Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ultimately, Fantastic Four ended


"Ultimate Fantastic Four" ended with issue 60. It hit stores February 18. It took three months before I even missed it.
About two weeks ago, I was standing in the local comic store, saw that issue, and thought, "Boy, there hasn't been one of those in a while." I had bought every issue starting with the first trade paperback, then the monthly series -- every month for five years.
At one point, say most of 2005-2006, I thought it was one of the best comics on the market, superior even to the regular "Fantastic Four" comic.
Neither the art not the writing had been very good for a while, at least since Mike Carey and Pascual Ferry left the book.
In its glory days, with Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar and Warren Ellis writing and Adam Kubert and Stuart Immomen drawing, I thought it was at least as good, if not better than, it's more famous counterpart, "Ultimate Spider-Man."
How far the "Ultimate" line of comics has sunk -- even "Ultimate Spider-Man" has been cancelled. Issue 133 will be the last one. I have a bunch of the hardcover volumes of that, too. I kind of lost interest after the clone saga of a few years ago, but the book still had Bendis and Immomen writing and drawing, respectively. I figured that was the one "Ultimate" book that might continue indefinitely, even if I wasn't reading it.
I am sad about all this, especially because I have refused to read "Amazing Spider-Man" after the "One More Day" storyline and because regular "Fantastic Four" has been very hit or miss for me. These are two of titles I have always enjoyed most.
Maybe there's hope, however, the latest issue of "Fantastic Four" really felt like an FF story -- for the first time in a long time. I am probably just being stubborn about "Amazing Spider-Man." It has such great talent writing and drawing it, it can't be that bad.
This was a rambling post, but I guess it comes down to this: can somebody please make my favorite characters fun to read again? Please?

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