FANTASTIC FOUR: THE END Marvel Comics, 2007

Relevant Content Week comes to a gripping conclusion with this look at a shinier, happier corner of the Marvel Universe.

There’s a lot to like about Fantastic Four: The End, British artist/writer Alan Davis’s six part tale of the “final” adventure of Marvel’s first family of super-heroics.

For starters, it’s written and penciled by Alan Davis, a modern comic book master who can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. Seriously, the guy could draw a 12-issue miniseries called Alan Davis’s Greek Diarrhea Vacation and I would still buy it. Mark Farmer brings his usual smooth inks to enhance Davis’s pencils, and John Kalisz’s coloring work on this series has been the cat’s ass.

Fantastic Four: The End is the latest of Marvel’s The End titles, which all chronicle the last tales of a given hero or group at some point in a non-canonical future. In other words, it’s an Alternate Reality Where Everybody Dies.

So far these books have been very grim and dramatic. Downers, even. The Punisher: The End made me want to crank “White Rabbit” and electrocute myself in a bath tub, and NFL SuperPro: The End gripped me with a sweet sorrow I have not felt since reading The Prince of Tides. Yes – the book is Pat Conroy Good.

Thankfully, Davis’s Fantastic Four: The End takes a different tack. It’s a little more upbeat. Although the story takes place in the aftermath of a family tragedy and the sundering of the mighty FF, there’s still a lot of fun shit going on. If you can stuff the Imperial Guard, Namor, The Mole Man, Annihilus, Ronan the Accuser, The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. in space, The Inhumans, Kree, Super Skrull, She Hulk, a female Dr. Strange, tons of super villains, and a couple of alien armadas in one mini-series? You’re doing something right.

In this futuristic tale set after the apocalyptic “Mutant Wars,” Reed Richards has transformed Earth and the Solar System into a high-tech utopia with his incredible technology. He’s wiped out disease and prolonged human life with the “Methuselah Treatment” and enabled man to survive in space with PEGs, Personal Environment Generators.

But there’s been a cost. Reed monitors and tinkers with the world from his huge orbital satellite base, immersed in work, but very alone. The Fantastic Four broke up years ago after a disastrous fight with a monstrous final version of Dr. Doom. Reed’s wife Sue has gone on an extended archaeological expedition –

--which is code for Atlantean Booty Call!





Sue heads down, down into the deep searching for ancient artifacts, and if there are any half-naked Spock-looking bad boys swimming around, so much the better, am I right ladies?

Actually, Sue doesn’t get any. She’s still loyal to her husband, the one with the flexible body parts. It’s a beautifully inked and colored scene, though.

The whole thing is beautifully put together and very slick. The coloring doesn’t bury the art work, and as usual Farmer’s inks are the perfect compliment to Davis’s smooth pencils. Davis and Farmer have got to be one of the all-time best penciller/inker teams in comics today and I will fight anyone unarmed and smaller than me who says otherwise.



Plus, the story is pretty enjoyable. It extrapolates a possible future based on Reed's technology that's interesting and recognizable - non-canonical stories like FF: The End great places to explore ideas like that. The narrative suffers from a wandering focus and a fuzzy through-line in the first few issues, but it's coming together nicely towards the end.


If you're one of those people (like me) who bitches and moans about the direction the Marvel Universe is going in the wake of Civil War, keep in mind that there are still people out there creating great comics like Fantastic Four: The End. Go check that shit out!

Thus ends Relevant Content Week! Drive safely everybody!