Well, I've been able to catch up on some comics, and here's what I thought of the first storyarc from Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Fantastic Four run. A four-parter titled "World's Greatest".Many spoilers lie ahead...
Millar and Hitch set the bar awfully high with their 20+ issue Ultimates run, and it's going to be hard for them to match it with Fantastic Four. Millar has stated before that there should be no rules for Fantastic Four. ANYTHING is possible. And boy he unleashed a doozy of a plot for this one. A group of scientists (The Earth Trust) have concluded that the earth has less than a decade of life remaining. Where is humanity to go once the world dies? Don't worry they got it covered. Step through a portal (an interdemensional one, I assume) and you're in NU-WORLD. An exact copy of earth right down to the graffiti on the walls. Reed's old flame Alyssa Moy is a member of The Earth Trust and has asked Reed to leave the FF and help them finish construction. (Why the world's greatest scientist wasn't involved from the beginning is never touched on, annoyingly.) To keep things on NU-WORLD safe for everyone, they have C.A.P. (Conserve And Protect). A giant robot painted to resemble the dearly departed Captain America. The dictators... er, I mean scientists, have decided that there will be no armies or guns on NU-WORLD, and CAP is going to be their enforcer... um, that is, their "patrolman". In a slightly cheesy turn of event's, CAP goes rogue when it realizes there are soldiers in the real world and hops through the portal looking to identify and destroy all potential threats. Some super-heroes, including Ben, Sue, and Johnny, show up to put the stomp on CAP and pretty much get ass-handled, leaving Reed to save the day. I won't go into anymore details, but in terms of action, the book delivered, fo sho. While the arc mostly focused on Reed, the rest of the cast was well represented, with some great moments featuring Ben, and a nice subplot is developing with Johnny dating a C-list super-villian, while also trying to start a rock band. Also, Millar shows that Reed really can be a pimp, albeit a super nerdy one. For their anniversary Reed has two gifts for Sue, a ring which contains (in Reed's words) "A micro-galaxy. Seventy-Four inhabited worlds and over forty trillion couples in total... All loving each other like I love you." and dinner at a restaurant in view of the first time Reed and Sue bumped into each other as adults... thirteen years in the past.
Like Millar has always said, there is nothing too fantastic for the Fantastic Four. Overall, this was great start, and the last page makes me thing the next arc is going to be even better.
4 STARS (out of five)
