Like with Alan Davis' Excalibur run, I picked up Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four run via the "Visionaries" trades Marvel released back in the mid-2000s. It's not a lengthy stint, compared to his time on Thor, at right around 20 issues. His run follows the acrimonious end of Steve Englehart's stint on the book, where Englehart chose to be credited as "John Harkness" for the last seven issues because, I think, editorial was messing with his work. My vague understanding is Englehart was gradually phasing most of the team out, and the Human Torch was going to be the new leader, which is difficult for me to visualize.
Anyway, Marvel apparently nixed that, so Simonson inherits a team with three of the Four, plus Ben Grimm in human form (occasionally donning the Thing exo-skeleton) and Sharon Ventura, who was transformed to look more or less like the Thing early in Englehart's run (at the same time Ben developed his "spiky rocks" look, which Simonson brings back briefly for the last few issues.)
Most of Simonson's run seems to revolve around time travel, or hopping timelines, spinning off from his own Avengers' run, which I have not read, but sort of know involved a crapload of Kangs and Dr Druid playing the chump for a blue lady. The FF have that to contend with, plus the Celestial up there, plus a Galactus that's on the verge of devouring the entire universe. There's a stopover in a timeline very similar, but not identical to theirs, then a few issues where they're trapped on an island full of dinosaurs and soldiers, minus their powers.
Simonson brings a blessed end to the extremely lengthy plotline about Kristoff believing he's Doom and running Latveria, while another Doom hangs out in the U.S. and tries periodically to retake his country. I don't know how long that went on, but it feels like it was status quo for years and years. Simonson just ends it by bringing the "true" Doom back from some multiverse sojourn in a cool new armor (that was probably the rough basis for the Doom 2099 look).
Which leads to the classic "battle through time" issue between Doom and Reed, where you can read the book the normal, linear way and follow what the other characters are doing, or jump all over (including the cover) tracking Reed and Doom's back-and-forth struggle. Finally, the Time Variance Authority shows up, trying to clamp down on the Fantastic Four because of all their recent mucking with time.
It's more than a bit of a meta-textual run. The end of it brings the FF back home and Ben is somehow back to his classic look. Sharon's been reverted to human by Doom (in a cruel twist, right as Ben was subjecting himself to cosmic rays to become rocklike so she wouldn't feel so conscious about being a Thing.) Simonson shunts Franklin Richards and his mind-boggling powers off to the side somewhere and basically forgets about him.
When Doom mentions he's been waiting years to avenge his loss to Ben on
the roof of the Baxter Building, and Ben asks if that means he's been a
Doombot every time since then, Doom plays it coy. Meaning the reader (or
creative team) can dismiss any appearance of Doom they didn't find in
character. Which people probably did anyway, but I'm not sure how often a
writer had more or less explicitly said it.
The whole "New Fantastic Four" story was a gag about pandering to the "hot characters" for sales. Put big solo stars like Spider-Man, Wolverine and Ghost Rider on the team! Add big monsters! Toss in an extremely gratuitous Punisher cameo at the very end! It's all in good fun, but there's a definite wink to the reader going on.
And Simonson does lighten things up. The Acts of Vengeance tie-ins are the FF being "menaced" by a bunch of the lamest villains possible, in what is essentially a massive troll job by Doom (or a Doombot). Ben gets to make some decent wisecracks and be the butt of the jokes sometimes (while also demonstrating he's got a brain and a good understanding of people.)
Simonson draws the run himself, minus the first three issues and the two Art Adams drew. The Fantastic Four aren't prone to the sort of titanic slugfests he drew so well on Thor, but the cosmic level threats they encounter are on a scale well-suited for his work. The Celestial, Galactus, dinosaurs. A giant mech piloted by a still-alive Stalin.
2 comments:
I have some of the "time sled" issues because they feature Death's Head as a guest star, because Simonson was a fan of the character or something. I wasn't grabbed enough by them to pick up the rest of the Simonson run (although I did read the new FF issues somewhere), but maybe I should because it looks like fun.
I think Simonson's having fun with it, and he keeps things moving. There's not really an issue of just downtime, the quiet character moments happen in between and during all the crazy action stuff. If there's any used copies of those Visionaries collections available (three in total), those might be a relatively cheap way to get the whole thing.
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