With just one issue left before Dan Slott departs the Fantastic Four he has the huge task of putting all the toys back together again for the next creative team. And after such a huge vent as the Reckoning War, that takes a lot of choreographing. And explosions. There’s a good deal of explosions with each one seemingly fixing one of the many thorny problems this cosmic calamity has thrown up for Marvel’s first family over the post few months.
And with so we get Reed Richards cured, Uatu cosmically aware once more and Galactus reborn, but in a new form with a new purpose that’s crying out for a mini-series sometime soon no doubt. And all it took was a few well timed explosions it would seem.
It’s another grand scale issue with art to match, with each page crammed full of characters, but all presented in a widescreen, dynamic style that, while crowded, doesn’t feel crowded out. While Rachel Stott has done much of the heavy lifting over ten course of this saga, Farid Kamari is an excellent replacement with a style not too far removed from Rachel’s own, even if his Reed Richards seems more muscular than I have ever seen him. I always preferred John Byrne’s take on him, as have many other artists. This Reed just seems somewhat out of synch and it slightly took me out of the otherwise engrossing epilogue to the Reckoning War.
Overall, this is a suitably bombastic swan-song to bow out on. Well, except we have one issue left, leaving Slott to end on a more family-centred, smaller personal story after such a big, brash blockbuster.
Over nearly fifty issues Dan Slott has shown his love for Sue, Reed, Ben and Johnny as well as his love for a cast of grounded characters only the Fantastic Four could gather around them. Over the past few issues Slott has shown, once again, he can do big, complex sagas, and they don’t get much bigger than the Reckoning War. A worthy long-form story to end on. And, in winding up this latest chapter in the Fantastic Four’s ongoing adventures, Slott has certainly left a good deal behind in his wake for others to follow and to build on.
Fantastic Four #45 is out now from Marvel
With just one issue left before Dan Slott departs the Fantastic Four he has the huge task of putting allCOMICONRead More