Hickman's Fantastic Four Part 1

Jonathan Hickman is a comic book writer who wrote the Fantastic Four from 2009 to 2012.  In 2011 He introduced a second book to the Fantastic Four family, FF.  At the time, I was reading this book as it was coming out; and it takes a lot out of a comic to get my money.  But due to monetary issues, as in I was fucking broke, I had to stop buying comics altogether.  I recently decided though, that the new story arc in Fantastic Four and FF sounds interesting enough for me to try out, but not until I finished learning what Hickman had to say about Marvel's first family.

Hickman's first story arc was actually a tie-in to a Marvel event called Dark Reign.  If you're not familiar with Dark Reign it's basically when Norman Osborn (the green goblin) gets control of a SHIELD-like agency and causes all kinds of whacky shenanigans.  It's also essentially just a lead in to another Marvel event called Siege.  I usually ignore tie-in story arcs because they usually suck cock but then I decided to write this blog so I went back and read Dark Reign: Fantastic Four.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the Dark Reign tie-in story arc.  I read it after I read all of Hickman's other Fantastic Four work so I knew I would like it but I still thought it would still be a tie-in.  It's not.  It is a Fantastic Four story that Norman Osborn happens to be in for about five minutes.  This is also an important story arc that introduces a lot of ideas that Hickman uses down the line.  This arc is called The Bridge, referring to a Stargate-like device that Reed Richards builds in order to allow him to see all other alternate universes in order to hopefully find a world of peace so that he can "solve everything."  At the end of the story, reed looks through the universes to find how many other 'bridges' have been built and when he finds out, he sees the silhouettes of people who want to help him.  The only other really noteworthy thing that came from this story arc is this one earth that Reed discovered while looking for his perfect Earth.  It was deemed unimportant in the context of the story, but on this Earth Reed Richards had killed all the members of the illuminati (a secret society of the most intelligent people in the world that make decisions for the rest of the world) because he knew that no good would come of it.  The reason I found this so interesting is because Jonathan Hickman is currently writing New Avengers and it's all about the illuminati making terribly difficult decisions that they believe are for the best of everyone.

Solve Everything is the story that spun out of The Bridge and it's also the first Fantastic Four story that I have ever read.  It opens up with a moving scene of Reed as a child on a high ledge above his father Nathaniel who is encouraging his son to jump.  Nathaniel is reassuring Reed that he will catch him but Reed is still scared until he says, "It's okay to be afraid.  It's okay to fail.  But to say you're not even willing to try... That's unacceptable." (*insert weeping noise hear* I'm sorry, gimme a minute) So we learn that the people on the other side of the bridge were other Reeds who had also built bridges and discovered each other and decided to work together for a better tomorrow.  Unfortunately, though their intentions are good, and they do accomplish incredible things, these Reeds also end up lobotomizing every Dr. Doom in the universe.  It also turns out that these Reeds throw themselves into their work so extremely that they have no more time for their friends or families.  Our Reed needs time to decide if he wants to join this 'Council' but the next time he visits the council, one of the Reeds has done something to offend the race of space gods known as the Celestials.  The Celestials want the power of the bridge and start unleashing Hell on the Reeds.  Our Reed escapes to his universe and returns with weapons but the others tell him to go home because of his family.  He barely makes it out alive, we get some more flashbacks of his father and learn that he abandoned Reed for the greater good when Reed was a teenager.  Reed realizes that he wants to be a better father than his own and destroys the bridge.

After Solve Everything, we got a couple of stand alone issues.  The first one involves Johnny and Ben on vacation in what was supposed to be a beautiful alternate dimension called Nu-World.  This issue picked up on a Fantastic Four story that had come up before Hickman's run.  As I had not read this issue or story arc I was a bit lost here, but I got the gist of it.  This rather odd cast of characters that reside on Nu-World are there because at some point, Reed and perhaps the rest of the Fantastic Four helped them murder a Galactus and use its energy to send them off Earth to Nu-World.  Apparently they did not want to be on Nu-World because they return later in Hickman's run but I'll get to that.  Anyway the next issue is about Franklin Richard's (Reed and Sue's son) birthday.  Reed and Sue invite Leech and some kid named Artie to stay with them.  I've read this entire run and I still have no idea who Artie is.  In the first issue of Solve Everything, Reed adopted a child clone of his villain The Wizard in hopes that he would have a better future.  So at this point you should realize that Reed Richards is gathering up more awkward, unhappy little boys then your average unhappy middle-aged man with a van.  Anyway, a strange man crashes the party and tells Franklin to, "remember who you are." He also talks to Franklin's sister Valeria who immediately recognizes him as Franklin from the future.  At the end of the issue we see Franklin playing under the covers, making a new universe.

Well that's it for part one.  I was going to do this all in one shot but this is already longer than any post I've done before and I'm not even half-way through this.  Hope you're intrigued enough to stick with me through the rest of it so stay tuned for part two some time next week!