Marvel Two-in-One #1
Dec. 22nd, 2017 02:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nomadicwriter posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
doomfansAKA the new Thing and Human Torch team-up book that teases a reveal of what happened to the rest of the Fantastic Four.
Ben attends a science event as an excuse to recap the history of the Fantastic Four for those hypothetical people who might somehow buy this book without ever having heard of them. Spider-Man shows up, tells Ben he's worried about the way Johnny's been going off the rails, and gives him the keys to the old Baxter building.
While Ben is going through the F4's stuff in storage there, Doom arrives and hands him a gadget that Reed left behind with a message for Ben in the event of his death/disappearance. Doom says he took it because he was uneasy at the idea Reed could have fallen to the incursions when Doom himself could never defeat him, and wanted to try to access and analyse the message himself. He claims he now realises he was wrong and wants to give it back, and tells Ben he hopes he'll stop wallowing in nostalgia and focus on the future.
Ben views the message, where Reed reveals he's left Ben and Johnny a device for exploring the multiverse, hidden where the F4 had their first adventure. Ben goes to find Johnny and discovers he's become self-destructive and believes he's losing his powers. Ben tries to give him some hope by saying that Reed's message suggested there's a chance the rest of the F4 are still alive. Doom, watching over a video feed, is intrigued by the fact that Ben lied.
Hmm. Well, not bad at all, but I'm kind of reserving judgement on the portrayal of Doom here at the moment. In itself, I like it well enough: his dialogue sounds more recognisably Doomy, and he seems to have a bit of a mood swing issue going on where he slips into the old egotistical mode when challenged and then consciously dials it back, which is a take on trying-to-be-better Doom that definitely works for me.
On the other hand, I'm raising an eyebrow a bit at the plot device of him supposedly having stolen the message because he thinks Reed died in the incursions; unless we're going to find out he's lying to manipulate Ben (possible, to be fair), that seems to suggest this story is ignoring or retconning the fact that Doom remembers the events of Secret Wars. (Which is a hell of a major thing to mess up, considering Doom remembering Reed defeating him is the entire driving force behind this redemption arc.) And that does make me wonder if the creative actually did the research and plan to incorporate any of the character stuff from Iron Man, or they're just running off to do their own thing based solely on the "Doom has new armour, is trying to be good now" summary version.
On the art side, Cheung draws a very nice Ben, and I like his Spidey. We don't really get to see his version of the Doom armour that clearly most of the time, though the closeup panel where Doom asks forgiveness for his "minor transgression" is nice. None of the flashback sequences really work that well for me, though. The attempt to mimic the classic style in the page telling the backstory of the F4 clashes a bit with his art style, IMO, and the big cheesy smiles just look kinda weird and creepy. Plus the device of having the incursion flashbacks blurred and partially chopped off just didn't work for me at all: it took me a while to even decide it was probably supposed to look like that rather than a printing error.
But anyway, although I'm wary Doom not knowing stuff he definitely should will be an ongoing plot point, this is otherwise a solid enough first issue, and I look forward to seeing where it's going.
Ben attends a science event as an excuse to recap the history of the Fantastic Four for those hypothetical people who might somehow buy this book without ever having heard of them. Spider-Man shows up, tells Ben he's worried about the way Johnny's been going off the rails, and gives him the keys to the old Baxter building.
While Ben is going through the F4's stuff in storage there, Doom arrives and hands him a gadget that Reed left behind with a message for Ben in the event of his death/disappearance. Doom says he took it because he was uneasy at the idea Reed could have fallen to the incursions when Doom himself could never defeat him, and wanted to try to access and analyse the message himself. He claims he now realises he was wrong and wants to give it back, and tells Ben he hopes he'll stop wallowing in nostalgia and focus on the future.
Ben views the message, where Reed reveals he's left Ben and Johnny a device for exploring the multiverse, hidden where the F4 had their first adventure. Ben goes to find Johnny and discovers he's become self-destructive and believes he's losing his powers. Ben tries to give him some hope by saying that Reed's message suggested there's a chance the rest of the F4 are still alive. Doom, watching over a video feed, is intrigued by the fact that Ben lied.
Hmm. Well, not bad at all, but I'm kind of reserving judgement on the portrayal of Doom here at the moment. In itself, I like it well enough: his dialogue sounds more recognisably Doomy, and he seems to have a bit of a mood swing issue going on where he slips into the old egotistical mode when challenged and then consciously dials it back, which is a take on trying-to-be-better Doom that definitely works for me.
On the other hand, I'm raising an eyebrow a bit at the plot device of him supposedly having stolen the message because he thinks Reed died in the incursions; unless we're going to find out he's lying to manipulate Ben (possible, to be fair), that seems to suggest this story is ignoring or retconning the fact that Doom remembers the events of Secret Wars. (Which is a hell of a major thing to mess up, considering Doom remembering Reed defeating him is the entire driving force behind this redemption arc.) And that does make me wonder if the creative actually did the research and plan to incorporate any of the character stuff from Iron Man, or they're just running off to do their own thing based solely on the "Doom has new armour, is trying to be good now" summary version.
On the art side, Cheung draws a very nice Ben, and I like his Spidey. We don't really get to see his version of the Doom armour that clearly most of the time, though the closeup panel where Doom asks forgiveness for his "minor transgression" is nice. None of the flashback sequences really work that well for me, though. The attempt to mimic the classic style in the page telling the backstory of the F4 clashes a bit with his art style, IMO, and the big cheesy smiles just look kinda weird and creepy. Plus the device of having the incursion flashbacks blurred and partially chopped off just didn't work for me at all: it took me a while to even decide it was probably supposed to look like that rather than a printing error.
But anyway, although I'm wary Doom not knowing stuff he definitely should will be an ongoing plot point, this is otherwise a solid enough first issue, and I look forward to seeing where it's going.
