Midnight Fantastic Four #1: Meeting a (Almost) Mad Scientist

Midnight Fantastic Four #1 is more of a solo book than a team book. All four main characters eventually appear, but the story follows Reed Richards. This Reed Richards is recognizable in his brilliance and singlemindedness. At the same time he is somewhat reckless and more introspective. His repeated use of unspecified pills and what appear to be hallucinations point to him being somewhat troubled as well. This Reed Richards isn’t a full-on mad scientist, but he leans a little in that direction.

Percy goes against type to a certain degree in Midnight Fantastic Four #1. Inner monologues and third person narration are frequent devices in comics written by Percy. Neither is present in this issue. While this does mean that the reader doesn’t get very deep into the thought process of any of the characters’ heads, it does help build the sense of mystery in the book.

Sue, Ben, and Johnny don’t receive anything approaching the same level of development as Reed. Midnight Fantastic Four #1 does offer some superficial insights such as Sue running an aerospace company and Johnny being a pilot who lost his legs, but it’s nothing like what the issue offers about Reed. Nor is there any real effort yet to develop the four as a team.

The minimal horror elements in Midnight Fantastic Four #1 are reached via the exploration of Reed Richards. Most of the issue carries a sense of mystery, especially where Reed is concerned. He is driven by a search for insight, and it comes across more as a burden or compulsion. What he finally discovers appears almost Lovecraftian.

Walker’s art gives every character a youthful quality. With the exception of Ben, every character’s body comes across as lean and short and in multiple instances their heads feel slightly out of proportion. In most cases, characters’ facial expressions lean toward more broad displays. Walker’s tendency to give characters somewhat bulbous noses, wide eyes, and thicker lips plays into these broad expressions. Combined with Walker’s use of relatively thick, dark lines, this style is not well suited to nuance or the building of mood and visual tension. Reed Richards suffers considerably. Percy’s narrative implies that the character is burdened by a need for insight, but Walker’s art doesn’t really line up with that feeling.

Coloring style elevates Walker’s art to an extent. The vivid palette isn’t the best for the mood of the story, but it is very well suited to Walker’s art style. D’Armata’s subtle shifts in color when responding to different implied light sources and the shape of characters and items add dimension to visuals that might otherwise lack it.

The best visual element in Midnight Fantastic Four #1 is horror imagery. Walker is much more successful depicting the borderline body horror of a broken, burned human body in the aftermath of one of Reed’s experiments. He also effectively depicts a Lovecraftian creature late in the issue. Insofar as these elements go, Walker is well-suited to the title. Unfortunately they make up only a handful of panels and they don’t quite fit with the rest of the issue’s visual style.

Sabino’s lettering choices are unobtrusive. Emphasized text is sometimes bold and a few points larger in font size. But he doesn’t employ any extreme choices for text or bubbles and caption boxes. Sound effect choices are also restrained. Every text choice accomplishes what it needs to but stays out of the way of the other visual elements.