FF #2

"The Big Goodbye"
written by Matt Fraction
art by Michael Allred
color by Laura Allred

First of all, I have little doubt that with her celebrity and shapely (if muscular) figure She-Hulk would have no problem finding any number of Stella McCartney designs.  I do, however, question whether McCartney would design a suit more Margaret Thatcher than Milan runway, despite the hipster tie.  I also question her choice of monochromatic melon pink.  It's a change from her athletic-wear, but it's a strange one.

So the Fantastic Four—the "real ones"—were only supposed to be gone for four minutes.  That window passed quickly, leaving their replacements (and whatever readers aren't also following Fraction's Fantastic Four) in the dark and forced to improvise their new positions.  And She-Hulk's expression as Ant-Man remarks inauspiciously, "Uh-oh" (FF #2: 3), is priceless; her eyebrows say it all.  The new four soon come under scrutiny from both the press, who mock the superhero moniker of the replacements' publicity-shy leader, and the students, who must now turn to these strangers as their guardians.  Even after their successful capture of the opportunistic Mole Man and his giant, the city calls for reimbursement and the kids, no doubt worrying about their friends and teachers, are super-excited as only kids can be at the prospect of their return heralded by the "Boop Boop" machine.

In the continued absence of their predecessors, each of the new four requires a little adjustment before they find their places, but it's Scott Lang's transition from moderately panicky man-in-charge—"Maybe nobody leave the building today" (5)—to seemingly comfortable, second-nature dad mode—without looking up from his paper to the lunch table behind him, "Vil, stop stabbing Wu's hand, please" (16)—that steals the issue.  Deering, feeling out of place among the other superheroes and despite her new Thing-suit feeling more than a little like she's a liability rather than a help, decides to step aside.  Walters seems both unsurprised and none too disappointed.  But her departure will undoubtedly be short-lived, especially considering the arrival of some kind of evil Johnny Storm, who seems to think he has permanently sealed the others' door back to Earth.

[February 2013]