Monday, August 16, 2010

Fantastic Four: Master of Doom TPB

Mark Millar usually brings a certain level of insanity to his projects. There are high ideas that you can see motivate him, ideas that are so crazy that I can imagine him giggling as he writes about Wolverine fighting the whole Marvel Universe or what if Batman was a bad guy. I don't think he was ever that inspired in this Fantastic Four run.

It isn't bad. In fact, I enjoyed the story of the dark god of the small Scottish town quite a bit. Sure, it stinks that Reed Richards can't really trust anyone at this point, but it is an original idea that shined a nice spotlight on the Richards kids. The story also let Millar show a caring, familial side to the Human Torch that really makes sense. I also dug Ben Grimm's most recent bout with heartbreak. The guy can't win, but having him lose because of Spidey, DD, and the gang was a new twist.

I'm less enthused about the Master of Doom portions of this collection, I just never bought him as a worse villain than doom. Killing alternate universes is kind of old hat at this point, isn't it? By the time the team had powered up to take him on, I was ready for Doom to come back.

Bryan Hitch draws most of the issues, but he seems to drift away by the end too. I think this was just a project that never inspired the blockbuster team like some of their other runs. The megalodons that eat Doom looked awesome, as did the elder God. I was grossed out by the dead Watcher too. I have to say I never loved the designs on the actual FF. Hitch's work is typically awesome, and this was merely decent.

Fair

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