Fantastic Four #11: A Character Story Stumble

Fantastic Four #11 brings the idea of the new Future Foundation front and center. North spends a significant portion of the issue depicting the characters debating what the Future Foundation should be. Reed wants it to be an all science based organization, Sue wants it to be about people solving problems, and Johnny thinks the children should be in charge (which leads to an amusing joke about the previous Future Foundation). Ben thinks he doesn’t have anything useful to add–that he’s just the muscle and can’t help with the future–and goes to bed.

The problem with this is that it rings hollow for anyone who has followed North’s Fantastic Four run. North has repeatedly shown Ben to be smart, clever, and deeply caring about other people. Told in a vacuum, Fantastic Four #11 is a perfectly fine comic. But it feels very out of place for the character at this point. Indeed, Ben’s contribution at the end of the issue feels very in keeping with how North has depicted him to this point, but in order to get there North temporarily regresses the character.

This is the second time where developing the Future Foundation has negatively affected the story being told in the issue. Ben gets his suddenly flagging confidence back because he deciphers a way to beat the villain of the month. While Fantastic Four #11 is better written than the previous issue, its handling of Ben is a disappointment.

Boutin’s art in Fantastic Four #11 is difficult when it comes to deciphering character expressions. In closeups it’s effective but in wider shots everyone is almost blank slates. This is fairly well in keeping with Boutin’s style. The place where Boutin is most successful when it comes to character depiction is Ben. His wider face seems to allow Boutin to bring a little extra detail that is simply missing on other characters.

LaPointe’s inking, leaning toward thicker lines most of the time, does not help with the already difficult fine details when it comes to the characters.

Action sequences are more effective. Poses are dynamic, and Boutin imbues everyone with a sense of movement in how they’re depicted. Boutin’s art makes up for a kind of throwaway sequence from a narrative point of view. It’s energetic and in some ways oversells this whole encounter.

The Stan Sakai backup is basic fluff. Sakai’s story, a paint by numbers fight with the Mole Man, isn’t particularly interesting. The art, at least, is energetic. This is where Sakai shines. As extra content, this works well enough if the goal is to simply have Sakai produce Fantastic Four material. Beyond that, though, it is not worth the extra dollar on the cover price.

Delgado’s coloring is a little softer here than is usually the case with Ramos’s art. It also adjusts more subtly to implied light sources with nice shifts in shading.

This is a rather text heavy issue–perhaps not surprisingly since the chief dilemma is discussing what the Future Foundation will be. Caramagna does a very good job keeping dialogue bubbles and caption boxes out of the way of Boutin’s art. This is especially useful during the action sequence.