Fantastic Force #1Issue(s): Fantastic Force #1 Review/plot: In this issue, they fight Klaw. It's actually the Black Panther, with the good old vibranium knuckles (first seen in Fantastic Four #56), who defeats Klaw, though. Klaw's solid sound constructs are realistic colors in this issue instead of the usual red. If there was even the possibility of this all being interesting, it's mired by DeFalco continuity. Lots of talk of Psi-Lord and Huntara's timeline - the Warlord Kargul (first introduced in DeFalco's Thor Corps!), etc. - prevents this from just being a Teen Fantastic Four or anything resembling X-Force. Vibraxis actually seems like he could have been an interesting character, but between the set-up for this series and the actual writing, he didn't have much of a chance. In retrospect, given that Tom Brevoort is co-writing, one of the interesting things in this series is the way Devlon, a young Inhuman, is depicted. He reminds me of a young mutant just coming to grips with his abilities. It just brings to mind the way Inhumans thematically replaced mutants much later in Marvel's history. Quality Rating: D Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after Fantastic Four #392. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A
Comments"The Fantastic Four disbanded in Fantastic Four #392". Well, they were about due for another disbanding. It's an annual thing with them. Posted by: clyde | January 24, 2018 1:19 PM The art looks nice, it seems. The artist may not have something extra about him, but he can clearly draw, unlike many others who were drawing contemporary Marvel comics. He has an 80s feel to him. Posted by: Lecen | January 24, 2018 2:41 PM Someone should have told Huntara that a nonce is a peodophile in British parlance. Unless I’ve completely read that wrong. Posted by: JSfan | January 24, 2018 4:29 PM It does have two meanings. Posted by: clyde | January 24, 2018 4:41 PM A clearer testament to DeFalco's failings as EiC would be hard to find. "Four characters that no one cares about" is dead on - and yet clearly he convinced himself that the audience was eating these losers up in the pages of his Fantastic Four. Were frightened assistants selectively passing him flattering fanmail? Not sure an FF spinoff team could ever really work, since their "family" identity is so crucial to the title, and the main team sort of fills the niche of the kind of team that goes on the kind of adventures they do. But if you were gonna do it, you'd need fan-favorite characters and/or top-drawer talent; DeFalco apparently didn't think this needed either. Posted by: doctorcasino | January 24, 2018 8:56 PM Hilariously, the Fantastic Force series started as a result of a rumor that the Fantastic Four series was going to be cancelled and replaced with a series called Fantastic Force: Posted by: Michael | January 24, 2018 9:06 PM A clearer testament to DeFalco's failings as EiC would be hard to find. "Four characters that no one cares about" is dead on - and yet clearly he convinced himself that the audience was eating these losers up in the pages of his Fantastic Four. Were frightened assistants selectively passing him flattering fanmail? Not only are these four characters hard to care about -- though Vibraxas does become a bit more interesting once Priest gets ahold of him in the Marvel Knights Black Panther series -- they're all deeply derivative, which is even more damning given the FF's heyday as the "wild new concepts" book that contributed so many concepts and locales to the Marvel Universe. Here, you get the bad wedding cover band version of past stuff, from Klaw and the Vibranium knuckles to the Inhumans to some staggeringly generic "alternative future timeline warriors" stuff dragged straight from a doldrums-era X-title. It's not aggressively obnoxious, despite the 90s 'tude title; it's just homogenous mid-90s Marvel Slurry. To his credit, Tom Brevoort apparently sees this series as subpar in retrospect. Posted by: Omar Karindu | January 25, 2018 8:55 AM It just occurred to me: Marvel paid good money for the rights to "Angela" a few years back. On its own I thought that was pretty dumb, but in retrospect, they could have just brought back Huntara. I mean, look at her: it's the same character! Posted by: Andrew | January 25, 2018 9:03 AM Cheers, Clyde. I thought it might mean something different in the good ol' US of A. I bet there were some kids in blighty who had a chuckle at that one though. Posted by: JSfan | January 25, 2018 11:40 AM I think I only ever read three issues of Fantastic Force. I was following the DeFalco & Ryan run of Fantastic Four, but not ever that could convince me to pick up this spin-off series regularly. As fnord commented, I just was not interested in most of the characters. Having said that, I think Dante Bastianoni was a solid penciler. Posted by: Ben Herman | January 25, 2018 2:28 PM Have we hit that issue of FF where a random guy stopping by Four Freedoms Plaza accidentally acquires Lyja's laser powers, then wanders away seeking help, never to be seen in a Marvel comic again? Wonder if that was DeFalco trying to throw his idea of another great, instant-classic character Brevoort's way. This was a particularly odd time to launch an FF spinoff book since the main team was ALSO becoming quite the motley crew, with Scott Lang and Kristoff hanging around. The "Force" didn't have much tie to the original book OR much differentiating it. Posted by: doctorcasino | January 25, 2018 7:02 PM I knew Brevoort was the lame editor who keeps getting busted for lying to fans, but had no idea he was the guy behind this trainwreck Posted by: Bob | February 2, 2018 7:36 PM Comments are now closed. |
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