Well That was Short: FF #11 Review

  History Note: Hickman’s run can get really confusing at times, so I’m going to do a little bit note each issue about a character. Today’s is on Alex Power.

Powers: This could get confusing. He started off with gravity control, but then got his sister Katie’s power of energy manipulation. After that, he got siblings Jack and Julie’s density manipulation. Alex is now gifted with Telekinesis and the ability to use his siblings powers (Gravity, Acceleration, Density, and Energy), but it seems like he is using his own Telekinesis in FF.

History: Alex is the eldest member of the Power Pack, a teenage family superhero group consisting of Alex, Julie, Jack, and Katie Power. They were brought into a war between the horse-like Kymillian race and reptilian Snarks when their father began to work on an Anti-Matter device that could destroy worlds. A dying Kymillian, Aelfrye Whitemane gave each of them a power. They saved their parents and fought crime, with Alex as their unofficial leader, before going off on their own. Alex was the one who wanted to make friends outside of his family the most, so he sought out another team to join. In the end, he joined the New Warriors, but when he began to steal his siblings powers to help the team, his family began to distance themselves from Alex. Alex choose to leave, choosing family over friends. 

Importance to FF: Reed handpicked Alex as one of the first to be invited to join the Future Foundation and while he’s considered to be the dumbest among the group (he still aced his SAT) he is among the most powerful and has gone into battle alongside Sue and Spider-Man.

The Faculty:

Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Artist: Barry Kitson

Finishers: Kitson, Hanna, Koblish, Leisten, Pennington

Cover Artist: Steve Epting

Inker: Barry Kitson

Colorist: Paul Mounts

Letter: Clayton Cowles

Editor: Tom Brevoort, Lauren Sankovitch

Editor in Chief: Alex Alonso

The History Lesson: The issue opens with Franklin and Leech spying on Valeria and the Future Foundation’s “Class Project”. Reed comes along and is not impressed that his daughter is trying to build a Translocator without running it by him. She says it’s designed to cover three floors, so that everyone at the Baxter Building can escape if necessary, but also hints that this is not it’s only purpose.

On Attilan, Diablo and Mad Thinker watch as Ronan and Crystal’s forces take out the Inhumans present. Ronan tells Crystal he has discovered a way to avoid as much bloodshed as possible against her people, as he takes the two Alternate Reeds into his custody.

On… The Other Side of Zero… The Cult of the Negative Zone hatches a thousand new reptile like drones ad reveal they had made a gateway out of several small devices called Obelisks to open a portal from the Negative Zone to Earth, with the Baxter Building at the center of it.

At the Baxter Building, Reed apologies for not calling the heroes first and explains his plan off panel, which we conveniently miss because Ben and Sue can’t shut up. Captain America agrees to the plan and tells them to be ready to move to Attilan in an hour. 

At the Forever City (there is alot of locations in play here), the Reeds are put on trial by Ronan and found guilty and are sacrificed to resurrect the Kree Supreme Intelligence (Supremor) with their bodies and memories. He has been in seed form for three hundred thousand years and is ready to raise hell.

As the collective force of most of the Marvel Universe assembles at the Baxter Building, a horde of Kree Warships appear over the city.

Rock Solid: Barry Kitson/Sue Storm, the regular spiel about how much I love both, favorite artist on the series, Hickman writes her amazingly, blah blah blah. And that’s it. And I’m astonished, usually there is so much great stuff in this series, but this was all good, not great.

Intangible: The scene with the good guys is almost the opposite of what the scene with the bad guys was back in FF #4. There exposition runs heavy, this time round, Reed gets to apologize and then we drift over to the other characters and completely miss the game plan, instead having a nice character moment for Ben. Ben, Sue, Peter, and guest star She Hulk made me laugh, but this is still just a convenient cover up to not reveal the grand plan quite yet. This scenes was needed, but it could of been done elsewhere and it’s still a cover up and that puts a damper on the great moment.

Stretched Too Thin: Where to start? This issue is jam packed, we have the largest cast in this book yet, and we jump all over the place. There is very little time to sit down and focus and it really hurts this issue. New plot threads are laid on the table (see table below, where are you going to fit stuff on that?), but there is not place to put them with the clutter of every other plot thread Hickman has still not bloody resolved! I’ve been patient, since I figured the War of Four Cities had an epilogue or something to resolve this. Nope, we’re going straight to the next big thing which is the Kree/Galactus/Annhilus showing up to mess things up. Hickman is balancing too much right now and if this keeps up and he continues to add more, this book is going to sink fast. To Hickman’s credit, each plot point is interesting, but he doesn’t have time in a monthly issue to tackle each one enough to make them matter like they should.

Also, this is the first time I felt like Spider-Man was a guest star in this book. He has one whole line in this book and of course, it’s comedic relief (better comedic relief than Bendis would give him in the Avengers to be fair). I am all for Spider-Man being funny, but Hickman made him smart and I want more of that from him. But once again, no time to give Spider-Man a spot light with so much going on.

And here’s my second big one; Franklin Richards feel really out of place here. In fact, he has this entire series and considering the kids are taking over the book, Franklin Richards should feel essential to this book. Instead, it seems to resolve around Valeria and Franklin seems to seem jealous, but his one scene comes off as really petty this issue. Again, he is taking over the damn book alongside Valeria and Doom, with the Future Foundation playing supporting cast; and he does not feel essential. That is a huge fundamental problem.

An Amazing Webhead Moment: No brainer, he has one line. While Sue is teasing Ben about doing the dishes, he shouts “I did the dishes last night!” which cuts off Reed’s game plan and Spider-Man replies, “Hey! Do you think you can keep it down? I can’t hear the part about how we’re all going to get killed.”

Looking to The Future: So this might be my last FF review, since it looks like the Fantastic Four and more importantly, Peter are jumping ship to the Fantastic Four. However, I can not say that in all honesty, because this book does not give any indication that the adults are leaving, except to say Fantastic Four #600 is next month. This is going in my con list as well, so this book is not looking too good right now. It does seem like this will be an event between the two books, but who knows at this point?

And I did want to like this issue, was happy when I finished it. But when it comes to the enjoyment of a single issue compared to the enjoyment as a series on the whole, the series wins out. Upon review, this issue doesn’t hold up. At all.

1.5/5

The future does not look bright.