FF #9

"Last Splash"
written by Matt Fraction
art by Joe Quinones
colors by Laura Allred

The threat of Doom may continue to lurk over the Future Foundation after Alex Powers' return, as indeed it always has over the Fantastic Four, but "Last Splash" is a playful summer romp, tonally commensurate with the pool party they're invited to.  Matt Fraction continues to milk the charm of the Future Foundation students with superb insight and great fun.  "Last Splash" is a profile of the Foundation's two most taciturn members—Vil and Wu, the Uhari or the "fish kids"—as told by Bentley-23's documentary Unseen Depths.  It's got all the cocky, self-aggrandizing bullshit you'd expect from the villain-clone, but it's ultimately a friendly (if perhaps bleak) portrait of his classmates, whom he seems genuinely to admire, self-satisfaction aside.

The more immediate development, though a small one, is the introduction of an alien Julius Caesar, now CEO Charles Cotta, friend of the Fantastic Four motivated to help facilitate their return.  His eyes are soft, but otherwise Quinones' adaptation of Julius Caesar busts is immaculate.  Old Johnny Storm might recognize the man with some prompting, but he is to a significant extent still an unknown quantity and a potential wildcard in the effort to rescue the Fantastic Four.

Fraction's real accomplishment in FF is all the fun, which even in its heaviest moments, never really seems to relent.  Even when the pool party devolves into slightly unpleasant splash-fight chaos, it's still a delightful glimpse of family life.  Children are difficult to write, but Fraction's mélange of aliens, clones, inhumans, and super-powered teens are more real than most.

[September 2013]