Fantastic Four #536 is one of the lead in comics to Marvel’s new mini-series Civil War. This fact alone made us particularly excited to read this issue. The fact that Thor’s hammer was on the cover didn’t hurt, either!
Creative Team
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Penciller: Mike McKone
Inker: Andy Lanning, Kev Walker, Cam Smith & Kris Justice
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10.
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Total Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: The issue starts 6 months ago with a UFO that was only a couple of feet in size and too small to do any damage and would probably burn up upon re-entry. Instead the object survived and hit with a pretty large impact.
We then cut to present time and Reed is coming home from a meeting with his fellow Illuminati members as detailed in this month’s New Avengers: Illuminati special. Reed tells Sue that Iron Man told them about the pending legislation that all costumed heroes must register with the government and become a guard in the new S.H.I.E.L.D. world security force. Refusal will be considered a Federal crime and will be hunted down by S.H.I.E.L.D. Iron Man thinks they should support it.
Sue and Reed then get an emergency call form a military base in Oklahoma. The Fantastic Four hit the base in Oklahoma and see Doombots attacking the base. The Fantastic Four start kicking some Doombot butt. Reed figures out that the Doombots were a distraction. Suddenly a missile is launched at the military base and blows it up. Then Doom appears and explains that he attacked this military base to retrieve something that rightfully belongs to Doom. The issue ends with a full page splash shot of Thor’s mighty hammer.
Comments
The Good: The art was solid. The Revolution likes McKone, but the parade of inkers on this issue didn’t help any.
All we have to say is one word. THOR! That alone makes this a great issue. Overall, the story was very good. I can’t wait to see where Straczynski goes with this. It is about time for Thor to make his grand return to the Marvel Universe.
As always, Straczynski delivers a strong story. Equally adept at action and dialogue, there was good fighting and some funny classic dialogue between the Thing and the Human Torch. This was a pretty entertaining issue that gets the reader excited not only for the next issue, but for the Civil War in general.
The Bad: The silly amount of inkers in this issue gave the comic a rather inconsistent look. And there was a very odd 2 page splash shot of the Thing engaging the Doombots in battle. It was not the climax of the issue of even an important part of the story. It seemed an odd time for a 2 page splash shot and it didn’t even look particularly good.
The Revolution can’t find much else to complain about. This was a solid story with good writing.