Another book from the library and another Fantastic Four collection - this volume collects Ultimate Fantastic Four #21-26. This time it is set in the Marvel Ultimate universe – which seems to be a parallel universe to the normal Marvel universe (haven’t these guys learnt anything from DC’s various multiverse crises?). The Ultimate universe gives creators the chance to play with characters so that they are familiar to readers of the regular but subtly different enough that they can be reinvented.
The first three chapters deal with Reed Richards contacting yet another parallel Earth and connecting with that Earth’s older version of himself. However he crosses dimensions to find himself in a superhero zombie apocalypse version of Earth. He hooks up with the last unchanged superhero – Magneto – who is, ironically, protecting a last pocket of humanity from the zombies. The remaining three chapters tell of the return of Sue and Johnny’s mother from the dead; the discovery and exploration of Atlantis and the release of Namor – with chaos ensuing.
I enjoyed this collection. The Fantastic Four in the Ultimate universe have gone right back to their roots and are portrayed as a young team of heroes again. Mark Millar’s script was action and emotion packed with subtle touches of humour along the way. It did suffer slightly because I was joining the story in the middle of a run and so had to fill in some of the details of the history of character exchanges for myself. However, there was enough in it to make me want to read more of the series.
First published on RevolutionSF on Sunday Sep 12, 2010
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