Clobberin’ Time #2: Mutants, Monsters, and Mayhem!

CLOBBERIN’ TIME #2 is visually stunning but somewhat dull in its narrative. Steve Skroce is a master at crafting visual discomfort, and that is made extremely clear. The center of this issue is wrapped around one of Ben’s core character concepts: Body Horror.

We pick up our story on Krakoa, Ben visiting the mutant nation as a member of its social connection program. As he links up with Wolverine, all hell decidedly breaks loose with the arrival of last issue’s time traveler, who brought a militia to Krakoa to steal some of its natural resources.

This issue, unlike the last, isn’t a character-focused romp but, instead, a violently plotted, coded story that sets up a greater narrative for the series at hand. It still keeps the essential pitch at its heart, but does a more with its plot than issue #1 had. Krakoa works as a great place to set up our antagonist’s anti-superhuman motivations, Wolverine lending himself well to the brutal violence that ensues. Overall the story and character writing is enjoyable, but Skroce leans very, very hard into dialogue in this issue. Senseless, fluffy pontificating seems to be the thing Skroce is taking down in this issue, poking fun at Ben Grimm’s melodramatic nature, but it only barely connects to the villain’s main thesis. With this being a mini-series, it comes off as wasteful, even if I found the opening interesting and humorous. Once the plot gets past it, we find ourselves in the throes of intelligent and tight plotting.

As always, Skroce’s pencils and visual veracity brings so much life to the story. The villain’s mutilative powers are used to illustrate the most artistically disturbing illustrations ever seen in a Fantastic Four comic. Ben is pulled apart, Wolverine is incinerated, and the main villain himself is mutilated into nothing more than teeth and sinew, only to repair itself into something so monstrous it would haunt the dreams of Junji Ito. The main draw of this book is Skroce’s artistic skill going on a road trip throughout the Marvel U, and this issue still hits that note perfectly.