Rating:  -
Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, whose early run on Amazing Spider-Man and his MAX title Supreme Power were nothing short of excellent, made a solid attempt at putting the "fantastic" back in Fantastic Four during his brief run on the title, and The Life Fantastic is proof of that. Beginning with another Thing versus Hulk story in the first half of this TPB, seeds are planted that will come to fruition in the exile and return of the Hulk, which leads to the current World War Hulk mega-event. After that though, Karl Kesel provides two stories, including the anniversary event of the wedding of Reed and Sue, while new Fantastic Four writer Dwayne McDuffie provides a typical Reed versus Doctor Doom story in a battle of wits. The best part of The Life Fantastic is definitely the various art, which features work from Teen Titans artist Mike McKone and veteran Lee Weeks among others. All in all, The Life Fantastic is a great installment featuring the Hulk and varying looks at aspects of the FF mythos, and is definitely worth picking up for Fantastic Four fans new and old.
Rating: -
With this collection, you get four tales of the FF: Three are fantastic, and the fourth one features the Hulk vs. the Thing (yet again...), that works only in the sense that it's a prelude to "Planet Hulk."
But I digress. Let's talk about the three fantastic tales instead: The "Wedding Special" is pretty fun and touching to boot, while "Death in the Family" is a shocking sci-fi thriller. "My Dinner with Dr. Doom" is the highlight of this collection, written by new FF series writer Dwayne McDuffie.
Collects Fantastic Four #533-535; FF Wedding Special; FF My Dinner with Dr. Doom; and FF Death in the Family.
Rating:  -
This collection, THE LIFE FANTASTIC, contains four stories of the Fantastic Four. It opens with issues #533-535 of the regular F4 series, written by J. Michael Straczynski with pencils by Mike McKone. Taking place after JMS's first F4 story and before the family got mixed up in Civil War, this story is yet another iteration of the old Thing vs Hulk fight. It's a decent enough story, fun and amusing and pretty good, with nice art, but -- it's Hulk vs Thing. Again. It also follows up on a couple threads from the previous JMS story and leads into the Planet Hulk story that was about to start in the Hulk book. Not bad, but not great either.
Also in this volume are two stories by Karl Kesel: "The Life Fantastic" and "A Death in the Family", pencilled by Drew Johnson and Lee Weeks respectively. The former is Sue and Reed's 40th Wedding Anniversary Special; the latter is a story that tries to be a lot more touching than it ends up being. Again, neither of these stories is bad, but neither is very good, either. Pretty mediocre.
The highlight of this collection is "My Dinner With Doom", written by Dwayne McDuffie, who's the new writer of the ongoing F4 title now that JMS has moved on, with art by Casey Jones. Not a perfect story, not great, but even though it's yet another story of Reed and Victor von Doom, it works, and works pretty well. I can't wait to see what McDuffie does with the regular book.
I'd give this book four stars for the JMS and McDuffie bits, but Kesel's stories are mediocre enough to drag it down to three. Still, if you can find it at a discount, it's a worthy addition to your F4 library.
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