Fantastic Four #33: Going Out With a (Big) Bang

Four hundred and thirty-six quadrillion seconds. Planck epoch. Quark epoch. Hafnium.

These are just a few of the terms North puts in Fantastic Four #33. It’s hard to believe this writer isn’t also an astrophysicist. Much of why this Fantastic Four run works is because North infuses the “fantastic” with just enough real science to stir the imagination. Look up those terms–North uses them exactly right.

Science is not why Fantastic Four #33 works as well as it does, though. The final chapter of the team’s attempt to re-power Ben is told by H.E.R.B.I.E., the team’s Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-Type, Integrated Electronics. On first blush, using a robot to tell a story that ultimately hinges on love sounds counter-intuitive. Surely a robot would be an even more clinical extension of Valeria’s largely dispassionate telling of Fantastic Four #32. But North goes in a completely different direction.

A focus on family underpins North’s entire Fantastic Four run to this point. The action is fun. The science is fascinating. But the true heart of the series is love. A brief exchange between Ben and Reed regarding Reed deciding to go on such a dangerous mission when not critical to its success highlights this. And a particularly effective exchange comes right before the team launches. The children wish the team luck, and Reed can’t quite wrap his mind around the emotion behind what they’re saying to him. Paradoxically, Reed’s difficulty makes the scene all the more poignant.

The most profound way that North explores this theme, though, is through H.E.R.B.I.E. The robot’s whole purpose is to assist the Fantastic Four. In Fantastic Four #33, it may well be the team’s only hope. The robot interprets this in an unexpected way as the issue goes on. Indeed, there is irony here in that H.E.R.B.I.E.’s evaluation of its own capacity to love is less clinical than Valeria’s was in the previous issue.

Smith and Faucher’s art is largely effective throughout Fantastic Four #33. Their work on children’s faces and emotions is somewhat inconsistent. This is not the case with adult characters, though. Their faces, especially the males, are detailed with highlighted cheekbones, jawlines, mouths, pinched noses and so forth. This entire storyline has been fraught with emotion, and as it draws nearer to a close, that emotion only heightens. Smith and Faucher capture it expertly.

Emotional displays aside, Fantastic Four #33’s most gripping art comes during the big bang sequence. The pages are a spectacle, made possible with fine lines delineating debris, explosions, cosmic energies, and the timeship itself. It’s easy to dismiss this work because the coloring steals the show. But the detailed art allows objects to overlap clearly, and thicker lines among the fine work suggest speed and power.

That said, it is fair to say Aburtov’s work steals the show in the big bang sequences. The extended sequence spans the color spectrum. Red, yellow, and orange dominate as the entire universe seems to collide all around the timeship. A burst of blue and white along one corner stands out, suggesting the birth of everything. Aburtov pushes the timeship’s color, almost certainly described in the script, as far into dark gray as possible without making it black. The contrast is exceptional, and somehow the timeship feels more vulnerable.

Caramagna’s choice for H.E.R.B.I.E.’s dialogue is seemingly simple but ultimately critical for the character. The “computerized” looking font, the square dialogue bubble, and the lightning bolt tail all point to the character’s truly robotic quality (as opposed to something more lifelike and human). This ultimately feeds into the theme of love with respect to H.E.R.B.I.E. that North plays with.