Fantastic Four #9: Detailed Invisibility

Freed from any kind of moral constraints and strengthened by all the knowledge gained from her Reed Richards, the alternate Invisible Woman is so much more than a match for the regular Fantastic Four that it’s almost funny. Fantastic Four #9 is largely a fight sequence that the Fantastic Four simply can’t win.

Ramos’s work is front and center from Fantastic Four #9’s first page. In a rare development, North steps back, delivering a comparatively simple narrative while the art team goes all out delivering on it. This begins with the high level of detail Ramos brings to bear. For instance, there is the sequence with a small army of alternate Invisible Womans (created by way of force field manipulation). Ramos establishes them in a wide but vertically compact panel. The Invisible Womans aren’t seen particularly close up, but Ramos maintains detail on their costumes and even their expressions to an impressive degree. Later, an even wider, more distant look at the army once again includes an impressive amount of detail as they stand off against the team.

Olazaba’s inking preserves this detail as well. It would be easy to lose much of this fine detail, especially in the latter example where the costumes on the more distant Invisible Womans could simply mesh together.

This high detail is further enhanced by Delgado’s coloring. Again going back to the latter group drawing, Delgado’s fine color work also helps keep these various Invisible Womans with their black costumes and red capes separate.

Another part of Fantastic Four #9’s fight sequence sees the team fight against this army of Invisible Womans while they are invisible. At one point the team makes them partly visible by spreading out dust from the surface. Ramos and Olazaba deliver little more than outlines, leaving Delgado to give the figures a sense of dimension through coloring. It’s very effective.

The character oriented conflict in Fantastic Four #33 revolves around the two Invisible Womans. Ramos finds a great deal of success in capturing the emotion behind their arguments, something that is not always the case with his depiction of female characters. It is not uncommon for multiple women in a Ramos penned scene to look interchangeable, sometimes distinguished by little more than hair color. Ironically, in a confrontation of duplicate characters, Ramos captures major differences in expressions. These are not two visually interchangeable Invisible Womans–they do, in fact, feel shaped by their own experiences.

North’s story in Fantastic Four #9 is effectively split in two. The larger, issue-long concern is the fight between the Fantastic Four and the alternate Invisible Woman. This fight isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Thanks to the antagonist being a sort-of all-powerful Invisible Woman, North is able to be creative with the fight–such as the different ways the team fights the alternate Invisible Woman’s invisible army.

Invisible Woman versus Invisible Woman makes up the smaller, character oriented portion of the issue. Thanks to the alternate Invisible Woman’s moral lobotomy in the previous issue, the interaction between these otherwise identical characters might as well be between two strangers. They have completely different points of view, and the alternate Invisible Woman’s goal is surprising but somehow logical. This smaller conflict adds heft to the issue as a whole.