Customer Rating:  
Summary: Someone slipped speed into the water cooler at Marvel again...
Comment: Also known as 'Ultimate Fantastic Four: Will it Blend?'.
Millar deftfully poaches the key elements from the previous plot-lines (Doctor Doom! Zombies!), drops in a few more genre standards (Time travel! Lovecraftian Elder Gods! Body swapping!) and hits 'puree'.
Although the resulting paste would be fodder for a dozen graphic novels, Millar crams it into a single, whirlwind adventure written for ferrets on speed. This disaster is especially jarring because of the lovely, deliberate pacing that had previously characterized the Ultimate Fantastic Four title.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: Comics for the Attention-Impaired!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The other side of the Marvel Zombies tale
Comment: The Marvel Zombies main story is a fantastic "what if?" situation with very little background as to how anything happened. "Frightful", however, doesn't really help explain where the virus comes from but does give the full background story of the Fantastic Four portal talked about in the main story and introduces the Skrull civilization and their purpose on earth. This story was at times a little difficult to follow. I found myself turning back to previous pages in hopes of finding a little more enlightenment on latter parts of the story. This tends to be the obstacle of time travel and trans-dimensional gateway story lines. However, character development was spot on and the art was at its best.
****Spolier Alert - (stop reading unless you want to know the ending)****
My only real complaint, though, is the ending. I may be alone on this, but I found Dr. Doom's sudden sense of caring and honor at the end a little too abrupt. Don't get me wrong I thought he was very cool for taking the N-Zone beast into the Zombie dimension to save everyone. But thought that it was a little unlike him. I felt like the authors may have just run out of ideas and said, "hey Doom needs to redeem himself so we'll have him be the martyr here so that the reader will view him as a hero instead of a misunderstood villain." Again, this may be just me, but I kind of felt that.
****Spolier End****
Aside from that I really enjoyed the story and thought it really helped explain a lot of the missing pieces from the main story line.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Even by comic book standards, it strains my sense of verisimilitude
Comment: Once again I talked myself into believing some Fantastic Four comics might be worth my time and money. The fact remains that Marvel's super-family has never managed to be cool--not in the Ultimate universe, not in the official continuity, not on the big screen. A lot of the problem, I think, is that they face conflicts on a galactic scale, problems so impossibly large that they require unbelievable solutions. Even by comic book standards, it strains my sense of verisimilitude. And while Reed Richards is miraculously inventing his way out of one interdimnensional crisis after another, the action never breaks long enough to really see him or his teammates as actual people with any kind of sympathetic humanity to them.
I'd like to think it could work. Though designed for bit of a different audience, I think The Incredibles movie proves that a super-powered family doesn't have to be lame. It seems that the Ultimate Fantastic Four books fall in all the same sinkholes as the Ultimate X-Men. Rather than taking the opportunity at a fresh start, to make the story more meaningful to contemporary audiences, to enjoy the early years of a new team of super-heroes, to experience a new image or a new energy in these characters--rather than pursuing these sorts of things, the creators are instead doing everything they can to "catch up" to the official continuity in as little time as possible and make "ultimately" make this generation's Fantastic Four exactly the same as the original. For an idea of what these comics could have been, just take a look at what Brian Michael Bendis is doing (generally) with the Ultimate Spider-man titles. Now there's a line of comics worth throwing some money at.
Maybe you are a die-hard Fantastic Four fan and you aren't understanding what I have a problem with; I respect our differences in opinion. Maybe you don't want to take my word for it, and think you should give the Ultimate Fantastic Four a try before passing judgment. Well, if that's the case, I'll tell you what: before you spend any of your hard-earned money on a purchase you may regret, come take the two TPB's I bought and see how you like them. I certainly won't be having any more use for them.
(reviewing UFF #5: "Crossover" and #6: "Frightful")
Customer Rating:
Summary: Zombies and Carmen Miranda
Comment: Will Reed Richards ever find a way to turn the Thing back into plain ol' Ben Grimm?
You might think he had better things to do with his time, but all it really takes is a few heartfelt tears and a Carmen Miranda costume, and Reed is ready to go back in time and stop the experiment that turned the Fantastic Four into super-powered heroes. Unfortunately, without that little mishap, a greater one will occur, this one involving the space-faring Skrulls and the death of the entire human race. Well, not if Ben Grimm and the Ultimate Super Skrull have anything to say about it!
The first tale in "Frightful," the sixth UFF collection, is a good one, but it pales in comparison to the second half of the book. Yes, you guessed it -- more zombies!
Since the events of "Crossover," the Baxter Building has served as a high-security prison for the Fantastic Four zombies from a parallel dimension. OK, that sounds hokey when I say it, but it's not. Really. And the zombies have decided it's time to escape and spread a little zombie love with the rest of the world. Of course, they might have had some trouble if the UFF was in town, but the Torch is laid up with an alien in his intestines, and the rest of the team is in Eastern Europe looking for a cure. And you just know the situation won't improve when Doctor Doom gets involved....
If you don't buy this one for Carmen Miranda, buy it for the zombies. You'll like it.
by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor
Customer Rating:
Summary: Yeah, baby...!!!!!!
Comment: This was a really fun read -- the Ultimate FF series has definitely hit its stride here, with an action-packed story arc that encompasses Doc Doom, the Skrulls, time travel and a high-power smackdown with those pesky undead doppelgangers who snuck in from Robert Kirkman's "Marvel Zombies" universe. This is superhero stuff the way I remember it: fun, funny, entertaining, elegantly crafted but not all pretentious... Just a good old time for all. I particularly liked the portrayal of Latveria as a Oktoberfest-ish tourist trap, and the chance to see just how powerful Doc Doom can actually be. I'd definitely recommend this one... And I can't wait 'til the next collection comes out!
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