Fantastic Four Antithesis #1: The Four’s Work is Never Done

As we know so well, one of The Fantastic Four’s specialties is handling the most cosmically super-powerful threats in the universe.  When Galactus has tried to consume Earth, it has most often been our FF that has seen him off.  Now, however, they must face someone or something that beat up The Silver Surfer and killed Galactus.  Not too much pressure there, is it..?  By reading ahead in Marvel’s promotional blurbs, you can get a sense of just what it is that the Richards family is about to face in this four-issue miniseries.  The story in this first issue also offers a clue as to what is ahead.  But for now we’ll just have to look forward to the big reveal. 

If I had to guess exactly where the story of Antithesis falls, continuity-wise—since it obviously is not contemporaneous with current Fantastic Four storylines—I’d say it probably notches in somewhere between the end of Mark Waid’s issues of the regular FF book and those of J. Michael Straczynski.  The team is apparently still living at the Baxter Building.  They are outfitted in classic Jack Kirby uniform.  Reed’s face is unencumbered by that wretched beard that makes him look like Grizzly Richards.  Franklin is still a pre-teen boy and Valeria is still an infant.  And for another curiosity, Reed and Sue in this story are using good old Agatha Harkness as the kids’ governess.  What I’ve always wondered about is why Waid didn’t bring in Agatha to help The FF against the magically empowered Dr. Doom in the landmark story of “Unthinkable.”  You’d think that with Doom juiced-up with ultimate magical power, the first place our heroes would turn for help would be the witch who’d been taking care of Franklin since way back in FF #94.  Instead, Agatha doesn’t even get a mention during “Unthinkable,” and The FF gets an assist from the astral form of Dr. Strange instead.  I’ve always found that a glaring plot discrepancy in Waid’s FF work, and the presence of Agatha in Antithesis is a jarring reminder of that story mistake. 

The character interplay and teamwork of The FF in this story is spot-on.  Johnny and Ben are back to playing pranks on each other, as Waid had them doing in his stories in the regular book.  There is the usual loving banter back and forth among the four of them.  This is the fantastic family we’ve always known and loved, though at one point Sue’s attempts to get Reed’s attention become a bit, how shall we say, salacious.  There’s little amiss or awry about the script for Antithesis, which brings us to what has really gotten people’s attention on this miniseries:  the art of Neal Adams. 

It’s true that Neal Adams is one of the most history-making talents ever to work in comics, with his pseudo-realistic drawing style that brings super-powered characters and their world to a unique kind of life.  But how does Adams’s style fit in the super-cosmic world of The Fantastic Four, which is as much about greater-than-human wonderment as it is about a “grounded” and naturalistic reality?  Does Neal Adams’s style even belong in the adventures of The FF?  The answer is yes—with some qualifications.  Adams is one of those artists who never got the memo that stretching his neck is mainly out of character for Mr. Fantastic.  (Seriously, when George Perez first went to work drawing The FF, someone—I think it was Roy Thomas—sat him down and explained to him that Reed is a profound sort of character who doesn’t do “cartoony” and “goofy” things with his powers, relatively speaking.  Stretching at the neck is more associated with Plastic Man or Elongated Man than it is with Reed.  I notice lately that a number of artists are ignoring this point of physical characterization, and they shouldn’t.)  The more glaring thing about Adams’s version of The FF, however, is his rendition of The Thing. 

In current FF stories with other artists, we have a persistent problem of people not getting the physical size of The Thing compared with the other three characters correct.  Adams’s problem with The Thing is not so much Ben’s physique as it is his physiognomy.  His version of old Blue Eyes looks like an ape, especially in his facial structure and features.  I’m sorry to say this about someone who has long been hailed as one of the masters of comic book art, but in some panels Adams draws The Thing looking as if he’s going to scale the Empire State Building and start swatting biplanes, and in others he makes you think he’s going to start screeching and grunting like Cheetah the chimpanzee in a Tarzan movie, and it’s very unbecoming.  Adams has Reed, Sue, and The Torch down just fine, but The Thing…?  No, that’s just not appropriate to the character, and that’s a shame for such an otherwise well-drawn book that actually does reflect the awesome and powerful Fantastic Four style. 

Otherwise, everything about this book lets you know that you are squarely in the world of The Fantastic Four, a place where things are bigger, more awesome, and more wondrous than life as we know it, and even a quick six-page battle pits our heroes against evil on a cosmic scale (Annihilus) and has a grand, epic feeling to it.  The Fantastic Four is not a place of small and unambitious ideas; it’s a science-fiction-oriented place where everything is dialed up bigger even than in other super-hero comics, and in spite of the depictions of a couple of characters, Waid and Adams deliver the goods.