones were ruined by the most awful computer colouring ever, to the point that the cover to issue six looks like a bad Liefeld piece...), thus making the collection complete.
If you are a fan of the Ultimate Universe, o if you would like to know the Marvel heroes at the ground level and without the baggae of decadesof convouted continuity, this is defnitely for you.

Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 1 Review
Marvel's First Family gets the Ultimate treatment. With minds like Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis crafting the new origin for the Ultimate Fantastic Four, you can expect great things. They didn't disappoint. This trade collects the six issues of the series.
The arc opens up with Reed Richard's childhood. He has a near abusive father and parents that don't understand his genius level intellect. Ben Grimm is his only friend and often saves him from school bullies. The only problem is that Ben is simple-minded, and often doesn't understand what Reed's inventions. It's until a school science fair where Reed shows off his teleportation project that the government finds him. His life quickly changes. Recruited into the Think Tank, a government sponsored program designed to help fledgling genius level intellect teenagers come up with inventions for the American government. Reed meets Sue and Johnny Storm, and Victor Van Damme. Tragedy strikes during their first test of Reed's full scale teleportation device, which leads to them being powered. They have to face an old teacher known as Mole Man, who has kidnapped Sue. Then, while they learn how to adjust to these new powers, these four newly superpowered teenagers are attacked by their once scientific partner Van Damme.
Millar and Bendis manage to create an interesting new origin for the Fantastic Four. While the dialogue is heavy and the characterization isn't in-depth, it is definitely worth reading if you aren't a fan of the mainstream (616) Fantastic Four. I've never cared for Marvel's original Fantastic Four, but I'm now a fan of the Ultimate version. Kubert's art is good, nothing spectacular. Mole Man made a less than "cool" villain to me, he worked though.

If you're already a comic fan, you've probably made up your mind about this book already. This review is for those few non-comic readers who might be, unlikely as it seems, checking this item out.

Firstly, if you've never heard of the Fantastic Four then this is a great place to start. The story is completely new, and you don't have to know anything. It's a pretty faithful adaptation of the original characters, with a new origin and one important twist. They're young adults.

I think this is a great idea. If the Ultimate Marvel universe wants to distinguish itself, it needs to truly reinvision the characters, and this is a neat way to do that because it's a relatively minor change that allows fresh unexplored FF stories.

I won't tell much of the plot (I hate it when reviewers do that) except to say there's a freak accident (isn't there always) and a young team of superheroes are born. My personal favorite has always been the Thing. I just love the way he's so utterly inhuman in appearance, yet so down to earth. It's one aspect I'm glad they didn't change.

I'd give this 5 stars except for two small flaws. Firstly, the pacing is a little slow. Secondly, the final confrontation just isn't as satisfying as it should be. Still, all in all an excellent comic.

I have ever single Ultimate Marvel book and my favorite of them all is The Fantastic 4.

each volume has a new artist and the story lines are awesome with great dialogue.

If you are a comic fan this series is a must have!

btw: I was not a Fantastic 4 fan until reading this series.

worth the buy!