What the hell was that?!? I didn't recognize ANY of the characters as the ones I've ever read before, and (as much as I normally like Hitch's artwork) I barely recognized them visually either. Not to mention that the characters aren't very well identified within the book, even with the lazy-writer's paragraph introduction at the beginning. Oh, and there's a couple of noticeable plot holes and some bizarre leaps in story logic. And, of the several crowd scenes, both inside the book and on the cover, there was exactly ONE black man.
The storytelling was weak, both from a visual page-to-page perspective as well as with regard to the overall structure. The initial framing sequence was poorly written and seemed out of place. The splash pages were decidedly unimpressive, and the layouts of the other pages didn't seem to make much sense.
I'd have to rank this down there with the "John Harkness" issues as one of the worst FF issues ever. The only -- and I mean only -- thing that keeps me from dropping this like a hot rock is that I've got almost a quarter century emotionally vested in these characters. And, if the book doesn't show signs of improvement in the next issue or two, that won't be enough to keep me around.
3 comments:
I haven't read this, and I'm not planning to. (Wasn't anyway, but your comments certainly don't make me wonder if I'm missing out!)
It's funny but, while I got rid of the "Harkness" issues during one of my collection purges, a few years back, I sometimes miss them. Partly, I suppose, it's a perverse fascination with the bizarro-ness of the whole arc (especially the "imaginary stories") and partly I think there were some genuinely interesting fragments. I'm much the same way regarding the Spider-Man Clone Saga (which I kept), I guess.
Oddly enough, I've been on a comics kick lately and did purchase the recent 3-part FF time travel story; what did you think of that? How does it compare? Personally it left a really bad taste in my mouth.
I read the two pages or so of the first Millar/Hitch FF that were circulating online...and I didn't like them. And honestly, I can't see any surprises coming from that team, as regards the FF -- same old stuff, only with the FF in it? Pass.
But! I do like the Harkness issues, especially for their acid rebuke of Steve's editors.
Yeah, quite so; I think my own appreciation for the Harkness issues increased quite a bit with the gift of context. Adds a lot to the stories in that case. :)
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