The Penultimate Arc of Hickman’s run, Fantastic Four #610 and FF #22 deal with The Wizard’s mental illness and whether or not his child clone Bentley 23 is just like his father or not. Throw in a healthy dose of Spider-Man, shenanigans, and some clobbering time and you’re in for a good story.
“The Wizard “ & “You Are Whatever You Want To Be”
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Ryan Stegman (Fantastic Four) & André Araujo (FF)
Colorist: Paul Mounts (Fantastic Four) & Cris Peter (FF)
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Editors: Lauren Sankovitch, Jake Thomas, Tom Breevort
Covers: Ryan Stegman, Marte Gracia, Paul Mounts
The Story: Six months after an unknown party bought the island country of Barbuda, the party is revealed to be AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics), who recently liberated The Wizard from captivity. The President sends the Fantastic Four (plus Spider-Man) to deal with this and unbeknownst to them, Valeria and Bentley 23 sneak along. The Wizard attacks the Fantastic Five, which leads to AIM realizing the extent of his insanity and they elect Doctor Forson to lead AIM into the future. Doctor Forson shoots The Wizard with several tranquilizers, though Valeria gets the final shot from a distance, and then Forson offers Reed a peace treaty. While they’re hashing out the peace treaty, Sue taunts The Wizard, Johnny and Peter discuss who will be included in Reed’s diplomatic immunity if he becomes Ambassador, and Ben starts a fight in the cafeteria. Forson accepts Reed as Ambassador and as a show of good will, gives America possession of The Wizard.
Back at home, Peter, Johnny, and Ben explain to the Future Foundation the events of the day, while Reed, Valeria, and Bentley 23 visit The Wizard. Reed explains to The Wizard that he has a Spider shaped tumor on his brain and Reed is going to try and help him, but he has little faith that even he can cure him. After Reed exits, Bentley 23 visits his father and gives him his helmet so he can have something to remind him of who he was. The Wizard tells him that Bentley 23 is The Wizard now and he should put on the helmet, but Bentley tells him no. The Wizard goes nuts because of this and Bentley sacks him before leaving his father alone with the helmet. As the sun sets, Bentley stands on the roof with Valeria and tells her he thinks he loves her.
The Fantastic: This was probably Hickman’s weakest script since The Power Pack Future Foundation issue. The pace moves at a brisk pace but that gives practically everything in this issue little weight. The way the President assigns the Fantastic Four, the insanity of The Wizard, the fight, and the Wizard’s take down all feel like Hickman was rushing to the key part of the issue, Bentley meeting his father, which is only the final two pages and played out properly in FF. Credit where credit is due, the cafeteria scene with Johnny, Ben, and Peter is hilarious (largely in part to AIM pretending to be Bee-Keepers) and the scene where Reed and Doctor Forson (a character the comes out of nowhere) discuss the future of AIM is fantastic. But then we have the one scene where Sue taunts The Wizard that is completely unnecessary and makes her come off as a bitch. Also the cliff hanger is really weak and anybody who couldn’t figure out how it was going to play out has clearly not been paying attention to what Hickman has been doing with his best new character.
On the art side of things, Stegman doesn’t bring his A game either. The opening with the president has Hank Pym in a couple of panels drawn with the exact same facial expression that resembles nothing like Hank Pym. He does have some really great images though, like The Wizard floating above an army of AIM soldiers and basically everything he does when Johnny is in “Flame On” mode. Still there is something about his faces that bothers me and there is a lot of quiet personal moments here that makes me wish Marvel had brought back Epting or Kitson to do this issue. Also why is Spider-Man the only one not wearing his Future Foundation outfit?
Spectacular Spider-Moment: Spider-Man once again doesn’t do much in these issues, but this time it feels like Spider-Man fits in, because of what he was doing in these small roles. First off, Hickman plays him as the straight man to Johnny Storm’s shtick and shows that old Parker brain under the mask. The second time he shows up allows him to play his role as one of the elder members of the Future Foundation, which felt like him stopping by to check up on the kids and share a story with them before heading out. Watching him let the Moloids Clobber Time him in concordance to the story was adorable too.
The Future: This is much better. Hickman spends an amusing opening scene with the Future Foundation that allows him to spend some time with the new recruit before he goes, but soon narrows the scope down to my favorite two characters of the Foundation: Bentley and Valeria. There is a cute scene early on that sets up Bentley’s statement of defilement (“I don’t wear helmets”) and though it is drawn into the brisk pace of the events of Fantastic Four, it stands on the sidelines and gives Valeria and Bentley some nice character moments like Bentley getting mad AIM betrays his dad or Valeria delivering the final shot against The Wizard. We also go more in depth on the cafeteria fight from the last issue and Bentley confronting his dad, which is one of the defining moments for the character and also his relationship with Valeria (he would wear a helmet for her but not his father, subtle but brilliant). And I would be lying if I didn’t aw at the end, though Valeria is only 3 and Bentley isn’t much older (being a bred clone). The best comparison I could make is they’re like a sinister Carl and Sophia (The Walking Dead), not really dating but they are there to hold hands, provide support, and create sinister plans for one another.
The Art is also great, André continues the childish mandate of the book, but does a much better job than Dragotta in my opinion. His eyes are full of emotion and his battles seem like something you would see in a child’s picture book and that gives them a sort of charm that I don’t find Dragotta brings to the book. I was also really impressed with Cris Peter on colors, he has some incredible moments where he does stuff like cast parts of Spider-Man’s suit in white from explosion light and his sunset is also beautiful. I’m sad Dragotta is coming back for the final issue, but I made the final page of this issue my background and I think it’s one of the final treats I’ll be getting from this run.
Nature vs. Nurture: This is Hickman leaving his final note on what I think is undoubtedly the best new character he made in his run on Fantastic Four, possibly the best character he’s made for Marvel. As an Arts student leaning towards a Psychology major, I’ve always been fascinated by Nature vs. Nurture… My brother grew up in a home much different than mine, but he’s got so many “Martineau” traits that make no sense for him to have in his household. I believe there is a fine line down the middle that truly affects who we are and as I’ve read this series, I’ve become aware that Hickman believes the same thing. Bentley 23 is not inherently evil… He’s inherently rebellious. Which makes perfect sense for a kid with a troubled background being raised in an environment as pristine as the Baxter Building. There are some things in him that he got from his father, but at the end of the day, “You Are Whatever You Want To Be” and that’s a perfect statement to wrap up Bentley 23’s progression over the course of Hickman’s run. Sadly, not everything about this story is as great as Bentley’s characterization and it is largely a forgettable tale for anyone who isn’t a huge fan of The Wizard or Bentley. Too bad this wasn’t FF #23, that would of been perfect.
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@ Nick: I remember reading that too, but the core of the book still feels like a bastardization of Hickman’s concept… If it gets great reviews, fantastic I’ll check it out, but for now it’s one of the books I don’t care about.
@Pete: See, that totally justifies Sue, I wish Hickman or the editors alluded to that, would of helped her case a lot.
RE: ” we have the one scene where Sue taunts The Wizard that is completely unnecessary and makes her come off as a bitch.”
Well, not only has the Wizard constantly attacked her and her family over the years trying to kill/humiliate them for astonishingly petty reasons, but I recall a FF story from years ago when the Wizard not only kidnapped her son, but was prepared to DISSECT the boy in order to learn how his powers worked (however, of all people, the Mad Thinker, whom the Wizard was partnered up with at the time, thought that was too much even for him, and ensured Franklin’s rescue). This was while the Wizard was (presumably) perfectly sane and in full posession of his faculties. Now, I haven’t read this book, and whilst it does seem OOC for Sue to mock a dehabilitated enemy, frankly, I always thought it was odd for her to be perfectly fine with having the Wizard as a member of the FF and under her own roof (along with Dr Doom, who not only sent her son to HELL, but at the same time, used her infant daughter as a familiar through which he attacked the team). Really, I never thought that made sense, nor her explaining away being cool with it because she was able to watch them, considering Sue is THE Mama Bear of the Marvel Universe. Whilst I wouldn’t condone that sort of thing, I can’t say I’d hold it against Sue too much.
@2 For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure Fraction said in an interview that the existing FF characters would still be in FF in some form alongside the replacement 4 led by Ant-Man.
For the most part, I think he’s delivered some of his stronger issues in these final months; The one with Future Ben, The FF issue that dealt with Ronin (which Hickman has said will play a part in his Avengers run), and the second half of this arc with Bentley. The Panther arc though was rather meh, save for the ending with Reed/T’Challa, FF does often feel like a recap book yet is more entertaining the Fantastic Four, and the one where they fight cancer was also pretty bad. Still, Hickman (to me) is the best writer over at Marvel and watching him tell some touching stories with this family is worth it.
On the reboot thing, I absolutely despise what Fraction is doing to the Future Foundation– he completely changed the premise, got rid of the great characters in place of a She-Thing, that’s a girl in a costume, which feels like he’s throwing out Johnny’s character progression. The only thing that could make that title worth while is Scott Lang and Doctor Doom (who recently killed his daughter). As for the Fantastic, I’m interested to see how he writes the family, but I might drop it if it’s bad after a couple issues.
Good review of both books. I have enjoyed Hickman’s run and I would have to agree that the series is ending with some OK stories. Some of the recent issues have been too much recap of previous events, or setting up for the future, (the Black Panther sequence, Bentley especially) and will probably be ignored by the next creative team. For the most part I have liked Matt Fracton’s work, but he has big shoes to fill and I wonder if he is up to the challenge…
For me, I may skip the reboot. With both FF and Fantastic Four getting re-numbered back to one, I am getting tired of this inability for Marvel to stay consistent. If the reviews are solid with Fracton and Bagley, who knows…wait and see mode.