Fantastic Four #2 Review

Written by: Ryan North
Art by: Iban Coello
Colors by: Jesus Aburtov
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Alex Ross
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: December 7, 2022

Fantastic Four #2 takes another trip to a weird little town but with Sue and Reed at the heart of the story. When several town residents turn out to be non-human, it’s up to Sue and Reed to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Is It Good?

Honestly, what was the plan here? When Dan Slott fumbled and stumbled on the previous Fantastic Four run, new hope sprang forth when the run was announced to be ending and restarting with a new creative team promising to get the FF back to its roots. Ryan North is taking the run in a different direction from Slott, but new directions are not necessarily good directions.

Similar to issue #1, Fantastic Four #2 delivers a Scooby Doo mystery with Sue and Reed encountering a small town where all the residents are Doombots who all believe they’re human. When Sue and Reed figure out this is the first time they’ve encountered Doombots with killing as their second directive, they begin the hunt to figure out what in the world is going on.

As a Scooby Doo-style mystery, this issue is fine. North narrates the issue from Sue’s point of view, where she continually reaffirms why she loves Reed so much. The reason for the Doombot town is sweet in a bizarrely creepy sort of way, and the final resolution is somewhat charming. In isolation, this issue would make for a respectable Twilight Zone episode.

That said, this is the second issue in a row where the Fantastic Four are not together as the Fantastic Four doing Fantastic Four things. The incident that created a crater in Manhattan is briefly referenced but not explained, and the next issue promises to keep the bottle episode model going with Johnny Storm.

Again, what was the plan here? Marvel restarts the Fantastic Four without the Fantastic Four, the big wow moment from issue #1 is placed on the back burner (a big no-no we also seen in Zeb Wells’s increasingly floundering ASM run), and at the current pace, the Four won’t be back together until Spring 2023. They were gravely mistaken if somebody at Marvel thought this was the best way to reinvigorate the FF.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

Follow @ComicalOpinions on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

Final Thoughts:

Fantastic Four #2 bizarrely continues the model of delivering an issue that has nothing to do with the “incident” in Manhattan or the Fantastic Four together as a team. The art is good enough, and the issue works as a Scooby Doo/Twilight Zone-styled mystery, but if you’re looking for a Fantastic Four adventure in a Fantastic Four comic, you may have to wait until the Spring of 2023.