Fantastic Four is another series that, like Thor, is frighteningly outside my X-bubble. Having Spidey on the team makes me a little less agoraphobic about venturing into unfamiliar territory, since I have been an off and on reader of Amazing Spidey. Currently on.
I can say that I honestly have started to understand the purpose of renumbering. It's kind of intimidating for someone like myself who has spent copious amounts of time and money trying to fill in gaps in my X-Men collections. I've finally managed to complete the second volume of X-Men, and dread moving to the Uncanny gaps.
It's difficult to imagine picking up another title that has over 500 issues of back-treading to really understand the current whereabouts. I know enough about the Fantastic Four to understand the grand scheme, but the wonderful part about reading a long-term book like this, is getting those fanfare throwbacks that writers work so hard to connect to the rest of the canon. I don't like missing out on those nods to the past.
That's why it's nice to have a "jumping on" point like this. The covers of the books are striking and I love the new costumes. I also love that Dr. Doom appears in the first story arc.
One gripe is in regards to the new recruit. Hickman writes in Spider-Man well enough, and he doesn't steal the show. This is a Reed/Sue/Ben book as much as it is a Peter book. Actually, when I started this post, I think my gripe was actually with the Amazing Spider-Man issue I read yesterday. (Sorry, I read them one after another)
Okay, so let's switch gears.
Amazing Spider-Man #659 annoyed me for two reasons:
One is that Spidey comes across sounding more like Deadpool talking to himself than himself. I really am not pleased with the dialogue. I get it. He's the jokester character that has to throw sand balls at the Thing if they're on a beach and goofy crap like that. Seriously, though stop acting like a douche. Ben just needs to punch him in the face and say "Button yer lip, webs. Yer not Johnny and ya neva will be."
Quoting The Beastie Boys seems like a Deadpool thing, too.
The second thing that irks me is the zombie pirates. I'm sick of them and they're sick of me. That really sums up how I feel about them.
I will say that Caselli's art is really enjoyable and fun. I also like that Slott writes in flashbacks. It goes back to that not-knowing-most-of-the-FF-canon problem I was talking about. I'm sure that 90% of the reader's of Amazing Spider-Man don't know what happened in Fantastic Four #5 back in the 60's, so it's nice to feel like we're in the know.
I give FF #1 and #2 one and a half orange rock-thumbs up, and I give Amazing #659 one Ad-Rock, one MCA, and one Mike D up and one Decaying Johnny Depp down.
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