FF v2 HC

I think I must have missed an issue. It has been a long time since I read the first FF trade, but man, I can’t remember what is happening here at all. How much was this book crossing over with Fantastic Four? 

Would my missing some trades of that title leave me lost in this one?

A lot of this seems to be clean-up. Jonathan Hickman spends a lot of time getting characters back to their default status. Most of the alternate Reeds are eliminated, we get the return of the Supreme Intelligence, and the Inhumans come back to Earth. Heck, we even see Annihulus making a comeback after Annihilation. There are some pretty big tweaks, like Black Bolt’s five wives and Crystal staying with the Kree, but for the most part, this trade had characters returning to the mean.

I’m so confused. Why did Reed assemble all those Avengers? Why did the Thing leave the Fantastic Four and have to return here? Did Reed know the Kree were attacking? The more I think about it, the more certain I am that I missed some important parts of this story.

I have one other problem with this collection. I have never read a good story involving Nathaniel Richards. Seriously, has Reed’s Dad ever been in a good story? His presence ALWAYS means there is confusing time travel and alternate Earth stuff happening. While that is certainly expected in FF comics, his presence usually means the story won’t be sticking with me. Anyone else have this problem?

Hickman is certainly blessed with some great artists. Greg Tocchini is the weakest of the three pencillers in this collection, and even his stuff isn’t bad. He’s the low man on the totem pole because of his competition. Steve Epting and Barry Kitson are classic artists. Tocchini’s work has to pale by comparison. When Kitson gets to draw all those Avengers? Man, I want to see more of that! And Daniel Acuna covers? Talk about stacking the deck!

So yeah, if I could give this a “Confused” rating, I would. But I’ll stick with…

Average