Fantastic Four #23: OMG, Johnny Storm

The vampire invasion is over, and life is back to normal. Or at least as normal as it ever is for the Fantastic Four. But surely another scientific conundrum won’t be dropped on the team’s doorstep in Fantastic Four #23. And surely it won’t involve Johnny Storm being strangled by an alien.

Sue, Johnny, Nicki, and Jo are spending a relaxing day in New York City in Fantastic Four #23. Their shopping and street vendor hot dog eating is interrupted by impacts from what turn out to be super fast moving particles. Sue and Johnny do what they can to help people in the city before regrouping with Reed and Ben. Their plan to stop the particle storm affecting half the planet? Use the Reducta-Craft to shrink down and search for the particles’ origin.

Johnny Storm relates the events in Fantastic Four #23 in the way only Johnny Storm can. After two issues that took a serious deep dive into Reed’s head, North lightens the mood significantly here. He touches on Blood Hunt’s outcome with the rise of Doom as sorcerer supreme (which is probably more critical in Fantastic Four than in any other series), but the issue largely relegates it to the background. Instead, the series moves on to a new arc, generally unburdened by the Marvel universe’s larger events–at least for the time being.

North’s ability to weave science into his stories is a key component of the series’ success. In Fantastic Four #23, he gives the scientific exposition to Johnny. The choice to do so may incline readers to think the entire thing is made up technobabble. But there was, in fact, an Oh-My-God particle that hit Earth in 1991, and it was called a cosmic ray. But, like the issue’s overall tone, taking the science out of Reed’s mouth and putting it in Johnny’s (especially as he is depicted visually during that sequence) adds even more fun to the issue.

The Johnny Storm as science teacher sequence is made all the more amusing thanks to Gómez’s work. The OMG particle looks borderline cute, like something out of a children’s educational cartoon. The flaming lab coat that Johnny wears is a nice touch to give him a distinctive flair. And that smile at the end as he looks off toward his imaged female admirers could only be enhanced by a literal twinkle in his eye.

North and Gómez also deliver a Johnny Storm costume callback. Long standing fans of both Johnny and Daredevil will recognize the iconic outfit (or at least the most important part of it).

Early in the issue, as Sue, Johnny, and the kids walk through New York, Sue and Johnny are casually using their powers to keep from making a mess as they eat hotdogs. Gómez depicts an excellent casualness to the sequence. Sue looks vaguely bored as she creates a forcefield to keep ketchup from dripping onto Johnny’s shirt.

As an aside, it’s worth noting that North almost sabotages the entire issue by writing that Johnny gets ketchup on his hotdog. Ketchup. On a hotdog. But the rest of the issue is very good, so this faux pas can be ignored.

Fantastic Four #23’s most amusing visual is when one of the particles hits Reed in the back of his head, stretching it so that at first his face looks like the titular character Hey Arnold! before a profile view shows it distended into a strange V shape with one eye almost falling out. Reed’s extreme pliability and ability to take truly bizarre shapes, consistently good from all artists, has certainly helped define Fantastic Four’s visual language.

Late in the issue the team travels to the particles’ source at which point Aburtov’s coloring steals the show (as it so often does in the series’ most visually extreme locations and circumstances). The background environment is full of blended reds, oranges and yellows–as though the scene is taking place deep inside a lively fire.

During that exploration they come across a black sphere. It is striking against the fire-like background. And Aburtov gives it a bright white sheen that fades into shadow to very effectively sell the sphere’s three dimensional quality.

Caramagna’s placement and color choices for the sound effects during the particle storm in New York add considerable heft to the sequence. The particles are, after all, invisible. So while Gómez does draw tiny impact points, they have no real weight without sound effects alongside them. Caramagna uses the exact same shape for each impact’s sound effect but reduces them in size the further into the background they go. The choice adds considerable dimension to the long look down the street and through the skyline.