Review: Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four, Vol. 1: Family of Heroes

Writers: Jeff Parker and Akira Yoshida
Artists: Carlo Pagulayan and Juan Santacruz
Collects: Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #1-4 (2005)
Published: Marvel, 2005; $6.99

The first volume of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four is fortunate enough to avoid the biggest pitfall of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man’s earliest issues – that is, it tells brand-new stories rather than simply rehashing old ones. Sadly, Jeff Parker doesn’t ever hit the same groove that he did in the one issue of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man that he wrote (which, by contrast, was a lot of fun), and parts of this book are actually pretty boring. The fact that Parker only co-writes the first two issues – with Akira Yoshida, whose writing typically falls somewhere between average and mediocre in quality – is probably a big part of the problem.

There are a few bright spots, though. Parker comes up with some pretty clever ways for the Fantastic Four (especially the Human Torch) to use their powers in the fourth issue, which is by far the best of this collection. But even so, the pacing is off and emotional development throughout is shallow at best. Most of the book consists of the team getting their butts kicked by whatever villain they happen to be fighting, and their means of ultimate triumph in each situation don’t seem very well thought out. In one of the stories, there are a couple of completely random panels where Dr. Strange comes out of nowhere to fix everything that’s gone wrong before disappearing just as quickly.

I might be able to look past the underdeveloped stories to some extent if the action scenes themselves were well-done, but they’re really not. The bad guys chosen for the book aren’t all that exciting – in the book’s four stories, we get Annihilus, Diablo, a group of mischievous Skrull kids, and a renegade Sentinel robot (on loan from the X-Men, apparently). There’s no Dr. Doom, no Sub-Mariner, no outer space or time travel adventure. If this had been my first Fantastic Four book as a kid, I doubt I could have summoned the interest to read the next book in this series.

The digest format doesn’t do the art any favors either. The pencils are fine, if nothing extraordinary, but the coloring is just awful. Everything looks incredibly dark, which is a serious problem when you’re trying to decipher art that’s already been greatly reduced in size. Making things worse, most of the stories take place inside dark, drab buildings, which isn’t in keeping at all with the bright, generally cheerful atmosphere I associate with the Fantastic Four. Overall, it makes for a pretty dull reading experience.

Although this book didn’t impress me, I’ll probably give the next one a chance the way I decided I would for Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. Future volumes in that series look to be a significant improvement on the first, and with Zeb Wells and Fred Van Lente eventually coming on as writers for this title, I still have some hope. Writing for children and adults at the same time is no easy task, and any series aiming to do so is bound to face some growing pains; my hope is that by the next time around, this series will have gotten past them.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Review: Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Vol. 1: The Sinister Six

Writers: Kitty Fross, Erica David, and Jeff Parker
Artist: Patrick Scherberger
Collects: Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #1-4 (2005)
Published: Marvel, 2005; $6.99

In 2003, Marvel Comics launched “Marvel Age,” a line of comic books aimed at younger readers that retold classic stories in modern-day settings and with contemporary artwork. The comics were collected relatively quickly into small, digest-sized books, presumably to capitalize on the growing market for similar-looking manga publications in the United States. Bound to remain completely faithful to the original stories they were based on, there wasn’t much room for creative flexibility with Marvel Age and the comics simply weren’t too impressive.

The company took steps to improve that situation in 2005, when they canceled the Marvel Age line and revamped it as “Marvel Adventures.” The Adventures books are also suited for all ages, but their purpose is less narrowly defined; unlike Marvel Age, they often tell brand-new stories with the only mandate being that the stories can be enjoyed without an extensive knowledge of Marvel chronology. Since its launch, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man has gone on to become one of Marvel’s best-selling titles.

Unfortunately, the series gets off to a pretty rough start in this opening volume. Children’s author Kitty Fross writes the first issue, which concerns itself with retelling Spider-Man’s origin for the umpteenth time. I’ve probably read more than a dozen versions of this story, and none of them (with the possible exception of Brian Bendis’s Ultimate Spider-Man) has ever held a candle to the original. This particular version falls somewhere in the bottom half of all the ones I’ve read, since it lacks so much as a trace of the pathos that makes Spider-Man’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 so powerful.

The emotional impact of the original story comes from the death of Uncle Ben, an effect that’s completely absent here. There’s a half-hearted attempt to make it seem as though Peter took Ben for granted while he was alive (Ben wants to play cards at one point; Peter says he has to study instead), but there isn’t enough interaction between them to make Ben’s death sufficiently traumatic for the story’s purposes. I’ve read Amazing Fantasy #15 more times than I’ve read any other story in comics, and it still gets to me on a basic emotional level. This version, despite being derived from the same plot, does absolutely nothing for me.

The second and third issues, written by Erica David, are basically a stripped-down, drawn-out retelling of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (1964), the first appearance of the Sinister Six. The plot is about as bare-bones as they come – Doctor Octopus & Friends break out of their jail cells, terrorize New York City, and do their best to get rid of “that pestilent pest” Spider-Man once and for all (and yes, Doctor Octopus actually says that). The villains’ characterizations are incredibly weak, and the subtleties that Stan Lee was able to give them nearly 50 years ago are nowhere to be found. Instead they scowl, shake their fists, and boast to one another about which of them is ultimately going to “destroy Spider-Man.”

You might think that with so many villains in one story there would at least be some fun action sequences, but that’s not really the case either. Their methods for attempting to defeat Spider-Man are uninspired, at best: Electro shoots electricity; Mysterio creates illusions of himself; Doc Ock, Sandman, and the Vulture try to pummel Spidey with their fists (mechanical or otherwise); and Kraven tries to capture Spider-Man with a handful of traps so lame they would make Macaulay Culkin blush. The story isn’t quite stupid enough to be offensive, but it is pretty boring.

If there’s any redeeming quality to this collection, it’s the fourth and final story. Written by Jeff Parker, this is the only issue to feature a completely original story – by this point, a godsend in and of itself. It deals with Spidey and the Human Torch teaming up to do battle with two little-known villains: Street, who is literally a living chunk of NYC asphalt, and Goom, a gigantic alien whose only knowledge of Earth comes from having watched way too much MTV.

I would be remiss not to mention the art of Patrick Sherberger in this volume, which is much more consistent than the writing. While he hasn’t fully developed his own style by the end of the book (he seems to be aping Humberto Ramos’ style most of the time), it’s still above average. But even so, consistent artwork and one good story out of four don’t make up for the fact that the majority of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Vol. 1: The Sinister Six is a derivative bore. The series continues with all original stories from here on out, though, and if they’re anywhere near as entertaining as the final story was in this volume, they could be worth a look.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5