Fantastic Four #605 - Marvel Comics

FANTASTIC FOUR No. 605, June 2012

Despite its New York City-based publisher’s attempt to imbue this book with some semblance of pulse-pounding speed, courtesy of a disingenuous solicitation synopsis which sensationally declares “the team must literally fight to save their future”, Jonathan Hickman’s plot to Issue Six Hundred And Five of “Fantastic Four” is pleasingly slow-paced and simply uses good penmanship to enthral its audience rather than action-packed fireworks. Indeed, considering that this twenty-page periodical contains nothing more than a series of dialogue-driven, sedentary set-pieces, many of this comic’s readers probably still felt somewhat emotional once its storyline concluded; “I’ve missed you too, Stretch.”

To begin with the American author depicts a genuinely caring Reed Richards, who whilst delighted that the Thing is finally able to revert “to his normal human form for approximately one week every year”, is clearly still worried about his friend’s future, and therefore devises a plan to travel forwards one thousand years. Ordinarily such a plot thread could lead to all sorts of unbelievable flights of technobabble-fuelled fancy. But on this occasion the writer simply settles for penning Ben Grimm’s increasingly solitary existence, where even the immortal Franklin Richards eventually leaves the super-team “to run with the Gods.”

This decline is genuinely touching, as the Fantastic Four’s former powerhouse wearily wanders through an age where there are quite literally hundreds of Future Foundation graduates willing to put any unruly villain back in their place without a moment’s notice. As a result, Benjamin becomes increasingly mournful that the original roster are long dead, and, with typical Yancy Street humour, that the former astronaut hasn’t even “had a hamburger in fifteen hundred years.”

Much of this pathos is generated by the prodigious pencilling of Ron Garney, whose ability to sketch the Thing with an increasingly long beard, really helps sell the eternity which has passed in between Reed Richards’ time skips. Interestingly however, the artist doesn’t seem to be quite on his best game at the book’s start, when strangely both Mister Fantastic and his father seem to be lacking in facial detail – at least until the narrative has them arriving in the Big Apple in 3012 A.D. aboard an invisible observation platform.

Writer: Jonathan Hickman, Artist: Ron Garney, and Color Artist: Jason Keith