Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman, Vol. 3 - Jonathan Hickman, Neil Edwards

Genre: Superheroes / Action / Adventure

Year Published: 2010

Year Read: 2013

Series: Fantastic Four #3

Publisher: Marvel Comics
 



Introduction:
 
After reading the first two volumes of Jonathan Hickman’s highly acclaimed “Fantastic Four” series, I was a little skeptical about reading more from this series because:
 
a)      The stories in the first two volumes were confusing to me and I thought that I would never get into the stories no matter how many volumes I have read from this series.
b)      I did not quite enjoy the second volume as much as the first volume, so I was not sure if I was going to enjoy the direction this series was going.
 
But, I went on to read the third volume of “Fantastic Four” and I actually enjoyed it way more than the second volume!  It seems that the events that happened in the first two volumes are starting to come together and we will start seeing massive changes happening to the Fantastic Four!
 
What is this story about?
 
The story starts off with Reed Richards deciding to start a school for young gifted students called the Future Foundation while Susan Storm was off to the Four Cities acting as Earth’s diplomat.  Meanwhile, Johnny Storm takes Franklin to the toy store only to run into an old enemy Arcade while at the same time, Valerie offers a cure to Ben for his rock form!  While all of this is going on, Nathaniel Richards, Reed Richards’ father, time travels to Reed’s past in order to receive his help in defeating a mass murderer while also receiving help from none other than a younger version of Dr. Doom!
 
What I loved about this story:
 
Jonathan Hickman’s writing: Once again, Jonathan Hickman had done an excellent job at writing the relationships between the characters and trying to set up a much larger story in the future. I loved seeing the relationship between Johnny Storm and Franklin Richards as they have a love-hate relationship with each other and every time those two are involved in any kind of adventures, you can bet that the adventures will definitely be hilarious!  Probably the story that really caught my interest was about Valerie possibly finding a cure for Ben Grimm as I rarely see a “Fantastic Four” story line where it focuses on Ben Grimm possibly being cured of his rock form and I really cannot wait to see where Jonathan Hickman is going to take this plot in the future volumes.  I also loved the way that Jonathan Hickman portrayed Reed Richards’ character as Reed is shown being intelligent and doing everything in his power to save the world and I am loving the idea about Reed opening up a school for intelligent students, which I cannot wait to see whether or not the students will play a major role in the future “Fantastic Four” stories.
 
Neil Edwards’ artwork:  Even though I preferred Dale Eaglesham’s artwork from the previous “Fantastic Four” volumes, Neil Edwards had done a great job at detailing the characters’ facial expressions and I loved the shadowing on the characters’ faces whenever they have dark thoughts about the situations at hand.  I also loved the images of the buildings as they look truly realistic and my favorite image of the buildings was when Spider-Man was briefly seen swinging on the buildings!
 
What made me feel uncomfortable about this story:
 
One of the main issues I was having with Jonathan Hickman’s run on “Fantastic Four” was that every time I read a volume from this series, there is just too much going on and I get way too confused with what is going on in the story.  I would have preferred it if the volume focused on one storyline and then wrap that singular story arc into the next volume so that way each volume would make much more sense.  Also, the reason why I gave this volume a four star rating was because there are many slow scenes that I slightly bored me and I was waiting to see some kind of action happen to the characters.  Also, there is some violence and language in this volume, although it is not as bad as something you would read out of any Vertigo or Image comic book.
 
Final Thoughts:
 
Overall, “Fantastic Four Volume Three” is a step up from the previous volume as everything is starting to come into place and I cannot wait to see how things will unfold in the future volumes!
 
Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog